Official “Unofficial” Recognition

Turn Your Head And Cough…


I'm thinking that I absolutely MUST be getting better when it comes to practicing my journalism skills.

Take the issues behind this recent posting, Adding Apples And Oranges, where I took to task a Washington DC “Think-Tank” smarty pants, Mr. Anthony Cordesman, whom managed to get his thoughts published on the LA Times Op-Ed page last weekend.

OK, I admit that I did write here on the blog that he was wrong, wrong, wrong in his analysis of the latest Department of Defense report to Congress dated May 31, 2006.

But…

I also tendered this polite text directly to the LA Times:

While I respect Mr. Anthony Cordesman’s position as an analyst with CSIS, his credentials make his flawed numerical and logical analysis of sections of last month’s DOD report to Congress titled Measuring Stability and Security In Iraq even more shocking.

In opening his discussion, he states that only 46%, not 77% as published in the DOD report, of the Iraqi population voted in last December’s election. This assertion has two critical flaws.

First, he assumes that all Iraqis over the age of 14 are eligible to vote, which is patently false. Secondly, he omits the entire 2.05 million registered Iraqi voters living in exile from his calculations.

Having verified that CIA’s population estimate of 26.8 million, but instead using UNICEF’s estimate of 13.3 million Iraqis aged 18 and over, it is quite easy to calculate the total number of potential voters to be 15.35 million.

Based on the DOD report’s figure of 12.2 million actual voters, one can easily do the math and calculate a number (79%) very close to the DOD’s more conservative published figure of 77%. I believe that this variation is hardly something worthy of opening an editorial by throwing around words like “fundamentally false.”

To further quote Mr. Cordesman’s own words, I suggest, without dissecting the balance his editorial, that it is HE, not the DOD, that is “simply incompetent” in his analysis and reporting of the conditions in Iraq.

Quite an eloquent dissertation…don’t you think?

Well…here’s Mr. Cordesman’s personal E-mail response to my commentary today:

The report clearly states on pages 3 and 6 that "77% of the population voted." It never goes on to qualify what it means by voter turnout beyond that point.

There are many areas where someone can guess what should have been said. Should have doesn't count.

Perhaps ironically, I generally agree with the strategy the US is trying to pursue. It is the quality with which it is executing the strategy, and its reporting that I find to be the problem.

Tony Cordesman

So this highly paid so-called "expert" has to hide his "politcal" rational and commentary behind semantical "issues" as simple as the lack of the words "registered voters" or " elligable voters."

What complete and total CRAPPOLA.

Being the nice guy that I am, here is my (presumably) final rebuttal:

Mr Cordesman,

I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my commentary on your Op-Ed piece in the LA Times...but...

You can't be serious however--defending your analysis on the belief that the DOD would actually assert that everyone alive in Iraq was eligible voter--that's ludicrous.

While I agree that the word "eligible" was omitted in their text, you have expanded what would reasonably be considered to be a typo or otherwise a language error into a gigantic purported lie or misstatement of mathematical facts.

I know that we're each entitled to our own opinions, but I don't believe that someone of your position should be writing such nonsense and using it as an opening argument to support your thesis in the pages of a major national newspaper.

The good news (excuse the pun) is that your writing was clearly identified as "opinion/editorial", not hard news.

Best Regards,

Virgil Rogers


So there you have it Ladies and Gentlemen, I challenge each and every single one of you to differentiate between my own intellectual, logical, and writing skills and that of these so-called “experts” employed by newspapers like the LA Times.

Now where’s my nice fat glass of ice, vodka, and cranberry?

AAAAHHHHHaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh…just as I suspected…

Sip....