Today’s New York Times reports what may the best legal term ever and a good substantive idea to boot — forcing opposing expert witnesses to testify together, which Australian lawyers call “hot tubbing”:
He might have preferred a new way of hearing expert testimony that Australian lawyers call hot tubbing.
In that procedure, also called concurrent evidence, experts are still chosen by the parties, but they testify together at trial — discussing the case, asking each other questions, responding to inquiries from the judge and the lawyers, finding common ground and sharpening the open issues…
Australian judges have embraced hot tubbing. “You can feel the release of the tension which normally infects the evidence-gathering process,” Justice Peter McClellan of the Land and Environmental Court of New South Wales said in a speech on the practice. “Not confined to answering the question of the advocates,” he added, experts “are able to more effectively respond to the views of the other expert or experts.”
I don’t understand political journalism. Dan Balz is a top reporter, but the lede for his big-picture analysis of the presidential campaign doesn’t make sense:
The opening round of the general-election campaign between Barack Obama and John McCain has produced memorable images, negative ads, snarling e-mails and pointed exchanges over war, the economy and energy. What it has not done is begin to resolve questions among voters that both candidates must address to win in November.
Has any race with close fundamentals ever “resolve[d] questions among voters that both candidates must address to win” by August? Voters are not paying attention yet. The only races that are resolved by now are the ones that were destined to be blowouts.
One of the key tactics of the Bush White House after 9/11 was to try to delegitimize any criticism of President Bush. Media Matters reports that McCain spokesperson Nicole Wallace took a similar approach on MSNBC, telling David Gregory that Barack Obama is “fillet[ing] an American hero, a former POW” when he criticizes McCain on the stump:
GREGORY: Let’s talk about this campaign —
WALLACE: Sure.
GREGORY: — and talk about McCain campaign strategy. You have tried, the campaign has recently, to tarnish Obama’s credibility and his image in a couple of ways. On the one hand, it is to describe him as a celebrity, to use Britney Spears, Paris Hilton to suggest he’s sort of famous for being famous, that he’s a lightweight. That’s on the one hand.
On the other hand, it is to reduce his energy plan to the idea of the tire gauge, to suggest that his whole energy plan is really about whether there’s enough air in the tires.
So the question is, are these ambush political tactics? And is that consistent with the original maverick that you [unintelligible] John McCain is?
WALLACE: You know, two quick things here, David. One, I never hear anyone put it to the Obama campaign, the internal deliberations that they may have gone to when they made the strategic decision to essentially fillet an American hero, a former POW, on the stump every day, which is what comes out of their candidate’s mouth every day on the stump.
In other words, McCain shouldn’t be criticized because of his experience as a prisoner of war. It’s a profoundly anti-democratic statement. Here’s the video:
Was anyone else surprised that Bob Costas made the traditional softball interview of the president by a sportscaster so substantive? (Hopefully the White House press corps was taking notes.) Judging by Bush’s joke at the end of the interview about Costas not letting him leave, he may have been surprised too.
Update 8/11 11:13 AM: The YouTube video I had previously embedded has been taken down; here’s an NBC video link that excludes some OS/browser/chipset combinations, including mine.
A New York Times story this morning headlined “Obama’s View on Abortion May Divide Catholics” begins with this parable:
Sixteen years ago, the Democratic Party refused to allow Robert P. Casey Sr., then the governor of Pennsylvania, to speak at its national convention because his anti-abortion views, stemming from his Roman Catholic faith, clashed with the party’s platform and powerful constituencies. Many Catholics, once a reliable Democratic voting bloc, never forgot what they considered a slight.
In fact, the campaign officials who made the decision said Casey was denied a speaking slot because he hadn’t endorsed the Clinton-Gore ticket, as Michael Crowley reported in The New Republic:
According to those who actually doled out the 1992 convention speaking slots, Casey was denied a turn for one simple reason: his refusal to endorse the Clinton-Gore ticket. “It’s [Casey’s claim that he was denied a convention speech because of his pro-life views] just not factual!” stammers James Carville, apoplectic over Casey’s claims. “You’d have to be idiotic to give a speaking role to a person who hadn’t even endorsed you.” “Why are you doing this to me?” moans Paul Begala, who, with Carville, managed two Casey campaigns before joining Clinton’s team in 1992. “I love Bob Casey, but my understanding was that the dispute was not about his right-to-life views, it was about the Clinton-Gore ticket.”
