How to Misquote an Editorial 101

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Credit where credit is due – Bruce R. has now edited his post to add in a link to the Toronto Star.

Flit often provides thoughtful
conservative commentary. In
this post, however, Bruce R. is actually dishonest. He says he’s critiquing
articles in "Canada’s largest newspaper" – but he doesn’t provide
the name of the newspaper, or any links. Maybe that’s just carelessness on his
part – but it’s awfully convenient. It turns out that his quoting is less-than-honest.

Here is Bruce’s summary of the newspaper’s editorial:

The paper’s daily editorial sympathizes with Toronto’s Muslim community,
which suffered through having a Mississauga learning centre’s windows smashed
by vandals last Sept. 15 for some reason. Toronto has seen a "surge in
hate crimes" in the last year, it writes, without giving evidence, and
criticizes non-Muslim Canadians for being "small minded… rock throwing
vandals."

Geez, that’s pretty harsh. But readers who managed to track down the
actual editorial (which came, by the way, from the Toronto Star) found a
different message:

Such acts – and the small-minded attitudes that drive them – diminish
us all. […] Muslims should know the heart of this city and this country
isn’t the rock-tossing vandal. Rather, it’s the political and community leaders
like Prime Minister Jean Chrétien who spoke out against the intolerance
directed at Muslims, saying racist acts "have no place in Canada."

So where Bruce R. saw a statement that all non-Muslem Canadians are "rock
throwing vandal[s]," the editorial said the exact opposite; Canada is represented
by folks like non-Muslim Chrétien, who stand up against bigotry. At what
point does misquoting become lying?

UPDATE: I looked up another Flit-cited article. According to Bruce R., "Michele
Landsberg writes of how Afghan women still live in misogyny, which makes the
whole war on terrorism a failure."

First of all, Bruce R. must realize that Landsberg’s
article – which is a good update on the situation in Afghanistan, by the
way – spends paragraph after paragraph outlining the sins of various Afghan
groups. Like other articles, this puts the lie to his claim that Sunday’s Toronto
Star doesn’t have "a single criticism of anyone but the United States."

Second, Ms. Landsberg doesn’t discuss the "whole war on terrorism."
She does say the campaign in Afghanistan has been "bungled," but cites
many more reasons than Flit admits:

If Bush carries out his war on Iraq, we had better pray that he doesn’t
bungle the job as disastrously as he has in Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden
is still undiscovered, the Al Qaeda network is said to be shipping vast amounts
of gold to new hiding places, the country remains in ruins, the people face
mass starvation, known criminals among the Northern Alliance are ensconced
in government, and the situation of women has changed only marginally. One
of the two women in cabinet, Dr. Sima Samar, has already been hounded from
office by Islamic conservatives.

She also reports that "In a town west of Kabul, the local Taliban has
just blown up a girls’ school and vowed to kill any woman who goes to school
or work."

The stated goals of invading Afghanistan were, if I recall, getting Bin Laden,
dismantling al Qaeda, and freeing the people of Afghanistan (especially women)
from radical Islamic tyranny. That not one of these goals has been fully accomplished
is a legitimate criticism; especially since many conservatives are declaring
the invasion of Afghanistan to have been a complete success. Logically, there
are three possibilities: either 1) the stated goals were met and the invasion
was a success; 2) the stated goals were not sincere goals and the invasion –
measured by some other set of goals – was a success, or 3) the stated goals
were not met, and the invasion was therefore not a total success.

Number 1) is clearly not true. I don’t know if the truth is number 2 or 3 (I
suspect it’s 2 – the way conservatives have so suddenly lost their concern for
the plight of Afghan women suggests that it was never a sincere concern for
most of them), but in either case criticism is legitimate, and doesn’t necessarily
represent irrational anti-Americanism, as Bruce R. implies.

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