Brendan Nyhan

Uncategorized

  • Howard Dean’s bogus attack on Bush

    Why is Howard Dean accusing President Bush of scapegoating immigrants? He’s been predicting that Bush would do so since last year, but the fact is that Bush is taking major flak within his party for not supporting a punitive, enforcement-only approach. Nonetheless, Dean is doing his best to blur the line between Bush and House

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  • Duke lacrosse: Gang threats, new timeline

    Tensions continue to rise here in Durham, where a Duke administrator sent an all-campus email about a possible gang threat to students in the neighborhood where the alleged rape occurred. The student newspaper report begins as follows: Durham Police Department officers approached residents outside houses on N. Buchanan Boulevard shortly after 6 p.m. Friday night,

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  • More attacks on dissent in censure debate

    Yesterday, in a move timed to coincide with Senate hearings on Russ Feingold’s proposal to censure President Bush for illegal domestic wiretapping, GOP chairman Ken Mehlman sent an email to supporters that read as follows (PDF): Terrorists are at war with our country. And we have a choice. Either we use every tool available to

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  • Duke lacrosse: More timeline issues

    This morning, the News and Observer and Herald Sun both have stories providing new details about the confusing, contradictory timeline of the 911 calls on the night of the alleged Duke lacrosse rape. Here’s the N&O: When police visited a house near Duke University on March 14 to investigate a 911 call about racial slurs,

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  • Richard Cohen on “Bush lied”

    Today, the Washington Post’s Richard Cohen writes: So common is the statement “Bush lied” that it seems sometimes that I am the only blue-state person who does not think it is true. Then, last week, the indomitable Helen Thomas changed all that with a single question. She asked George Bush why he wanted “to go

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  • More Duke lacrosse inconsistencies

    Today’s Duke Chronicle features an article on the lacrosse rape investigation that raises further questions. First, the (alleged) victim’s claim that the dancers returned to the house and were separated before the assault does not match the account of the second dancer, who says she remained outside. In addition, the second dancer turns out to

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  • Duke lacrosse search warrant

    Via Deadspin, the Smoking Gun website has posted the search warrant for the infamous Duke lacrosse house at 610 North Buchanan Blvd in Durham.

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  • Questions about Duke lacrosse 911 call

    Today’s Durham Herald Sun includes a report on apparent inconsistencies in a 911 call to police the night of the alleged Duke lacrosse rape: A defense attorney is questioning the phone call from an anonymous woman to 911 dispatchers in which she claimed someone yelled racial epithets at her and her friend outside the house

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  • Duke lacrosse rape case in New York Times

    This morning, a front page New York Times story took the Duke lacrosse rape allegations to the national level: Duke University suspended the season of its nationally ranked men’s lacrosse team Tuesday while the authorities investigated allegations that a woman from a nearby college who had agreed to dance at a private party attended by

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  • The presidential approval externality

    Last September, I noted this graphic from Barry Burden at Harvard, which suggests approval of President Bush drives the approval ratings of Congress: The latest issue of Time includes details from a leaked memo suggesting that Republicans agree: In an internal Republican Party memo provided to Time, Jan van Lohuizen, a longtime Bush pollster, warns

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