Oh, the irony! After vigorously opposing Caroline Kennedy's Senate bid and cheering her ultimate decision to bow out, the netroots are now voicing concerns about Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, whom NY Gov. David Paterson just appointed to NY's vacant Senate seat. Many liberal bloggers are unhappy that NY's new Senator has such a centrist voting record -- particularly on social issues such as gay rights and gun control. They're also complaining that Dems "just lost an excellent chance to expand the progressive caucus in the Senate," since Paterson (in their view) could have easily appointed someone more liberal to represent the solidly blue state of NY. Several lefty bloggers are criticizing their colleagues who attacked Kennedy, since they believe that Kennedy would have been a far more reliable vote for liberals than Gillibrand will be. Al Giordano is particularly disgusted: "Each and every 'Netroots progressive' that railed against a possible Kennedy pick owns this one."In the law, we refer to this kind of logical fallacy as "post hoc ergo propter hoc." After this, therefore because of this. The idea is that the reason we got Gillibrand, a somewhat conservative Dem, is because some complained about whether Kennedy had the experience to be a successful Senator.
The quote above suggests that it was wrong to express concerns about Kennedy's effectiveness... why? Because the governor then put in someone worse. Yes, and this is our fault how? Using the Blogometer's logic, if a politician is leaning towards a bad decision, he shouldn't be questioned about that decision lest he make an even worse decision.
Try that one in child-rearing some time. "Oh, I know little Jimmy is playing with the scissors, but if I take them away, he may go for the knife instead." Or at a national level, yes, our biggest mistake of the past 8 years was challenging George Bush and the Republicans TOO much. Had we only just sat back and done nothing, they'd never have wrecked the country. Oh yeah, we tried that sitting back thing. Didn't work so well.
Um, that's just kind of idiotic.