Media Matters further points out that anti-abortion speakers have repeatedly been given the opportunity to speak at Democratic conventions:
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, Sens. John Breaux (D-LA) and Howell Heflin (D-AL), and five other governors who opposed abortion rights did address the convention in 1992, as detailed in a September 16, 1996, article in The New Republic on the Casey myth. In addition, anti-abortion speakers have spoken at every Democratic convention since 1992, including Breaux in 1996 and 2000, former House Democratic Whip David Bonior (D-MI) in 1996 and 2000, and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in 2000 and 2004.
Unfortunately, the story reinforces an accurate narrative about the parties dividing more clearly on the abortion issue. As a result, it lives on as conventional wisdom more than fifteen years later.
Update 8/7 3:28 PM: In its post on the controversy today, Media Matters unearths another salient fact: [T]he Times itself reported in an August 1, 1996, article that White House officials ‘have always said that had [Casey] not declined to endorse Mr. [Bill] Clinton in 1992, he would have been allowed to speak to the convention.’”
Tom Maguire dissents, citing a 2005 post. I stand by what I wrote, but I do hope we can agree that the Times should have acknowledged that this claim is disputed.
When are the media going to start pointing out that John McCain and his campaign are misrepresenting Barack Obama’s position on nuclear power?
On Monday, McCain said “[Obama] doesn’t want nuclear power” and claimed that “[Obama] continues to oppose the use of nuclear power.” Similarly, during a press conference yesterday, McCain adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin claimed “[Obama] has said no to nuclear power.”
However, as Time’s Michael Scherer points out, these claims are all false:
Does Obama oppose the “use of nuclear power”? No. But he is more cautious about expanding nuclear (which would require significant federal spending, say most analysts) than McCain.
Here’s what Obama’s position paper on energy says (PDF):
Safe and Secure Nuclear Energy: Nuclear power represents more than 70 percent of our non-
carbon generated electricity. It is unlikely that we can meet our aggressive climate goals if we
eliminate nuclear power from the table. However, there is no future for expanded nuclear
without first addressing four key issues: public right-to-know, security of nuclear fuel and
waste, waste storage, and proliferation.
And here’s what he said in New Hampshire last year:
On one specific energy matter that is important to many in New Hampshire, he would not pledge to stop all new nuclear power plants.
“When you’re a politician, you’re always tempted to get some applause, but on this one I have to be more qualified,” Obama said.
“We shouldn’t simply remove nuclear power from the equation,” Obama said. “But there has to be a high standard and a high threshold. … I’m not going to automatically rule it out as a reasonable option.”
None of this is particularly hard. Yet the New York Times failed spectacularly at fact-checking McCain today, referencing McCain’s misrepresentation of Obama’s position in an oblique, “he said”/”she said” aside:
Even before Mr. McCain left South Dakota, where he campaigned at the freewheeling Sturgis Motorcycle Rally on Monday night, and headed to the plant in Michigan, Mr. Obama’s campaign had put out a statement rebuffing what it called Mr. McCain’s misrepresentation of Mr. Obama’s position on nuclear power.”
The Times then quotes the passage from Obama’s policy paper above. However, the reader is not told what McCain said or why Obama’s campaign alleged
that he was misrepresented. And the wording used by the Times (“what [the Obama campaign] called Mr. McCain’s misrepresentation of Mr. Obama’s position”) offers no indication that McCain actually did misrepresent Obama’s position.
John Sides reiterates an important point: the perception that Barack Obama “should” be winning by a huge margin (echoed today by David Brooks) is not supported by empirical evidence. The leading statistical models of presidential election outcomes forecast a narrow Obama win.
The consequences of this are actually more serious than most people realize. In the seminal work on mandates, Jim Stimson, David Peterson and two other political scientists argue that “mandates” are a collective interpretation of election results that carries an informational signal to nervous incumbents worried about re-election. As a result, members of Congress briefly shift their voting behavior in the direction of the perceived mandate (the three times in which this happened, Stimson et al argue, are 1964, 1980, and 1994). With expectations about Obama so high, there’s almost no way that anything short of an LBJ-esque landslide will be perceived as a “mandate,” which will make it harder for him to enact his legislative agenda.
I think one source of confusion on this issue is that the overall political environment is extremely negative for Congressional Republicans. Given the large number of retirements and competitive seats, particularly in the Senate, it looks like Democrats will pick up a number of seats in November. As a result, people assume that Obama has an equally strong advantage. However, as I argue above, the conditions that predict presidential election outcomes are much less definitive.
Writing in the Los Angeles Times, James Rainey revives a longstanding myth that will frequently crop up again in stories about “gaffes” and supposedly out-of-touch politicians:
In 1992, George H.W. Bush reportedly was surprised to find a price scanner in a grocery store, which “proved” he was out of touch with the common man.
