“Last night, I asserted that this report indicated that babies were beheaded. This was an overstatement. I should have said that the report established that babies were found headless, a fact that lends plausibility to claims of beheading, but which does not prove them.“
—New York Magazine reporter Eric Levitz on Twitter/X, going for the all-time record in Hamas-excusing spin.
Oh. What?
Yes, it’s come to this: a progressive reporter, naturally inclined to make excuses for the Palestinians because they are “of color” and supposedly oppressed, twists reality and his brain into pretzel-shapes in order to discredit the confirmed reports of Hamas terrorists beheading Jewish babies.
Let me see, what else could explain baby carcasses with missing heads? 1) Maybe they never had heads in the first place. 2) Maybe their heads just fell off, like the coughing jaybird’s head in the old song. 3) Maybe the heads were still attached, but these were turtle-human hybrid babies, and they just pulled their heads inside. That’s about all I can think of. You?
Old friend (and one of my board members at the American Century Theater) John Podhoretz caught this one, commenting, “I suppose there has been a worse set of sentences ever written but I can’t quite imagine what they might be.”
Ethics Alarms 
Beheaded: past tense cut off the head.
Eric Levitz literally contradicts his own ignorantly rationalized assertion.
Eric Levitz is a complete moron.
My reply on Eric Levitz’s Twitter page…
Oh dear.
For that statement to have even the smallest modicum of sense, the author really has to give us an alternate theory of the case.
Forget the fact that they were babies. How many beings can the author cite whose head was missing other than from being cut off?
It is astounding that this person is able to put together a coherent sentence at all.
Well, he is a journalist in New York. There is a possibility that in his office, people’s brains are so loosely attached to the hands that type this garbage that their heads just routinely become detached without being cut off. Gravity itself may be enough of a force to sever the tenuous connection between their stories and reality.
Within a day of the barbaric assault by Hamas, the Jew hating media influencers already had idiots discussing – “well maybe the babies weren’t beheaded, maybe they were only incinerated alive in their cribs, so let’s just talk about Israel needing to show restraint”.
And anyone caught up in the diversions should be utterly ashamed of themselves.
Look, I don’t want governments exaggerating claims. I’d rather them just tell the straight up truth – which is horrible enough.
But guess what, babies were beheaded. Was the count 40? Why the hell are you even quibbling? Oh yeah, you hate Jews and you don’t think they have a right to respond to this barbarism.
This gobbledy-gook is a perfect segue into my digression about the value of a legal education (or philosophy/logic).
Here is the relevant instruction to a jury regarding direct versus circumstantial evidence:
Direct and circumstantial evidence
A fact can be proved in one of two ways:
1. A fact is proved by direct evidence when that fact is proved directly without any inferences.
2. A fact is proved by circumstantial evidence when that fact can be inferred from other facts proved in the case.
For example, the fact that “a person walked in the snow” could be proved:
1. By an eyewitness who testified directly that he or she saw a person walking in the snow, or
2. By circumstantial evidence of shoe-prints in the snow, from which it can be indirectly inferred that a person had walked in the snow.
Using direct and circumstantial evidence
You should consider both kinds of evidence. The law makes no distinction between the weight given to either direct or circumstantial evidence.
It is up to you to decide how much weight to give any kind of evidence.
Basically, this writer is assuming that only direct evidence can prove that the babies were beheaded. But, a headless baby is circumstantial evidence of the beheading.
Circumstantial evidence can prove things.
That is really where he is stupid.
-Jut
I’m pondering whether to post this as a Comment of the Day just to try to give one more chance for the many, many people who don’t grasp this concept to finally get it straight. I am thinking of Nancy Pelosi swearing that she “saw cliamte change.” Also my colleague long ago who insisted that fossils were not proof of evolution because she was sure God had planted them around the Earth to test our faith in the Bible.
This guy is just deploying the DNC talking point to be used regarding the Biden corruption “problem.” “There’s no proof!” is now a default Dem/media refutation of any evidence. Ridiculous. Self-satire and self-generated reductio ad absurdum.
Comment of the Day? Where two-thirds of the words are not mine?
I guess you can give credit to West Publishing for that.
-Jut
I thought you wrote West’s directory! Oh, well-used references are still COTD-worthy if they conveny an important ethics point.
Eric Levitz simply suffered such extreme cognitive dissonance that his hands concluded he had no head and typed out a cry for help… Yet there it was still firmly attached to his body.
Until he’s resolved this virtual head explosion or safely enhoused in a padded room, prayers for the safety of those he interacts with, and the Julie principle applied to everything he writes.
Let me offer a recent case for contrast. Just over a year ago in rural Mississippi, a young black man by the name of Rasheem Carter began displaying erratic and paranoid behavior. He disappeared and some skeletal remains – a skull, a portion of spine, and a few other bones, were found weeks later in a wooded area. They had clearly been fed on and scattered by animals, as is likely to happen with any body left exposed in the Mississippi woods for weeks. There were no signs of foul play. Here is how the media described these scattered bones:
Yahoo News:
Rasheem Carter was found decapitated in Miss. woods. His family believes he was murdered.
ABC7:
New remains ID’d as Black man found with head severed after claiming white men targeted him: lawyer
Simple, if there are political points to be scored for the right side, then violence must have been involved. If there are political points to be scored for the wrong side, then there is no proof.
We need to know if Eric needs a special definition of dead Jews, so we won’t include those who are just being very still, as in “dead calm”.