Brendan Nyhan

After working on Spinsanity for more than three years, I’ve seen a lot of bad political journalism. But John Cloud’s article about Ann Coulter in Time still shocked me (note: it’s not online yet for non-subscribers, unfortunately). It manages to bring together everything that’s wrong with contemporary political coverage: the obsession with being counter-intuitive; the pervasive unwillingness to check facts; and the focus on “fairness” and “balance” rather than critical reporting.

A non-journalist might ask an obvious question: Why write a cover article about Ann Coulter in the first place? It’s widely understood that she’s a shrill, destructive demagogue. But to Cloud the distaste that both liberals and conservatives show for her is “suspicious”:

Ann Coulter burns too fiercely for both the temples of the secular left–the New York Times–and of the religious right–[Jerry] Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church. But it’s suspicious when conventional wisdom ossifies around someone so thoroughly. Why does she make so many people itch?

Maybe because she’s said an astonishing number of things that no reasonable person could possibly defend? Or because she’s pathologically dishonest? Call me crazy, but the answer seems pretty obvious. I doubt Cloud is running around asking why both the left and right distance themselves from out-and-out racists — is that “suspicious”?

Then there’s this train wreck:

Coulter has a reputation for carelessness with facts, and if you Google the words “Ann Coulter lies,” you will drown in results. But I didn’t find many outright Coulter errors.

Clould lists one mistake and dismisses an allegation of another. That’s it. But as others have pointed out, the Google search “Ann Coulter lies” yields our Spinsanity columns on Treason and Slander as the third and fourth results. Those two articles, which are each thousands of words long, document a vast array of false and extremely misleading claims. And there’s much more out there documenting what’s wrong with her work, including the Spinsanity archive and
a useful Media Matters rundown of the Coulter record.

What’s Cloud’s defense? He’s not a fact-checker:

My piece does not say that there are no Ann Coulter errors. In fact, I offer some Ann Coulter errors that we haven’t seen before, and I quote people like Ronald Radosh at some length on the problems with the more recent book of hers, which is Treason. David Brock, who knew Ann Coulter from years ago, goes to a book that’s years old, and prints some mistakes from that book, and of course [there are] mistakes. And a lot of them are corrected. If you go out and you buy a copy of Slander now, you won’t find those mistakes in it, because the publisher has corrected them.

Now, I had a choice of, do I want to, in my article, list every single Ann Coulter mistake ever made, even ones that have been corrected by the publisher — which is, by the way, what almost every other journalist who has written about her has done — or do I want to say something fresh and interesting about her? Do I want to engage her on issues and try to figure out what makes her tick and whether this is all an act? That was what my story was about. My story was not primarily about picking apart … all 1,000 of Ann Coulter’s columns or the hundreds and hundreds of pages that she’s written in her books. My job in this story was not to be a fact-checker. I don’t say in this story that she’s never made a mistake. In fact, I point out some mistakes. This is a story that calls some of her writing highly amateurish. I say I want to shut her up occasionally. I quote a friend of hers calling her a fascist [and] another friend of hers calling her a polemicist. I quote Eric Alterman, Salon, James Wolcott, Andrew Sullivan, and Jerry Falwell all criticizing her. The idea that this is a puff piece is just absurd. And it’s part of this left-wing attack machine that David Brock has invented for himself in his shame.

As others have also pointed out, this is all wildly disingenuous. No one said Cloud should have listed every error she ever made. But to say that “outright Coulter errors” are hard to find is an absurd generalization. She’s corrected almost nothing, and her one major correction is itself misleading. And to attribute all criticism to the “left-wing attack machine” of David Brock is ridiculous.

Time Magazine’s decision to publish this article is almost beyond my comprehension. Cloud and Time deserve nothing but scorn.

My post on Tom DeLay’s beef with Internet research made the Hotline, the bible of political insiders (subscription required):

DeLay’s appearance on Tony Snow‘s radio show — as reported by the AP — yields this much-quoted line: “We’ve got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon international law, not the Constitution of the United States? That’s just outrageous. And not only that, but he said in session that he does his own research on the Internet? That is just incredibly outrageous.” Several bloggers point out that web-based Lexis-Nexis and Westlaw are key legal resources. Anyway, if there’s one way to get the blogosphere to unite against you, it’s to criticize the Internet. Linking: Begging To Differ; Steve Soto; Carpundit; Life in Bush’s America; Truth Serum; Brendan Nyhan; TBogg; Eschaton.

It’s sad that this is a notable occurrence:

A surprise last-minute defection by an Ohio Republican forced the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to postpone a vote that had been scheduled for Tuesday on the nomination of John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations.

…Until the defection, by Senator George V. Voinovich of Ohio, the panel had appeared prepared to send the nomination to the Senate floor on a strict party-line vote. But Mr. Voinovich stunned other senators by announcing that more time was needed to explore accusations against Mr. Bolton.

