A key tool of stage magicians is misdirection. What this means is quite simple: while the magician has you watching the mumbo-jumbo he's doing with his right hand, you are paying no attention at all to his left - - which is the hand that is setting up the trick. Misdirection is also used in political rhetoric a lot: witness one of the current rationales of the whole Iraq/uranium folderol, that claims that it's really all OK because intelligence is never perfect.
Except this wasn't a case of bad intelligence. It was a case of bad intelligence that was identified as bad intelligence, and then was used anyway by people who either should have known it was bad intelligence and were thus inept, or did know it was bad intelligence and were thus deceitful. I'm always amazed at the sheer amount of smoke-and-mirrors foolery that can erupt around something that's really not that complicated.
The personal blog of author Kelly Sedinger, chronicling the adventures of one overalls-clad wanderer.
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