SINCERITY VS. CREDIBILITY. I take Ezra's point here, with one caveat. I agree that subjective motivations (as opposed to the quality of the argument) are not important in and of themselves, and I also I agree that motivations are irrelevant if someone is making an argument based on verifiable facts. O'Pollahan, however, are largely asking us to trust their judgment about their impressions of a carefully supervised tour of Iraq, and here the fact that Pollack answered like a propagandist rather than an analyst is surely relevant. I think we can all agree that at this late date anybody who would trust Pollack's judgment on Iraq would trust Jeff Skilling to ensure the integrity of their company's third-party deal-making. The other point I'll make is that when it comes to arguments like this I don't see an assumption of good faith as especially charitable. For the reasons Ezra states, if Pollack really believes that going to a desiel generator-based electrical system is a sign of progress in Iraq, this speaks much worse of him as an analyst than if he was consciously trying evade the question. But I agree that what matters is that the argument is specious, not why he's making it. --Scott Lemieux
