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Notes -
Partly, I'm just incredibly petty. Partly, because Gerstein's pivot to Project Veritas is unusually naked and galling - even as a defense of 'principles', both Gerstein and his cited experts quickly pivoted to defending the Times in their attacks on Veritas. Gerstein himself would later imply that Veritas only avoided criminal prosecution thanks to Trump winning the election, and it's possible he's not even wrong, though I'd need to check deeper before I could commit to it.
Partly, because writing up this stuff helps me remember the event. Partly because I've got some port I'm trying to work through before it goes bad, and while I can't drink enough at once to get really drunk, last night it was apparently enough to get me spicy. Partly, because if I don't write up un-newsworthy stuff, no one else will.
((and, I will admit, partly because I can't resist an easy "own", even when it degrades my writing. Can't claim in vino veritas as a defense on that.))
But mostly because, while Gerstein doesn't matter, the system does, and you can't meaningfully talk about a system without mentioning the completely replaceable gears. If I'd
sed -i 's/Gerstein/Politico/g'that post, it'd have gotten criticized writing a smear; if I'd done them same to switch Gerstein's name for the entire leftist sphere, I'd be inviting moderation action, probably correctly. It's only that he's going to keep getting supported, employed, unarrested, and unmolested that even lets me make this into a broader critique (and, coincidentally, leaves a testable prediction... and one I've very, very, very seldom had to eat crow on.)((bonus prediction, SHA256 for three days: 7d4ed1e8c28b93c95e7b533870073df64ca533c9174589124b5b145fd818a611.))
It's not very productive to unload both barrels at a particularly squeaky replaceable gear, even if it can be a little cathartic. Doesn't mean the system's in good shape. This guy shows a lot of the ways its defenses aren't in good shape.
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