“My conscience got me,” he said after the stormy two-hour session. He said he had gone to the meeting planning to vote for Mr. Bolton, but changed his mind after hearing the case against the nominee made by Senators Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, both Democrats.

“I wanted more information about this individual, and I didn’t feel comfortable voting for him,” Mr. Voinovich said.

…The second Republican, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, did not make his views known at the hearing, but told reporters later that he was glad that the vote had been postponed.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen, in a setting like this, a senator changing his mind as a result of what other senators said,” Mr. Chafee said. “The process worked. It’s kind of refreshing.”

Tom DeLay attacking Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy:

“We’ve got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon international law, not the Constitution of the United States? That’s just outrageous,” DeLay told Fox News Radio. “And not only that, but he said in session that he does his own research on the Internet? That is just incredibly outrageous.”

I understand the international law objection, but are judges not allowed to do research anymore? Is the Internet an invalid source of information? DeLay sounds like a crochety old professor complaining about students using Google.

Just when you thought people had stopped relating Sept. 11 to dumb s—:

“After 9/11, we both realised that being enemies didn’t make sense,” Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen said in a conference call on Monday, referring to his discussions with Macromedia’s then-CEO Rob Burgess. “We were not longer competing.”

Heartwarming. Luckily, the reporter for ZDNet was having none of it:

In fact, Adobe and Macromedia’s peace pact had less to do with their own sense of corporate or technological comity in the wake of a national tragedy than with serious if not existential common threats, particularly Microsoft.

“When I think about competitors, there’s only one I really worry about,” Chizen said in an interview a year ago. “Microsoft is the competitor, and it’s the one that keeps me up at night.”

Chizen better hope the market believes he’s being insincere. If he’s actually stupid enough to do a merger because he felt bad competing against Macromedia after 9/11, it’s time to start dumping Adobe stock.

Here’s an obvious question that no one seems to be asking: why the hell is Hillary Clinton running for re-election in 2006? Why not move straight into a presidential campaign?

As we all know, running for the presidency from the Senate is a crippling burden, as John Kerry showed in painful detail (and Bob Dole before him). You’re forced to make uncomfortable political compromises and cast awkward votes. Also, a competitive Senate race will make her potential presidential candidacy an issue, which forces her to either (a) promise not to run or (b) dodge the question and look like she’s opportunistically using New York as a steppingstone — the same issue that dogged her in 2000. John Kerry got away without making any promises in 2002 because he had no credible opposition, but I doubt Hillary will be so lucky.

So what is she doing? I can think of a few possibilities:

1) She’s hedging her bets. She realizes that most of the country still sees her as a liberal and that she’s likely to lose in 2008. This gives her a high-profile platform in the Senate to wait until the conditions are right for a presidential bid, either in 2008 or later.

2) She realizes that her much-touted defeat of Rick Lazio in 2000 is actually highly overrated (Democrats have actually been winning in upstate New York for some time now) and wants another convincing victory to try to answer the electability question.

3) As Mickey Kaus contends, she actually needs conservative attacks to justify a move to the center. Those attacks give her credibility with liberal voters that make it possible to do and say things that other candidates can’t (like her excellent speech about abortion).

The disturbing thing about this is the parallel to Bill Clinton’s political career. He had to decide whether to run again for Arkansas governor in 1990 knowing that he might run for president in 1992. He decided to run for re-election and won, which both proved his political viability and hedged his bets. Then, when conditions looked right to run for president, he broke his campaign promise to serve out his term as governor, as Encarta notes:

After his election to a fifth term in 1990, Clinton was more successful in getting his legislative program enacted. Based on his overall success at the legislative session in 1991, Clinton announced that, despite a campaign promise in 1990 to complete a four-year term, he intended to run for president because he had accomplished his goals for the state more quickly than he had imagined.

Will Hillary do the same thing? I hope not — the increasing domination of the country’s politics by a handful of political families is painfully undemocratic. It’s time for new blood!

Amazon.com’s All the President’s Spin page now features a list of the most frequently used words in the book and some fun text statistics. Unsurprisingly, the book is rated as requiring a college education to read. But on the other hand, we offer 6,498 words per dollar (22,742 used) — what a deal!

PS Should you feel like entering the “No Spin Zone,” I see that Bill O’Reilly’s 45,000 word tome of the same name is available for 36 cents (125,000 words/dollar!), and it only requires an eighth grade education — even less than Michael Moore’s books. Ouch.

Tom DeLay is crying crocodile tears about the criticism he’s facing:

It is unfortunate in our electoral system, exacerbated by our adversarial media culture, that political discourse has to get so overheated that it’s not just arguments, but motives are questioned.

There’s no question that the trend is unfortunate. But it is breathtaking for DeLay to decry it. The man is a key factor in the polarization of American politics. He engages in outrageous attacks on Democrats’ motives all the time.

