Double duped

Madison's Capital Times newspaper has been duped twice in the past week or so.

First, it bought the lie that Republicans in Wisconsin passed a "bill to repeal equal pay protections for women in the workplace" in an "assault on pay equity." As I pointed out here and here, that is false. The Capital Times editorial board made the mistake of trusting Kathleen Falk on this one. She is running for governor in the recall election against Scott Walker.

Second, it "posted on its website and on madison.com a story that falsely said that U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson were joining state Rep. Steve Nass, R-town of La Grange, in pressuring the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to purge its archives of posters from last year’s protests at the Capitol in Madison." The newspaper quickly realized that the article was based on a fabricated news release and took the article down. In this case it was duped by a political cartoonist, who fabricated the press release and sent it to a Cap Times staffer. Apparently the joke was lost in transit.

The common element in both mistakes is that the folks at the Cap Times were too eager to believe the worst about their political opponents. This is an endemic human flaw. And it's why we should be most skeptical about stories that reinforce our preconceived notions about the world. But that's a tall order, of course.

Extreme skepticism

Yesterday a man named Tim Profitt forcefully pressed his foot down on the back, shoulder, or neck of a woman named Lauren Valle, who was already restrained, face-down, by another man.  Here's the video.



Ms. Valle is a MoveOn.org volunteer who was dressed up in Rand Paul gear and a blonde wig outside the venue for a debate between Rand Paul and his opponent, Jack Conway.  Apparently, she intended to confront Paul and present him with an "award" for being friendly to corporations.  When she attempted to do so, the events depicted in the video transpired.

Mr. Profitt was a volunteer with the Rand campaign, but the campaign has now "disassociated itself" with him.  He faces fourth-degree assault charges.  He claims we was just trying to defend Mr. Paul from an unknown assailant.

Jack Conway condemned the men involved in the incident in a strangely macho way:  "physical violence by a man against a woman must never be tolerated."  (Man-on-man violence is apparently tolerable, at least in some circumstances.  And woman-on-woman violence?  That's just hot.  Rrrr-owww!)

Mr. Profitt did not come forward as the "stomper" until late in the day today.  Before he came forward, Ann Alhouse speculated that the entire incident might have been staged:

Are the men in the T-shirts also from Moveon.org? Who were they? There were no arrests and though there was a crowd, no one bothered to have detained these men. Did they just melt back into the night? It's very convenient that these bad actors were wearing labels identifying them.

Hundreds of comments ensued.  Most of them bought into the conspiracy theory that the entire incident was staged.  My own interpretation of the video--and this was before Mr. Proffitt came forward--made me think that this was extremely unlikely.  The men who subdued Ms. Valle did not appear to be acting to me.  Mr. Proffitt's attack seemed so believably impulsive.  And the reaction of the others around--e.g., "no no no no no no no!" when Mr. Proffitt did his thing--seemed authentic.

Moreover, there were easy answers to all of Althouse's questions.  There were no arrests because there was a crowd.  Yes, the men melted back into the night--or at least melted back into the embrace of their compatriots.  And it's not convenient that the men were wearing Rand Paul insignia; it's exactly what you would expect political activists to be wearing at a debate.  

That so many of Althouse's commenters bought into the conspiracy theory is depressing to me.  It's one thing to be skeptical.  I am an avowed skeptic.  But in order to a functioning skeptic you have to be skeptical of your own skepticism.  You have to ask yourself, "Why am I inclined to distrust my own eyes?" If you don't cross-examine yourself with your own biases, you'll become either a cynic or an ideologue.  That's not good.

But this is the depressing part.  It's hard to find evidence of anyone on the Internet who isn't either an ideologue or a cynic.

UPDATE:

More video!

This shows that Ms. Valle rushed Rand Paul's car and tried to shove something at him through his open window. She is pulled away. Then, at about the :55 second mark, she comes around from behind the car to make a second run at the candidate. Presumably this is when she was tackled and treated roughly.