Talk Talk with Fred Newman and Jackie Salit: Determinism Run Amok

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Every week CUIP's president Jacqueline Salit and strategist/philosopher Fred Newman watch the political talk shows and discuss them. Here are excerpts from their dialogues compiled on Sunday, May 30, 2010 after watching selections from "Hardball with Chris Matthews," "PBS NewsHour," "This Week" and "The McLaughlin Group."

Salit: I know. These terrible things happen. Everybody's very upset about this. And Axelrod says 'We're working on a solution. We've mobilized all the great scientists from everywhere in the world.

Newman: That's at least a lie, but surely an exaggeration.

Salit: OK, at a minimum, we've mobilized some Nobel scientists. And, he says, 'We're working on this and we haven't gotten to the solution yet.

Newman: Right. And Matthews, in his typical provocative and sometimes dumb way says: 'What happens if you don't find one?

Salit: And the answer is?

Newman: Then, we'll fail.

Salit: We'll fail, yes.

Newman: People have failed before.

Read Talk/Talk in its entirety here.