Cheat Seeking Missiles

roving that a thoughtful and sweeping essay can at times prevail over a well researched, fact-loaded report on a topical subject, Bookworm took the honors in this week’s Watcher’s Council festivities, with her essay False Syllogisms. Here’s the lead:

For many years, I’ve thought that people confuse fairly neutral conduct with bad motives, resulting in false syllogisms. I first came to this conclusion after reading John McWhorter’s wonderful Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America. Although my memories are a bit hazy about the details of the book, I seem to recall reading him bemoaning the fact that part of the Black community’s self-sabotage was the refusal to engage in the “white” work ethic of being reliable.

The message I took away from the book was that the Black community created a false syllogism: Slavery was work and slavery was evil, therefore all work is evil.

The master of the fact-loaded report, Wolf Howling, came in second with the timely and very helpful McCain, Freddie, Fannie and Obamafuscation. The lead:

We are in a fiscal crisis today largely because of the sub-prime lending crisis. At the intersection of the crisis is Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Democratic politics. It was Bill Clinton who set this time bomb in motion by forcing lenders into the sub-prime market. It was Clinton who used Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as the center pieces of his strategy to extend home loans to marginal borrowers. And it has been largely Democratic lawmakers who have protected the scheme over Republican and Bush administration efforts to reign it in over the past eight years.

My fun little spoof of the NY Times, Lipstick Not Only Pig-Hockey Mom Difference, tied for third. Yay - it’s been a while since I’ve climbed out of the cellar … or from under the foundation.

On the non-Council side, I marked five of the entries with perfect 10 scores, so it was tough to narrow it down to just two selections. Many agreed with the post I finally put in first, and it came out on top - Best of the Brits’ 9-11-1777 What If?. The lead:

9-11 is the date of two hugely significant events for Americans. We remember 9-11-2001 when almost 3,000 men, women and children - American civilians and nationals from 90 different countries - died in attacks by Islamic terrorists.

We have largely forgotten 9-11-1777, when, at the Battle of Brandywine, 3,000 soldiers were killed. Barely escaping death were George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, James Monroe, John Marshall, future head of the Supreme Court, and Generals Greene, Wayne and Sullivan who fought in the battle. Two nationals from France and Poland fighting in the battle were also at risk - Lafayette and Count Pulaski.

Yikes. Nearly as yikes is the second place winner, Doug Ross @ Journal’s Jamie Gorelick: Mistress of Disaster.

It’s not often that one person plays key roles in two — count ‘em, two — trillion-dollar disasters. Welcome, my friends, to the world of well-connected Democrat Jamie Gorelick.

You can see all the winners - some really great posts - at Watcher of Weasels.

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