I Need a Little Help Here.

What's the name of the logical fallacy for this? The author found some some obscure fact that no reasonable person would know and uses his adversaries ignorance of this one fact to proclaim that she is completely ignorant. I mean it's one thing to mock someone who doesn't know that Pi=3.14 but it's another thing entirely to mock them for not being able to recite Pi to 26 digits- particularly if they're not a mathemagician.

This idiot is making a mountain out of a mole hill and crowing about it with abandon.

I owe NewsBusters an apology

April 08, 2010 1:17 pm ET by Simon Maloy

Sometimes, in this crazy world of internet journalism, mistakes are made, erroneous information is passed on, and things that once seemed incontrovertibly true are revealed to be false. When that happens, the proper thing to do is issue an apology, take your lumps, and move on. And it turns out that when it comes to my extensive reporting on the crack bias sleuths at NewsBusters, I've been way off-base for quite some time now.
You see, several times now I have pointed out among the various NewsBusters contributors wild inconsistencies and ridiculous hypocrisies that, in my estimation, could have been explained in only one of two ways -- either the NewsBusters don't read their own blog, or they just don't care if they contradict each other willy-nilly. In my view, it was so improbable that they didn't actually read their own blog that the more likely explanation was that "[t]hey'll readily sacrifice what little credibility they have just to make a lame attack on a political figure they don't like."
Turns out I was wrong. They really don't read their own blog.
NewsBuster Kathleen McKinley provided confirmation of this fact as she reprinted a Twitter-fight she got into with CNN's Roland Martin. When, during the exchange of tweets, Martin mentioned one Matthew Balan, McKinley responded: "Who is Matthew Balan[?] Since he's 'my boy' I should know him."
Matthew Balan is a news analyst for the Media Research Center and -- you guessed it -- a regular contributor to NewsBusters. So not only does she not read the work of her fellow NewsBusters, she doesn't even know who they are...
As a fun postscript, McKinley offered this nonsensical update to her NewsBusters post:

It turns out that Matthew Balan is a news analyst for the Media Research Center who covers CNN. I guess since I write for NewsBusters and it is run by The Media Research Center, I'm supposed to know everyone there even though I live in Houston. Being that Matthew is bi racial, isn't is bit insulting for Mr. Martin to call him,"my boy."
If Mr. Martin were white and a conservative, I suppose we could make a big deal out of it, and force him to apologize. Even being black and a liberal, it's still insulting. But is it really something to go nuts over?
No.
Which was my entire point.

So please accept my apologies, NewsBusters. All this time that I've been calling you hypocritical hacks, I should have been calling you ignorant. It's a mistake I won't repeat.

From Media Matters.

Here's the result of my comment on the post. I will report if it ever gets posted. Don't hold your breath though.

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