Complexity precludes aphorisms

One of the biggest problems with television news is that there simply isn't enough time to explain in detail a complex situation. So television "journalists" look for a short, terse phrase that explains the situation without having to go into detail. The problem with this is that the "journalist" gets to decide what phrase is appropriate, and that automatically introduces the "journalist"'s biases. Of course none of them will admit this, because they think they are being perfectly objective. Which doesn't make it any less true.

One such phrase is "not enough troops in Iraq", used to explain the situation in Iraq. Of course this is a simplistic answer to a very complex situation, but it's easy to throw out and hard to defend against in the few short minutes television has.

Newspapers should not have this problem, because they can print as much of the story as they want, and their readers can read it if they choose. Blogs have the same advantage plus an additional one. They can link to sources and they can be quite easily fact checked.

It seems to me this is the reason that blogs continue to gain in popularity. This flies in the face of conventional "wisdom" which says that Americans, in general, are too lazy or too dumb to do their own research. But then I've never been one to put much stock in conventional wisdom.

Today Paul Bremer is being quoted as saying we had too few troops in Iraq. This aphorism is being used to support John Kerry's similar contention as well as General Shinseki's supposedly prophetic pronouncement. (Have you noticed that you can find an "expert" to support almost any opinion you want to support? My father once told me that "expert" is a compound word - ex, meaning "former" and spurt, meaning "a drip under pressure".)

Is it true?

According to Belmont Club, no, and Bremer is being misquoted and taken out of context, but that won't stop the old media and liberals from trumpeting it from the rooftops or from bludgeoning the Bush administration with it.

It seems rather silly to me to assume that the military would plan to have too few troops in the field. (Oddly enough, the facts support my view.) Should we really believe that our military leaders are just plain stupid? Or incompetent? Or would it make more sense to look at the situation in depth and try to determine why we had too few troops, if we did?

Does the press serve the public well if they avoid complexity? No, but it's the public's responsibility to understand the complexities and to consider all the ramifications of policies and the facts on the ground before deciding whether a decision was right or wrong or whether they support a policy or not.

The press certainly won't do that for you. They're looking for a headline, not an explanation.