Let’s review a couple of examples. First, here’s DeLay suggesting opponents of the war in Iraq don’t want to protect the American people, CNN’s “Inside Politics” (transcript), Sept. 25, 2002:

He [former Republican Congressmen Dick Armey, who questioned the war in Iraq] is not doing what others are doing that are questioning the president’s leadership, that are constantly throwing up hurdles to keep us from doing what we have to do to protect the American people: using the false arguments, these constantly — throwing up, Well, I have to have answers to this question, and when they get the answer, they come up with a new question. These are people that don’t want to protect the American people. They don’t see — they will do anything, spend all the time and resources they can, to avoid confronting evil.

And here’s DeLay claiming Democrats want to destroy the economy, CNN’s “Saturday Edition” (transcript), July 20, 2002:

“The Democrats are working to extend America’s misery for their own political gain, and we just think that’s just outrageous.”

He’s a paragon of reasonable discourse!

You may remember the Pirate Captain, whose, uh, innovative campaign for NC State student body president had put him in first place going into a runoff election. Well, Ken Waight at Lying in Ponds, my go-to guy for all things Captain, reports that the Pirate won the runoff — here’s the report from the campus newspaper:

The Senate Chambers in Witherspoon Student Center were overrun Wednesday night with the ever-expanding ranks of scurvy dogs and scalawags as Elections Commission Chair Bonnie Pierson revealed the results of the remaining offices of the 2005 Spring General Election.

Although candidate Will Quick almost doubled his votes from last week’s election, Whil “The Pirate Captain” Piavis clinched victory in the runoff for the position of student body president.

…Quick’s small show of supporters, consisting largely of Student Government members, were confined to the corners of the chambers by the large crowd of pirate enthusiasts, who chanted and cheered to Pierson’s announcement.

During a short speech to dissenters and supporters alike, Piavis revealed his real name and declared that during “The Year of the Pirate,” his main focus would be getting the students involved with Student Government.

“We’re quickly goin’ to bae getting our plank started, get the simple things out of the way,” Piavis said. “Then we’ll bae working on getting the Senate out to the students and out to the college councils.”

Although many of his opponents claim that he is making a mockery of the Student Government’s highest position, Piavis asserts he is serious about his role, gimmicks aside.

“This simply bae a way to get people to pay attention and get involved,” Piavis said. “We’re not a group that bae full of ourselves. We bae out here for the students.”

Piavis faces staunch opposition from members of Student Government, who according to Quick, “weren’t looking forward to working with The Pirate Captain.” Quick said this has the potential to harm Piavis’ work throughout his term.

…Piavis said however, that he wasn’t worried about winning their favor, pointing out that many new Senators will be entering Student Government over the course of next semester.

“We’re liking the fact that most of the Senate are new scrogs,” the Captain said. “Me hopes the rest bae coming around. [Our crew] not bae a bad lot.”

My question: is he really going to talk like that for the whole year as president? I really hope so…

Via Best of the Web comes this disturbing dispatch from a Harvard panel:

At 3 p.m. yesterday, the Harvard Office of Career Services hosted a counterterrorism career panel that included representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, and two non-partisan security think tanks. Joining the panelists were two distinct groups of Harvard students: one genuinely interested in potential careers in counter-terrorism, and another group consisting of rude, self-proclaimed morally superior, intellectually indoctrinated protestors.

Let me be perfectly clear, while a tasteful protest marched on outside the Science Center, I am referring to the disruptive protestors sitting at the event. The propagandists’ techniques of disruption varied: their base tactics ranged from coughing incessantly to the point where none of the panelists could be heard, interrupting presentations to ask ludicrous questions such as “Isn’t it true you train your employees to torture,” staging a mock deportation of an ethnic minority protestor midway through the discussion, clapping obnoxiously to halt the dialogue, and ridiculing students who posed legitimate questions to the panelists. A protestor sitting three rows behind me physically made himself vomit.

The chatter after the event, among the legitimate audience, consisted of a single strain: sheer disgust. Liberal and conservative students alike were mortified and disgusted by the behavior of the protestors who were not only disruptive to the panelists but were disrespectful to their fellow Harvard students. Less than an hour after the panel, Russell P. Leino ’05, posted an e-mail to the Cabot House open-list stating that “I always thought the point of a protest was to offer an alternative idea to the one being presented, not drown out ideas one disagrees with in a sea of noise.” Vomiting and wearing black shrouds referencing Abu Ghraib are not effective means of encouraging positive social change and awareness.

This is more evidence of a trend toward academic leftists trying to shut down speech they don’t like — an astonishing hypocrisy given how many of them believe the Bush administration is suppressing dissent, and a dangerous development that threatens open debate on campus. Also, how far gone are we as a society when students at Harvard, the nation’s most elite university, need to be reminded that vomiting isn’t an “effective means of encouraging positive social change and awareness?”