Uncategorized
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More on how TPM has moved downmarket
A few weeks ago, I commented on the move downmarket by Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo, a formerly excellent blog* that increasingly panders to its liberal audience with outrageous language, faux mind-reading, unsupported factual claims, and salacious details of conservative scandals. The example I focused on was the wall-to-wall coverage of John Ensign’s affair, including
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Sarah Palin in Runner’s World!?
I know politicians love soft news coverage, but the strategy of seeking out non-political outlets works better for wonky politicians who need to be humanized. That’s why I don’t understand the decision for Sarah Palin to do a story with Runner’s World in their August issue (presumably completed before her bizarre resignation). It’s the opposite
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NPR “On the Media” interview on corrections
For those who are interested, you can listen online to an interview I did with NPR’s “On the Media” about my co-authored research investigating difficulties correcting the misperception that Barack Obama is a Muslim. (See also our previous research on correcting misperceptions.)
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Nyhan world HQ: Moved
Apologies for the lack of posts — Nyhan world HQ has just been moved to Ann Arbor. More soon…
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Grover Norquist on Sanford and Ensign
You stay classy, Grover Norquist: “I disagree with the idea that this shows problems for the modern Republican Party,” said Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, a group that applauded Mr. Sanford’s attempt to refuse some federal stimulus funds earlier this year. In reference to the fiscally conservative philosophies of Mr. Ensign
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NY Daily News publishes McCaughey op-ed
For all the reasons I previously outlined, the New York Daily News should not have published Betsy McCaughey’s misleading op-ed on the health care debate. She is not an expert and has no credibility.
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Michael Steele: Policy wonk
GOP chairman Michael Steele has stumbled upon the solution to one of most vexing domestic policy issues of our time — the ever-increasing cost of health care: So if it’s a cost problem, it’s easy: Get the people in a room who have the most and the most direct impact on cost, and do the
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Overstating GOP’s Obama misperceptions
Brad DeLong approvingly quotes a reader making the following claim about misperceptions among Republicans: 12% of the country still thinks Obama is a Muslim. 8% thinks he faked his birth certificate. The new Washpost/ABC poll says that 22% of the electorate id’s itself as GOP. Thus it is a fair inference that roughly half of
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Silver’s flawed analysis of health care $
As I wrote back in May, Nate Silver is obviously a smart and energetic blogger, but he just isn’t a social scientist. That’s why it’s frustrating when his quickie statistical analyses draw more attention than the relevant political science scholarship (of which Silver frequently seems unaware). For instance, Silver published an analysis today that claims
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Maureen Dowd self-parody alert
Bob Somerby flags Maureen Dowd’s bizarre interpretation of why the video clip of President Obama killing a fly during an interview was replayed so frequently: The moment may have resonated so much because some Americans fear that President Obama is too prone to negotiation, comity and splitting the difference, that he could have been tougher