Brendan Nyhan

ABC News is reporting that the Duke lacrosse case is finally going to be put out of its misery:

The office of North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper will announce that he is dismissing all charges against three Duke Lacrosse players, ABC News has learned from sources close to the case.

The three players, Reade Seligmann, David Evans and Collin Finnerty, were facing charges of first degree kidnapping and first degree forcible sexual offense. The charges stem from an off-campus party on the night of March 13, 2006.

In the hours after the party, one of two dancers hired to perform for the players claimed she had been violently raped in a bathroom by members of the lacrosse team. The players had also been indicted for first degree rape, but that charge was dismissed on Dec. 22, 2006.

Special prosecutors from the Attorney General’s office took over the case after Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong recused himself in January, citing charges of unethical conduct filed against him by the North Carolina Bar. Since then, Jim Coman and Mary Winstead have examined the case from scratch, interviewing key witnesses and working through reams of evidence.

The reasons that will be cited for the dismissal are not yet known, though the case has been riddled with criticism and colored by controversy since its early months. Defense attorneys released documents showing the accuser changed key details of her story in the weeks and months after the alleged assault.

Legal analysts and forensic experts have criticized what they call a critically flawed photo identification lineup — a lineup that led to the identification and indictment of Evans, Finnerty, Seligmann. No DNA evidence was found matching any lacrosse players with samples from the rape kit, while DNA from unidentified men was found on the accuser’s body and clothing.

On Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General confirmed to ABC News that his office had completed its investigation into the Duke lacrosse case. A press conference on the outcome of their inquiry is widely expected sometime this week, though members of that office have not yet revealed a date and time.

For my past blogging on the case, click here.

The Hill, an insider Capitol Hill newspaper, published a story Friday that reprinted the misleading talking point that the Democratic budget represents “the largest tax increase in American history” without any additional context:

GOP leaders Friday used new employment figures showing a job growth in March of 180,000 to attack the Democrats’ budget, which Republicans claim would include a large tax increase.

The Department of Labor reported the increase in payrolls Friday, and also said that the unemployment rate is 4.4 percent.

“Democrats needn’t look any further than this month’s job report for evidence of what broad-based tax relief and pro-growth policy-making can do for an economy,” said House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.). “Unfortunately, the lessons of the past 12 years seem to have been lost on this new majority, as it has eschewed fiscal discipline in favor of advancing a budget that will impose the largest tax increase in American history.”

Instead of supporting economic growth, Blunt charges that the Democrats’ budget only expands “the size, scope, and reach of the federal government to historic, and very dangerous, new levels.”

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) also cited the job figures as “yet more proof that Republican policies are working.”

He strongly criticized the Democrats’ budget as policy that “will simply punish working families and slow the economic growth that continues to create the new jobs of tomorrow.”

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette did better by printing a critique of the claim (which the NRCC is using to target a freshman Democrat), but presented the dispute in “he said”/”she said” format:

The NRCC argues that Mr. Altmire is supporting the “largest tax increase in American history” by backing a five-year budget plan that doesn’t renew the tax cuts pushed by President Bush in his first term. Mr. Altmire counters that Republicans, not Democrats, devised the tax cuts so they would expire in 2010.

Shockingly, the Intrade futures market for 2008 GOP presidential contenders was putting higher odds on Fred Thompson than John McCain a couple of days ago. Here are the current odds, which still have Thompson in a strong third place:

-Giuliani – 30.1%
-McCain – 19.8%
-Thompson – 18.7%
-Romney – 17.4%
-Gingrich – 4.0%

I’ve been skeptical of McCain’s candidacy from the beginning, but it seems pretty early to put that much probability on Thompson, doesn’t it? He doesn’t even have a campaign yet.

Here’s a great example of a reporter buying into one side’s framing of a debate. In yesterday’s New York Times, Jim Rutenberg defines the battle over attaching a withdrawal timeline to the Iraq emergency funding bill as “a fight over support for the troops”:

But as the president has vacationed here, his administration has been pressing against the Democrats on all fronts.

There was Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday, saying on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program that the Democrats were “prepared to pack it in and come home in defeat” in Iraq; administration officials giving reporters a running count of days that have passed without the release of $100 billion in war financing the president has requested; and the president chiming in on his radio address, saying, “Sixty-one days have passed since I sent Congress an emergency war spending bill.”

