Candidates Named for Resolunatic of the Year

2006-07-03T21:36:00.000-04:00

Glenn Greenwald's post "What is left of Malkin, Hinderaker and Horowitz's credibility?" has served as a good starting point for this competition. We'll give all the contenders time to backtrack from their clearly wrongheaded earlier positions before adding them to the official ballot. I'm looking for ideas for a suitable trophy to be presented to the winner.

A "cold and pitiless truth" versus a "comfortable falsehood"

2006-06-25T21:21:00.000-04:00

Check out this Alicublog post and after you're finished laughing, go back and click on the first two links in the post and see that they are not just making this sh*t up.

About Resolunacy...

2006-06-25T17:11:00.000-04:00

I once had a boss who would take a position on a policy issue early on and was unwilling to reconsider it no matter what new information came to light. Her initial position usually made sense based on what was known at the time but seemed indefensible in light of the new information. Well, I decided to coin a term for this: Resolunacy.

I'm no psychologist but I tend to think there is a neurosis involved when a person is confronted with clear evidence that their prior beliefs were incorrect and insists on sticking to their position. Fear of being labelled a "flip-flopper" seems to trump their willingness to face the facts staring them in the face.

I recognize that facts can be spun in ways that allow people can delude themselves into denying that the facts are, in fact, facts. But some people make no effort to challenge the validity of the new data and still stick to their guns! These are the true resolunatics.

This brings us to Gallileo. He'd be branded a "flip-flopper" nowadays because he changed his views about the theory of an earth-centric universe based on what he saw with his telescope. He chose to believe his own eyes and paid a price for it.

Stephen Colbert described President Bush as a resolunatic when, at the White House Correspondent's dinner, he said:

The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man's beliefs never will.

So I decided it might be worthwhile to start a blog dedicated to showing how pervasive this neurosis is and identifying resolunatics so they might at some point seek the help that they clearly need.

I have a few examples in mind but I invite readers to offer other examples in the comments.