Brendan Nyhan

Flagged by Brad DeLong — George Will criticizes Americans for worrying about “nominal rather than real gasoline prices” and then claims in the next sentence that the Dow has reached “record highs,” which is only true in nominal (ie non-inflation-adjusted) terms:

Economic hypochondria, a derangement associated with affluence, is a byproduct of the welfare state: An entitlement mentality gives Americans a low pain threshold — witness their recurring hysteria about nominal rather than real gasoline prices — and a sense of being entitled to economic dynamism without the frictions and “creative destruction” that must accompany dynamism. Economic hypochondria is also bred by news media that consider the phrase “good news” an oxymoron, even as the U.S. economy, which has performed better than any other major industrial economy since 2001, drives the Dow to record highs.

Flagged by Andrew Sullivan — Will concocts one of the best mixed metaphors in recent memory:

And now, by banning a particular behavior — the entertainment some people choose, using their own money — government has advanced its mother-hen agenda of putting a saddle and bridle on the Internet.

As Sullivan says, cluck, cluck, neiiighhh!

General George W. Casey Jr. is trying to downplay the severity of the situation in Iraq:

“Make no mistake about it, we are in a tough fight here in the center of the country and in Anbar Province” to the west of Baghdad, base to much of the Sunni insurgency, the general said. “But I think it’s important to remind people that 90 percent of the sectarian violence in Iraq takes place in about a 30-mile radius from the center of Baghdad, and that, secondly, 90 percent of that violence takes place in five provinces” of the 18 that make up Iraq. “This is not a country that is awash in sectarian violence.”

Talk about famous last words — I’ll take the bold stand that Iraq is a country awash in sectarian violence.

Also, as I noted earlier, the point about five provinces is misleading. Those provinces contain the nation’s capital and more than half of Iraq’s population. Imagine a comparable situation in the US. If the government said 41 out of 50 states are safe and the unsafe states were California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Michigan, and Massachusetts, plus the District of Columbia, that would be roughly half the US population plus the nation’s capital. No one would be reassured.

President Bush on “the responsibility era” in 2004:

At home, the job of a president is to help cultures change. The culture needs to be changed. I call it, so people can understand what I’m talking about, changing the culture from one that says, “If it feels good, do it, and if you’ve got a problem, blame somebody else,” to a culture in which each of us understands we’re responsible for the decisions we make in life. I call it the responsibility era.

Apparently we’re only responsible for the decisions we make in life if we’re not scandal-plagued GOP incumbents:

Over the past several weeks, Mr. Bush has come to the aid of Representative Don Sherwood of Pennsylvania, who admitted having an extramarital affair; Senator George Allen of Virginia, whose campaign has been plagued by accusations of racial and ethnic insensitivity; and Representatives Richard W. Pombo and John T. Doolittle of California, both of whom have been touched by corruption scandals in Washington.

The news that Nancy Pelosi is considering Alcee Hastings for chairman of the Intelligence Committee is disturbing:

Two candidates whom Ms. Pelosi is said to be considering for Intelligence Committee chairman are Representatives Alcee L. Hastings of Florida and Silvestre Reyes of Texas, both of whom currently serve on the panel.

The selection of Mr. Hastings, who is black, would help Ms. Pelosi shore up support from the powerful Congressional Black Caucus. But he has a checkered past, having been impeached and removed from a federal judgeship in 1989 on a bribery charge. Some Democrats fear that installing him in so sensitive a position would only invite Republican charges of weak Democratic leadership on national security matters.

Uh, I don’t think Republicans will be the only ones charging “weak Democratic leadership on national security matters” if Hastings takes over. Here’s an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry on Hastings:

In 1989, Hastings was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives for corruption and perjury. The Democratic-controlled Senate convicted Judge Hastings of accepting a $150,000 bribe in 1981 in exchange for a lenient sentence and committing numerous acts of perjury at his own trial. He became only the sixth Judge in the history of impeachment in the United States to be removed from office by the United States Senate.

It’s a disgrace that he’s even allowed to serve on the Intelligence Committee. Hastings should not even be considered for chairman.

Eric Alterman buys into the silly Barron’s analysis of the 2006 election that I bashed yesterday:

I don’t really relish being right about this election, but Barron’s did a race-by-race analysis, all 468 Congressional contests, taking into account cash on hand, as well as organization assets on the ground, and comes up with small Republican majorities in both houses as the most likely result… Remember, money matters, not issues, not voters, not really much of anything, save money — and, of course, the Republicans’ natural structural advantages.

(Well, I could be wrong. I’ve been wrong before. Media Matters says the methodology used by Barron’s in 2002, 2004, and 2006 hasn’t been consistent, here.)

Voters and issues don’t matter? That’s just absurd. It sounds like Alterman has been drinking the Common Cause koolaid…

A CNN poll released Friday shows Hillary Clinton leading John McCain in a trial heat:

If presidential elections were held today, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton would likely have a comfortable edge over Sen. John McCain, but take away her maiden name and McCain has a better shot of landing in the Oval Office.

So say the results of a CNN poll released Friday by Opinion Research Corp., which asked 506 adult Americans whom they preferred among potential 2008 presidential candidates. The margin of error for the survey is plus or minus 4.5 percent.

Asked if they preferred Hillary Rodham Clinton to McCain, respondents gave the Democratic New York senator and former first lady a 51 percent to 44 percent advantage over the Republican Senator from Arizona. Remove “Rodham” and McCain had a 1 percentage point advantage, 48 percent to 47 percent.