Mr. Bush has rarely lost a fight over support for the troops, but things are different now. Administration officials said they were confident they could paint the Democrats as causing the delay, arguing that they knowingly pushed war-financing bills that the president would not sign because they included timelines for withdrawal from Iraq.

This is, of course, the same phrase the White House uses. By adopting it, the Times implicitly suggests Democrats don’t support the troops. In fact, everyone “supports the troops” — the fight is over what’s best for the country.

Sunni, Shiite — what’s the difference?

Rudy Giuliani doesn’t know. Check out his sophisticated understanding of religion and politics in the Middle East (via Isaac Chotiner at The Plank:

As for Iran, Mr. Giuliani said that “in the long term,” it might be “more dangerous than Iraq.”

He then casually lumped Iran with Al Qaeda. “Their movement has already displayed more aggressive tendencies by coming here and killing us,” he said.

Mr. Giuliani was asked in an interview to clarify that, inasmuch as Iran had no connection to the Sept. 11 attacks. Further, most of its people are Shiites, whereas Al Qaeda is an organization of Sunnis.

“They have a similar objective,” he replied, “in their anger at the modern world.”

In other words, he said, they hate America.

Time to add Giuliani to the long list of American officials who lack even the most basic understanding of the Middle East. Here’s what CQ reporter Jeff Stein wrote in a Times op-ed back in October 2006

For the past several months, I’ve been wrapping up lengthy interviews with Washington counterterrorism officials with a fundamental question: “Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?”

A “gotcha” question? Perhaps. But if knowing your enemy is the most basic rule of war, I don’t think it’s out of bounds. And as I quickly explain to my subjects, I’m not looking for theological explanations, just the basics: Who’s on what side today, and what does each want?

…[S]o far, most American officials I’ve interviewed don’t have a clue. That includes not just intelligence and law enforcement officials, but also members of Congress who have important roles overseeing our spy agencies. How can they do their jobs without knowing the basics?

It makes this paragraph of the Times story on Giuliani seem especially apt:

What are his qualifications for dealing with foreign policy matters? He cited his experience as mayor of an international city, and recalled that he had once kicked Yasir Arafat out of a United Nations celebration at Lincoln Center on the ground that he was a terrorist.

And that’s about it.

NPR commentator Brian Unger deconstructs Katie Couric’s interview with John and Elizabeth Edwards, showing how Couric relies on vague constructions such as “some people” and “others” as the source for her questions. It’s a classic pathology of “objective” journalism — journalists have to pretend not to have their own voice, and thus have to provide flimsy attributions for their views and ideas. (For another example, see Greg Sargent’s post on an Associated Press story that describes support for Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Syria as “clearly in the minority” based on exactly two quotes, both of which came from Republican politicians.)

The subscription-only Hotline newsletter says John Edwards is surging:

Who said there’s no room in the WH ’08 Dem race for Obama and Edwards? That CW, according to the latest Hotline/Diageo poll, is wrong. Over the past month, Edwards’s favorability bumped up 15 percentage points. While Clinton and Obama are still at the top of the heap in an open-ended ’08 question, Edwards is closing in on Obama. (In the Cook poll, he’s already eclipsed him).

The change, obviously, is based on how John and Elizabeth handled the return of her cancer, and the uniformly positive-wall-to-wall TV coverage that humanized him and reminded the electorate about her engaging personality. The message: strength in the face of adversity. Watching Edwards interact with Iowans last night, one also got the sense that many supporters rediscovered the candidate through the context of his family.

I’ve been questioning the conventional wisdom that Hillary is the most “experienced” candidate in the Democratic presidential primary for a while now (see here, here, and here). She has a long history of involvement in politics and policy, but her experience as an elected official is not any more extensive than that of Barack Obama and John Edwards.

So it was frustrating when Ryan Lizza wrote a piece a couple of weeks ago for the New York Times Week in Review that implicitly questioned the experience of Obama and Edwards, but not Hillary:

Barack Obama’s strong challenge to Hillary Clinton and Rudolph W. Giuliani’s recent surge past Senator John McCain in the polls raise an interesting question: How much does experience matter now in presidential politics?

