The word out of Kentucky today that the Census worker committed suicide (See diary here for more discussion) reminded me that, in order to be as credible and believable as possible, we too cannot jump to conclusions. It's very easy to criticize Conservatives and Republicans for jumping to conclusions and making unfounded assumptions about us, but we have to do our best to NOT do the same.
What follows below the jump is mostly non-KY stuff ; the KY story was merely the inspiration for the rest. I tried not to overlap with other diaries too much :).
ETA: I'm being called "the third diary" and other stuff - I attempted below the fold to be different and to go way further back. Plus most of my examples are of conservatives jumping to conclusions. I wasn't attempting to be a copycat :p.
I can show quite a few examples where one side or the other have jumped to conclusions or made assumptions based on limited evidence. We all know the media is crap at anything other than sensationalizing and driving up viewership / readership, so it's in their best interest to be as hype-filled and sensational as possible. It also doesn't help, of course, that the original story is on page 1 and the follow-up is always buried. Below I'm listing a bunch of examples where one side or the other jumped to conclusions or made invalid assumptions. I'll admit it's easier to find examples of the Right jumping to conclusions, but that may be in part because I hardly ever agree with them.
Example 1: The Kentucky census worker. I'll admit, I was drawn in at first - the original news reports sounded quite damning, and he picked the perfect type of area to try and pull it off. But, with the report today, I see that the worker tried to set it up to make it seem like he was murdered, but he created his own reality that was punctured upon careful examination.
Example 2: Climate deniers are jumping to conclusions based on some emails. They seize upon any small evidence they can find and ignore the hot elephant in the room. Many, many diaries have alluded to this, so I'll forgo linking to them.
Example 3: Many people jumped to the conclusion that Palin was using Fort Bragg as a political stop, instead of just signing books. This was probably not helped by what appeared to be mixed messages coming from Fort Bragg itself. In the end, she's still an idiot, but she didn't use Ft Bragg improperly. This particular controversy is currently on the rec list here.
Examples 4a and b: The McCain staffer who claimed to be attacked by a black man and the brouhaha over the black kid beating up the white kid on the bus. Conclusions were made by people on the right about both that were completely unfounded once the evidence actually came out. I wasn't a member of the site for either time but I would imagine that these were big stories for multiple days around here.
Example 5: Bow-gate. Need I say more? (Also currently being talked about on the rec list)
Example 6: some conservatives assume that since most of us are against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that we disrespect the military and the soldiers. Judging by the evidence right here on the site, especially the IGTNT series, nothing could be further from the truth.
Example 7: pretty much any of the bullshit in the last two presidential elections, and in particular the Wright / Ayers controversies, Swiftboating, and the questioning of McCain's Vietnam War record.
How does this apply to stories that are ongoing?
Well, let's take a look at Ft Hood. In that example, you have conclusions being made - primarily by those on the right, but some by those on the left - about Hasan's motives, etc. Yet all these conclusions are being made before the results of the investigation(s) are known. Until all the info is assessed and evaluated, Conservatives cannot conclude for sure that this was a terrorist attack. And we cannot conclude for sure that it wasn't.
Another ongoing controversy is the Psalm 109:8 controversy. The original person's intent doesn't appear to have been malicious. She appears, rather, to have been an idiot. Conservatives dismissing this as "the boy who cried wolf", to quote a poster on another site, are also jumping to a similarly invalid conclusion, in my opinion. Many of us fear that someone is going to take a run at the President, and this feeds right into it, so they are wrong to offhandedly dismiss it as an attempt to marginalize critics of the Obama administration.
A third ongoing controversy / story is the KSM trial in NYC. Conservatives have jumped on it for this, that, and the other thing, but the conclusion I've seen a lot of liberals jump to I think may be wrong. I think we have to respect that the conservatives do fear an attack on NYC, rather than them fearing disclosure of Bush admin torture, etc. I think that their fear is completely unfounded, but we do ourselves little favors when we dismiss their fears entirely.
Another area where assumptions are made on both sides is on the issue of race. Put simply, not all opposition to Obama is race-based, and not all criticism of opposition to Obama should be met with "stop calling me racist". The majority of opposition to Obama is policy-based, and the majority of criticism of opposition to Obama is also policy-based. There are times where we do need to call a spade a spade, such as the billboards in Colorado, but I'd note that most of the opposition to him is colorblind. Off-site I've often criticized conservatives for hiding behind the "don't call me racist" statement, but on here all I really wanted to note is that most conservative opposition to Obama is strictly policy-based.
Both sides have this tendency to see the worst in each other, and it makes it easy to jump to conclusions. Newspapers don't like to cover stories like this one (Dodd splits up banking reform bill into bipartisan working pairs) or votes like this one (98-0 in the Senate). There are some political figures that each side is also almost too eager to see the worst in. Almost any story short of "kicking puppies" will be believed if someone posts it about Palin, Bachmann, Dobbs, Beck, or Limbaugh. And many conservatives will believe almost anything negative about Obama, even if it's something ridiculous like "Obama is going to sign away the United States sovereignty at Copenhagen".
All I really ask is that people take a step back and evaluate the facts. It's largely impossible to control our first gut reaction, but we can exercise control over what happens after our initial reaction. And let the facts be our guide, rather than jumping to a conclusion. In the end, we retain more credibility. And our arguments against Conservatives are more powerful when we acknowledge their viewpoint and then destroy it than they are when we just blow them off. (for a master of this, see Jon Stewart).