Anyone else watch the "60 Minutes" piece on BS?

[Archae]

They should have said while Clinton could throw around the BS, (and he could,) Bush throws the BS around all the time.

[GR]

1. Very Enjoyable And So True....I'm Sick Of Watching Conda Rice

and guys like Stephen Hadley come on the tube and bull shit or lie. I think they're probably more bull shitters than liars according to the definition. They just say stuff to get their way or sell their product.

[peekaloo]

2. I was laughing every time they bleeped shit.

Great piece and a Jon Stewart appearance to boot.

[Archae]

3. Oh yeah.

Jon was a hoot, as usual.

[lpbk2713]

4. Jon Stewart credited Ari Fleischer with the honor of

being the best BS Artist in the business. I sure as hell won't disagree with that.

[mark414]

5. did they mention harry frankfurt at all?

he finally published an old essay of his in book form recently...it is infinitely excellent, and very quick (hour, tops) read...highly recommended

"On Bullshit"

from the amazon.com description:

More pertinent is Frankfurt's focus on intentions--the practice of bullshit, rather than its end result. Bullshitting, as he notes, is not exactly lying, and bullshit remains bullshit whether it's true or false. The difference lies in the bullshitter's complete disregard for whether what he's saying corresponds to facts in the physical world: he "does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are."

from the book:

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, nor attracted much sustained inquiry.

In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, we have no theory. I propose to begin the development of a theoretical understanding of bullshit, mainly by providing some tentative and exploratory philosophical analysis. I shall not consider the rhetorical uses and misuses of bullshit. My aim is simply to give a rough account of what bullshit is and how it differs from what it is not - or (putting it somewhat differently) to articulate, more or less sketchily, the structure of its concept.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0691122946/qid=1116216701/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/102-8999260-5396143?v=glance&s=books&n=507846