After 9/11 it seemed that high-level government experience would be more important than ever. And yet, neither Mr. Obama nor Mr. Giuliani have the kind of governing experience traditionally seen as a prerequisite for White House service. Mr. Obama spent nine years in the Illinois State Senate and two years in the United States Senate…

Mr. Obama’s short résumé is sometimes compared to that of John Kennedy, who is remembered by some as a president who charmed his way into office when he was still a little green. But the comparison only underscores how the bar for experience has been lowered in the ensuing decades. Kennedy, after all, had five years in the Navy, six years in the House, and eight years in the Senate, not to mention a Purple Heart, the Navy Medal and a Pulitzer Prize…

Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Obama are not alone. The other major Democratic rival is John Edwards, who served one term in the Senate.

Matthew Yglesias called the article a “great piece” and wrote the following (after partially defending Obama’s record):

[I]f she becomes president Hillary Clinton will probably be one of the very most experienced chief executives in modern times… She was, by most accounts, an important adviser throughout the political career of a man who served two years as Arkansas attorney-general, 12 years as governor of the state, and eight years as President of the United States. She definitely does lack certain kinds of administrative experience, but she’s about as knowledgeable about the full range of relevant topics as anyone who’s ever done the job.

This statement highlights the crucial distinction — people are confusing knowledge with experience. Hillary Clinton would not take office as an “experienced chief executive” because she’s never been a chief executive! If being an experienced and knowledgeable adviser was sufficient to be president, then we’d be seeing a runoff between Leon Panetta and David Gergen. But it’s not. Talk — and advice — are cheap. Being “the decider” is hard.

Similarly, it’s bizarre that conservatives have decided Rudy Giuliani is prepared to handle US foreign policy. He has lots of executive experience as a mayor and prosecutor, but no foreign policy experience at the national level. Being mayor on 9/11 doesn’t count!

And as The Economist points out, Fred Thompson isn’t particularly experienced either:

What I don't believe I've heard anyone point out is that he has less experience in political office than Barack Obama does: eight years in the Senate, versus Obama's four in the Senate and eight as a state senator in Illinois.  Even if you discount state versus federal experience at a two-to-one rate, they're tied. Yet the conservative Powerline blog refers to his "long and distinguished record as a public servant".  The same blogger said of Barack Obama "In my lifetime, neither party has ever nominated a candidate for president with credentials this thin."

Nonetheless, Chris Matthews is drooling over how Thompson “looks like the daddy figure the Republican Party has been looking around for. He looks classic wise man.”

In short, what we’re really considering is the social construction of “experience.” The message is simple: If you look or seem experienced, you don’t need much actual experience as an elected official. Otherwise, the burden of proof is on you.

Postscript: Here’s another example. Back in 1999, President Bush was able to capitalize on his connections to his father and his position as the governor of Texas to become the GOP presidential frontrunner. He seemed experienced even though his entire resume as an elected official consisted of one term in one of the country’s weakest governorships (where he took a two-hour break for lunch every day).

Talk about meta-culture:

Over at his other digs Scott responds to Ann Althouse’s YouTube video of herself watching American Idol, by Youtubing a video of himself watching Ann Althouse watching American Idol. Ladies and gentlemen; place your bets on how close we can get to infinite regress before it’s all over …

This takes me back to the early days of the blogosphere when Media Whores Online spawned a sequence of increasingly meta watcher blogs: Media Whores Online Watch, Media Whores Online Watch Watch, Media Whores Online Watch Watch Watch, and — most importantly — Media Whores Online Watch Watch Watch Watch.

Update: My friend Ben Fritz suggests that we start bloggingheadstvwatch.tv and have video debates about their video debates — genius!

President Bush may have a lackluster economic record, but he’s creating jobs at the Government Accountability Office! (PDF)

The US Govt. Accountability Office, an agency of Congress, expects to hire a large number of entry-level analysts over the coming year. These positions are designed for recently minted MAs and PhDs with solid analytical and methodological skills and an interest in applied research.

…Typically, an analyst works as part of a project team conducting in-depth analysis and evaluation of executive and legislative branch
programs, policies, offices, and processes. GAO’s work is generally
requested by the Chairman or Ranking Minority Member of a
congressional committee or subcommittee, or has been mandated by
legislation.

In other words: What happens when you have a lame duck president who’s never faced an opposition Congress? Investigations!