Thursday, October 14, 2004
Fat Karl, The Eubulides Paradox, and the World of Substance
Rove made an amusing appearance on CNN to do post-debate spin in which he came dangerously close to instantiating the Eubulides Paradox (and thus narrowly avoiding a national epidemic of cranial explosions): his post-debate spin was that post-debate spin doesn't matter -- what matters, see, is substance. He said he personally is "interested in the world of substance rather than spin." I actually think of the thousands of lies these people have slung at us over the years -- of the famous lies, of the lies that got people killed, of the lies that were so inconsequential you wondered why they bothered, of them all -- I think Rove's statement tonight might have been the biggest lie we've heard.
Rove's performance reminded me of one of those logic puzzles about the island with the people who only tell lies ... something like this ...
The trouble is outside the realm of logic puzzles -- here in the world of substance -- they're all Fat Karls.
Rove's performance reminded me of one of those logic puzzles about the island with the people who only tell lies ... something like this ...
Two kinds of people live on the island of Rove: Fat Karls and non-Fat Karls. Fat Karls spin everything that they say and non-Fat Karls never spin anything that they say. What one question can you ask a Rovean to determine if he is a Fat Karl or a non-Fat Karl?
The trouble is outside the realm of logic puzzles -- here in the world of substance -- they're all Fat Karls.
