Apologies to Front Page Mag

In my column criticizing George Soros? critics, I unintentionally mangled a passage from his lengthy, critical Soros profile. He wrote:

Soros is not just a nominal capitalist made rich through Communist connections, as was Armand Hammer

I wrote:

[Ponte?s column was] accusing Soros (without evidence) of being a "nominal capitalist made rich through Communist connections,"

Quite a difference. My bad.

Comments

[fyodor]

I think it's an easy mistake to make. Taken on its own, I can see two equally feasible interpretations of that quote, one being that Soros's situation and Armand Hammer's are distinct from each other, the other being that they are both similar yet different. In particular, using the word "just" could easily mean that he was comparing the two but admitting that Soros was not just a nominal capitalist etc etc but that there was more to him as well. Now, I'm not saying Ponte was saying that, and nobody, who apparently read the source material, says the context strengthens the first interpreation, that Ponte was drawing a clear distinction between the two. My only point is I can easily see where you would make that mistake. In fact it seems that Ponte would be comparing the two at some level to insert the word "just" as he does, or else it would strike me as an odd thing to say.

[Kevin Carson]

Oooh, that's a LOT worse than being a nominal capitalist made rich by connections to the Pentagon, or the Department of Transportation, or the Department of Energy, or the Department of Homeland Security, or the USDA, etc., etc., etc.

[Brian]

Hold on...there's really a guy named "Armand Hammer"? Har!

Next you're going to tell me "Wolf Blitzer" is real, too.

Sophomorically,
BH

[Stephen Fetchet]

I'm impressed, Kevin. Kissing Stalin's ass for oil business gain = selling M-1 tanks to the Pentagon.

Or, if you do some algebra here and remove the products sold, Stalin = the Pentagon. Or DOT. Or Department of Energy. Or Department of Homeland Security. Yeah, the USDA, with it's intrusive inspections of Mexican fruit, really rivals Stalin's killing 60 - 100 million people.

Man, your insight is... well, it's stunning. Tell me, do the statists over at Democrats.org pay you to troll here to discredit libertarianism?

[nobody]

Hmmmm. I went and looked at the relevant passage, and it does seem like the omission of the phrase 'not just' significantly impacts the meaning of the quote. It looks like Mr. Ponte was trying to temper his criticism a bit, and that temperance is lost in the quote.

[matt]

"Tell me, do the statists over at Democrats.org pay you to troll here to discredit libertarianism?"

If you've ever read any of Kevin Carson's previous posts here you'd not ask such a stupid question.

[Kevin Carson]

Stephen Fetchit,

Congratulations on making an entire post on "moral equivalence" without actually using the term.

And no--I do it for free.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Oh yeah, now I remember why I dropped that logic class in college.

[PRoud Democrat]

Why are you apologising to Powell, a right wing extremist? Have you even read his headlines?

[Rowe Nina]

EMAIL: [e-mail]
IP: 62.213.67.122
URL:
DATE: 01/20/2004 04:50:26
Seekers of truth invariably turn to lies.