The CNN.com article gives no indication, however, that previous polls have consistently shown McCain defeating Clinton in trial heat matchups. If we assume that half of CNN’s respondents received her middle name and half did not, we can combine the results and find that Clinton led overall 49 percent to 46 percent. These results are way more favorable than previous surveys for Hillary:

It’s certainly possible that she’s making up significant ground — as I’ve said, McCain’s support will inevitably erode as Democrats become more critical of him. However, it’s more likely that the CNN results are a product of an extremely favorable political environment. Hillary’s consistently polled behind McCain, and I expect that pattern to continue after November 6.

In a story linked by Drudge, Barron’s projects that “the GOP will hang on to both chambers, at least nominally” in the November election. How do they reach that conclusion?

We studied every single race — all 435 House seats and 33 in the Senate — and based our predictions about the outcome in almost every race on which candidate had the largest campaign war chest, a sign of superior grass-roots support.

But as my adviser told them, money is not always dispositive:

John Aldrich, a professor of political science at Duke University who writes extensively about elections, says that a candidate really doesn’t need the most money to win; he merely requires enough cash to get his message across. Aldrich believes Democrats will win this year with less money because they won’t have to spend so much to persuade voters to switch horses.

“The support for the president, the Congress and incumbents is relatively low by historical standards,” he says. In fact, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll says voter disgust with Congress is the lowest in the survey’s 17-year history.

It is true that candidates with the most money usually win. However, campaign donations are frequently a reflection of candidates’ favorable election prospects or incumbent status, not a cause of it. Campaign spending probably matters on the margin (see this literature review) but it seems to matter less than many people think. And as Barron’s acknowledges, financial advantages are even less meaningful in anti-incumbent elections, which this election may turn out to be.

Think Progress catches President Bush trying to distance himself from “stay the course,” a phrase he has used repeatedly over the last several years:

STEPHANOPOULOS: James Baker says that he’s looking for something between “cut and run” and “stay the course.”

BUSH: Well, hey, listen, we’ve never been “stay the course,” George. We have been — we will complete the mission, we will do our job, and help achieve the goal, but we’re constantly adjusting to tactics. Constantly.

In fact, Google has indexed 179 pages using the phrase on whitehouse.gov. Bush last used it on August 30.

Update 10/23 12:27 PM: Think Progress flags White House communications director Dan Bartlett disavowing “stay the course” in an interview on CBS this morning:

STORM: So, Mr. Bartlett, staying the course is no longer the operative strategy?

BARTLETT: Well, Hannah, it’s never been a stay-the-course strategy. Strategically, we think it’s very important that we stay in Iraq and we win in Iraq. And if we were to cut and run and go and leave that country too early it would be a disaster for American policy.

Update 10/24 11:41 AM: The New York Times reports on Bush’s rhetorical shift:

The White House said Monday that President Bush was no longer using the phrase “stay the course” when speaking about the Iraq war, in a new effort to emphasize flexibility in the face of some of the bloodiest violence there since the 2003 invasion.

“He stopped using it,” said Tony Snow, the White House press secretary. “It left the wrong impression about what was going on and it allowed critics to say, ‘Well, here’s an administration that’s just embarked upon a policy and not looking at what the situation is,’ when, in fact, it is the opposite.”

Mr. Bush used the slogan in a stump speech on Aug. 31, but has not repeated it for some time. Still, Mr. Snow’s pronouncement was a stark example of the complicated line the White House is walking this election year in trying to tag Democrats as wanting to “cut and run” from Iraq, without itself appearing wedded to unsuccessful tactics there.

My friend Ben Fritz has written a hilarious review of The Perfect Thing, Newsweek columnist Steven Levy’s book about the iPod:

The iPod is in many ways the No. 1 star of our tech-obsessed culture, so it’s perhaps no surprise that it has gotten its own celeb bio. Steven Levy’s account of Apple’s uber-popular digital music player reads like one of those quickie books about Leonardo DiCaprio that popped up around “Titanic”: short on substance and full of wonderment over how lucky we mortals are to be blessed with such a good looking, talented, and dreamy device.

Levy, the technology correspondent at Newsweek, is clearly part of the cult that doesn’t just use an iPod, but worships everything about it. In many ways that’s a plus for a book written for iPod lovers, but it’s also a weakness. Levy’s account of the MP3 player and those who made it — especially Apple CEO Steve Jobs — is so reverential that it borders on hagiography…

When he’s not in awe of the brilliant minds that made it, Levy is amazed by just how meaningful the iPod is. Entire chapters are devoted to weighty topics like the “shuffle” function or iPod playlists. At one point, he ponders whether the iPod shuffle slogan, “Life is random,” had some connection to Jobs’ bout with cancer.

Most amazingly, Levy describes how his first experience with an iPod helped him get over the depression he felt after 9/11. If you can read that without losing your lunch, then by all means, pop in your little white headphones and pick up “The Perfect Thing.”

Kevin Drum, on the other hand, liked the book.

Why is the Los Angeles Times giving a platform to endorsements of thuggish behavior?

Last Friday, the Times ran an op-ed by controversial gay activist Michelangelo Signorile complaining that Mark Foley had not been previously outed and calling for the press to out public figures when it “is relevant to a larger story.”

On the following day, the Times published a column by Meghan Daum that appeared to endorse the protestors at Columbia University who interrupted a speech by Minutemen founder Jim Gilchrist and reportedly physically assaulted him (via Patterico). “[C]onsidering that most young people are considered to be politically apathetic,” she writes, “you have to credit the Chicano Caucus and the International Socialist Organization for trying.” And even after acknowledging that Gilchrist and others were struck in the melee, she writes, “I’ll give them an A (OK, maybe a B+) for trying.”

Signorile and Daum have every right to their views, but the Times is under no obligation to provide a platform for them.