Month: May 2005
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Read Jim Stimson!
UNC political scientist Jim Stimson is the most distinguished analyst of public opinion in the country, and he’s written a wonderful new book for a general audience called Tides of Consent. The stereotype is that public opinion is transient and easily manipulated, but Stimson shows that its movements over time are systematic responses to the
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Polling on non-“objective” journalism
Steve Lovelady at CJR Daily reports on an Annenberg Public Policy Center poll showing the public is much more sympathetic to partisan journalism than the press is: The Annenberg poll found that the public is far more sympathetic to the idea of a partisan press than journalists are. Whereas only 16 percent of the journalists
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“World’s greatest deliberative body”
Dana Milbank joins me in mocking the nuclear option clown show: Senators love to talk about their chamber as the “world’s greatest deliberative body.” Yesterday morning, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) used the phrase. Yesterday afternoon, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) used it. But it took Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) to show why
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The Rodney Dangerfield of the social sciences
The New York Times interactive class graphic dumps political scientists into the category “Miscellaneous social scientists,” while economists and sociologists have their own categories. Where’s the love?
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Anthony Lane goes nuts on Yoda
Courtesy of my fellow Duke grad student Gerry DiGiusto, perhaps the greatest angry paragraph in the history of movie reviewing: No, the one who gets me is Yoda. May I take the opportunity to enter a brief plea in favor of his extermination? Any educated moviegoer would know what to do, having watched that helpful
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Nuclear option clown show: Rick Santorum
Rick Santorum distinguishes himself once again: Santorum said the suggestion that Republicans were trying to break the rules was “remarkable hubris.” “The audacity of some members to stand up and say ‘How dare you break this rule’ — it’s the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 saying ‘I’m in Paris, how dare you invade me.
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White House attacks on the press: Newsweek edition
I want to briefly address the Newsweek Koran-flushing controversy. First, a review. The story was a disaster from a journalistic perspective. We still don’t know whether a military interrogator actually flushed a Koran down a toilet or not — only that such an incident will not be described in a forthcoming military report. Nor do
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The nuclear option clown show continues
The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank on the restraint and decorum displayed yesterday in the “World’s Greatest Deliberative Body”: The Senate chaplain started yesterday’s judicial showdown with a prayer for “patience and peace” and “unity where there is division.” Thirty-three minutes later, the majority leader just about accused the minority of attempted murder. The Republican leader,
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The old David Brooks on column writing
David Brooks foreshadows his life as a circus animal in 2001’s Bobos in Paradise: If our intellectual is successful, she will be offered a column. This seems like the pinnacle, but while a dozen people get riches and fame from column writing, thousands do it in wretched slavery — compelled like circus animals to be
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Robert Pape on suicide bombing
Dan Drezner’s post reminds me to plug Robert Pape’s op-ed in today’s New York Times. It’s always good — and all too rare — to see political scientists contributing to the national debate. Here’s the key graf: Over the past two years, I have compiled a database of every suicide bombing and attack around the