Facts v. Prejudices
This is the kind of thing that just makes me want to give up any hope of the possibility for rational discourse in the blogosphere. Hilzoy points to claims in Salon that the Army is sending medically unfit soldiers back to Iraq. She posts a large quote from the article and then asks why the Army is doing such a thing. The very first commenter posts a link to The Questionable Authority that reviews the claims (actually taking the time to look at what both sides said) and that notes correctly that no Army commander would intentionally bring a soldier to Iraq if the soldier wasn't medically fit. In the ten comments that follow, not one notes the link or questions for a second that Salon's claim might not be accurate.
We all have our prejudices and biases, and those affect how we see things and weigh evidence. And if there is one thing I have learned in observing the blogosphere, it is that the supply of people who can set aside their biases even for a few moments is vanishingly small. The Salon article confirmed something that the left wants to believe, and so it is, in the lexicon of the media, too good to check. The left already knows that ChimpyMcBushCoHalliburton is evil and are in the process of destroying the world. When a story comes out that backs that up, contrary evidence can be safely ignored.
Of course, when your assessment of data is predicated on what your political beliefs are, the odds of your coming to any common ground with opponents is pretty close to zero. (For those who think this is just a problem on the left, check out Conservapedia.) To throw out a simple example, consider the treatment of Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton in the 1990s. Both were accused of sexual harrassment by subordinates many years after the alleged harrassment occurred. Neither had any evidence of their careers having been harmed by the alleged harrassment. Both were media sensations. I'll wager that you can discern most people's political beliefs with one simple question: who do they think was lying, Anita Hill, or Paula Jones? When Anita Hill came forward, the left assured America that women don't lie about things like sexual harrassment, that sexual harrassment was a horrific crime that merited harsh punishment, and there was little doubt among lefties that Hill was scrupulously honest. The right was far more skeptical. A few years later when Jones came forward, the left turned on a dime and explained that Jones was just trailer trash seeking publicity and even if what she said was true, there was no evidence she suffered any harm. Conversely the same righties who were skeptical of Hill suddenly saw in Jones the truth, doubtless because she provided them with ammunition with which to batter the Clinton administration.
The facts don't matter any more in political discourse. Whether the issue is global warming, terrorism, health care, you name it, facts will not decide the arguments. What decides arguments is who can shout the other side down. The left isn't going to listen to the right, and the right isn't going to listen to the left, and both sides will moan and complain about why the other side doesn't understand why they're wrong while never conceding the possibility they might be wrong. And the blogosphere will continue to devolve into two separate warring camps, a (hopefully) more extreme version of American society.
Update: I should note that I have no idea what the facts are in this case. It seems implausible to me that any unit would want to take medically unfit soldiers with them into combat, but without further investigation I see no way of knowing where the truth lies. My objection is simply to those who seize on initial reports to bolster something they already believe with little to no regard for the facts.