In fact, however, the New York Times report on which this claim is based is groundless. The Times had not been at the event in question but instead based its story on a pool report, which indicated that Bush was impressed by new scanner technology that could weigh groceries and read damaged bar codes. Unfortunately, the Times report (which the newspaper did not retract) fit a popular stereotype about Bush and has thus persisted for years.
Update 8/4 3:23 PM — Rainey responds by email that he meant to cast doubt on the story:
Indeed, that’s why I used the term “reportedly”. The point of the
example was that its takes little or nothing to caricature some
candidates.
If this was his intended meaning, my concern is that the wording was far too subtle — most people (including me) will not recognize that he was implicitly questioning the validity of the report. I read it as him questioning the conclusion (that it proved Bush was out of touch), not the premise (Bush was surprised).
Update 8/5 5:04 PM — Commenter David points out that the dreaded Mark Leibovich of the New York Times also repeats the myth in the Sunday Times:
Mr. McCain’s sense of wonder evoked the episode in the early 1990s when George H. W. Bush became overly impressed upon seeing a price scanner at a supermarket check-out counter. It suggested to some people that the president, who had spent four years in the White House after spending eight years as vice president, was out of touch with the lives of average Americans.
Has anyone else noticed that Barack Obama’s comment that George W. Bush and John McCain are going to remind voters that he “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills” is being distorted in multiple ways? It’s a reminder of how disturbed the national debate on race can be.
Obama began his day Wednesday in Springfield, Mo., charging: “Nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky.”
In Rolla and then in Union, Obama issued similar lines. “They’re going to try to say, ‘Well, you know, he’s got a funny name, and he doesn’t look like all the presidents on the dollar bills and the five-dollar bills,’ and they’re going to send out nasty e-mails,” he told an audience in Union.
First, as commenter Seth, Mark Thoma, and others point out, McCain did superimpose Obama’s face onto a $100 bill in a previous campaign ad — a fact that has been omitted from most coverage of the controversy:
Second, the tense of Obama’s comment has been distorted by reporters and the McCain campaign, who are asking Obama to back up a claim he did not make. Here’s what Dan Balz wrote on the Washington Post website:
Four things are already clear from the controversy. First, Obama campaign officials, lacking any example of McCain ever pointing directly or indirectly at Obama’s race as an issue in the campaign, have backpedaled rapidly away from any suggestion that their Republican opponent is using the very tactics Obama suggested on Wednesday.
Campaign manager David Plouffe was pressed hard during a conference call on Thursday for examples and could not point to any. An inquiry to the Obama campaign later in the day produced no immediate response and later no answer to a direct question asking for evidence to buttress Obama’s suggestion that McCain would try to scare people into not voting for Obama because he’s black.
In fact, however, Obama’s statement was a prediction, not a description of events to date. To review, he said “what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me… You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills.” Obama did not say that McCain and Bush have appealed to racial stereotypes and prejudice thus far (though they have in various ways, including highlighting Obama playing basketball in an ad, suggesting that only McCain puts “country first”, and accusing him of “intellectual laziness”). Predicting future misbehavior is a cheap way to attack an opponent, but it doesn’t excuse distorting what Obama said.
Third, as I noted on Friday, Obama’s statement that Republicans would make race salient has been distorted by the McCain campaign into the (false) claim that he accused John McCain of being a racist — a frequentlyused tactic designed to delegitimize criticism of the political exploitation of race. McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said on “Today” that “We are not going to let anybody paint John McCain, who has fought his entire life for equal rights for everyone, to be able to be painted as racist.” Similarly, McCain official Steve Schmidt said “we will not allow John McCain to be smeared by Senator Obama as a racist for offering legitimate criticism.” And yesterday, Senator Joe Lieberman even invoked McCain’s adopted daughter from Bangladesh to justify his claim that McCain “does not have a bigoted bone in his body.”
As a result of these attacks, Obama consultant David Axelrod was forced to deny another claim that Obama did not make, saying “Barack Obama never called John McCain a racist.” Obama later added that “In no way do I think that John McCain’s campaign was being racist; I think they’re cynical.”
The reality is that non-racist politicians can and do exploit the issue of race. McCain’s personal beliefs prove nothing about the political strategy of his campaign. Shouldn’t reporters understand this?
Excited about VP picks? In November, they rarely matter
By David Lightman | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Despite all the hyperventilating about whom they’re likely to be, vice presidential candidates rarely make much of a difference in the fall elections.
“They can only make a small difference at the margins,” said James Riddlesperger, an associate professor of political science at Texas Christian University, in Fort Worth.
They don’t get much news coverage after an initial burst when they’re selected, and they often lose their own states.
Where else have you read that in a news story in the last two months?
