But this is not an “immigrant” problem. This is a part of the bigger problem with these right wing “think tanks,” populated by industry-sponsored propagandists.

What are the credentials of half of the columnists we read in the papers? They continue to write, even when they are dead wrong on issue after issue! Even when they do no more than a few hours of research on a topic, calling their buddies in the right wing think tanks (who have glossy directories of “experts” on every topic imaginable that they give to journalists, many of whom are too lazy or too unconnected to go out and find the real stories).

I’ve talked to Farhad by email a number of times, which is pretty wild, since I pretty much never have anything nice to say to him when I do. To his credit, he listens, and responds. But I’ve learned this from our many conversations: he’s not entirely logical. He’ll make strange leaps saying, well if you said x, you must believe y, when in fact, there’s no reason to connect those two things. So I’ve come to believe that part of the reason he writes what he does and believes what he does is he’s just missing the logic gene, or whatever it is that enables people to draw correct deductions from a given set of information.

So I was not surprised when he wrote his anti-RFK article, dripping with sarcasm and demonstrating the very thing he accused RFK of doing – selectively choosing his evidence. Farhad has been persuaded by a team of people who argue that the exit polls were wrong. Never mind that several trained mathematicians say their argument is fatally flawed. Never mind that they reduced the data set and added a custom fudge factor to increase the margin of error, allowing Ohio results to fit into this increased region. Farhad buys it.

Maybe he buys it because he’s a hired gun. But after talking to him at length, I think he buys it because he doesn’t understand the math, and the people who make that side of the argument are sadly more articulate than the mathematicians who shoot that to shreds. And not being logical himself, he cannot follow the logic of why they are wrong, so he’s persuaded by rhetoric.

I heard also from someone at Salon that Farhad is an immigrant to this country. Nearly all the immigrants I’ve met and talked to at length have been fairly right wing, which surprises me. They are so happy to be here that they cannot stand anyone accusing our government of anything evil, because that would mean that possibly, they had made a mistake in coming here. They’ve bought wholesale into the Disneyland view of America sold in the media, the land of the free, home of the brave, and all that.

Is that why Farhad is so blind to the evidence of deliberate fraud and so accepting of any argument, however mathematically flawed, which argues that the exit polls should be discounted? I don’t know. Hell, I’ve written at length about the CIA’s role in the media. It’s certainly crossed my mind that there’s more to the picture with Farhad.

But having talked to him, I think he really honestly just doesn’t get it. And doesn’t want to get it. If you sat down and talked to him at length, maybe you could educate him. Maybe not. But it might be worth a try.