Brendan Nyhan

Here’s a dog-bites-man story for you. Guess what the Wall Street Journal editorial board thinks is the solution to the financial crisis and the looming recession? More tax cuts!

What the economy really needs is a big pro-growth tax cut, the kind that will restore confidence and risk-taking. This is an opportunity for both candidates, but especially for Mr. McCain. Instead of focusing on an extension of the Bush tax cuts, the Arizonan should offer his own tax cut to revive capital markets and prevent a recession. Democrats will claim he’s helping “the rich,” but our guess is that every American who owns a 401(k) will figure he’s one of those “rich.”

Has there ever been a circumstance when the Journal wouldn’t recommend a tax cut?

My paper (PDF) with Jason Reifler on correcting misperceptions is featured in today’s Washington Post:

Political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler provided two groups of volunteers with the Bush administration’s prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. One group was given a refutation — the comprehensive 2004 Duelfer report that concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before the United States invaded in 2003. Thirty-four percent of conservatives told only about the Bush administration’s claims thought Iraq had hidden or destroyed its weapons before the U.S. invasion, but 64 percent of conservatives who heard both claim and refutation thought that Iraq really did have the weapons. The refutation, in other words, made the misinformation worse.

A similar “backfire effect” also influenced conservatives told about Bush administration assertions that tax cuts increase federal revenue. One group was offered a refutation by prominent economists that included current and former Bush administration officials. About 35 percent of conservatives told about the Bush claim believed it; 67 percent of those provided with both assertion and refutation believed that tax cuts increase revenue.

In a paper approaching publication, Nyhan, a PhD student at Duke University, and Reifler, at Georgia State University, suggest that Republicans might be especially prone to the backfire effect because conservatives may have more rigid views than liberals: Upon hearing a refutation, conservatives might “argue back” against the refutation in their minds, thereby strengthening their belief in the misinformation. Nyhan and Reifler did not see the same “backfire effect” when liberals were given misinformation and a refutation about the Bush administration’s stance on stem cell research…

Reifler questioned attempts to debunk rumors and misinformation on the campaign trail, especially among conservatives: “Sarah Palin says she was against the Bridge to Nowhere,” he said, referring to the pork-barrel project Palin once supported before she reversed herself. “Sending those corrections to committed Republicans is not going to be effective, and they in fact may come to believe even more strongly that she was always against the Bridge to Nowhere.”

For more, see the full article, our paper, or a previous article by the same author, Shankar Vedantam, on the difficulty of correcting myths and misperceptions.

Update 9/15 11:07 AM: My co-author Jason Reifler is discussing the article with readers on washingtonpost.com right now (from 11 AM-12 PM EST).

Update 9/17 11:16 AM: Here’s the Duke press release on our research.

Signs of the apocalypse: National Review Online’s Donald Luskin describes himself as an “adviser to John McCain’s campaign, though as far as I know, the senator has never taken one word of my advice.” This is the same Donald Luskin who UC-Berkeley economist Brad DeLong has repeatedly described as “the Stupidest Man Alive” for his shaky grasp on basic economics (like McCain circa 2007-2008, Luskin is a believer in the myth that tax cuts raise revenue). My primary exchange with Luskin was, shall we say, not inspiring. I wouldn’t let him advise me on balancing my checkbook.

How many people are going to repeat John McCain’s absurd claim that his support for the troop surge in Iraq almost cost him the GOP nomination? Here’s Tom Friedman parroting the claim:

I respected McCain’s willingness to support the troop surge in Iraq, even if it was going to cost him the Republican nomination. Now the same guy, who would not sell his soul to win his party’s nomination, is ready to sell every piece of his soul to win the presidency.

As Andres Martinez points out on the Washington Post’s website, however, the issue that almost cost McCain his party’s nomination was immigration, not Iraq. Show me any evidence that the surge cost McCain votes in the GOP primaries. Does Friedman know anything about the Republican party? Indeed, McCain attacked Mitt Romney for supporting timetables for withdrawing from Iraq (often mischaracterizing Romney’s position in doing so).

Hendrik Hertzberg claims to know John McCain’s motives in choosing Sarah Palin, which he calls “entirely tactical and mostly… cynical”:

With the selection of Sarah Palin, McCain completes the job of defusing the enmity (and forgoing the honor) he earned in 2000, when he condemned Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as “agents of intolerance.” His motives in choosing her were entirely tactical and mostly—the mot juste is that of Mike Murphy, once McCain’s top political aide, overheard by an errant microphone—cynical. Besides placating the right, those motives included the short-term goal of preëmpting the weekend news cycles that might otherwise have been devoted to reviewing Obama’s triumphant Democratic Convention. The price that McCain paid, and that could sooner or later be exacted from the nation, was the abandonment of what he had repeatedly called his overriding requirement for a Vice-President: someone who would be ready to take his place at a moment’s notice—“you know, immediately.”

Apparently this is why the New Yorker pays him the big bucks…

I’m reasonably sympathetic to the point made by Charles Krauthammer, Michael Abramowitz, and others that Sarah Palin might have good reason to have been confused about Charles Gibson’s question “Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?” As they point out, the phrase “Bush doctrine” could reasonably be interpreted different ways.

But it’s completely absurd for Abramowitz to imply and for Krauthammer and others to claim that the ambiguity of the initial question somehow excuses Palin. After she gave a vague response about fighting Islamic terrorism, Gibson explained that he meant the doctrine enunciated before the war in Iraq. At this point, someone who was familiar with the different philosophies described as the Bush doctrine would realize which one Gibson was citing. But Palin still did not understand. Indeed, she defended the right to attack a country or group that poses an imminent threat, a point on which Democrats and Republicans agree. Bush’s position was that the US had the right to attack before Iraq became such a threat.

For those who haven’t seen it, here’s the transcript of the exchange in question:

GIBSON: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?

PALIN: In what respect, Charlie?

GIBSON: The Bush — well, what do you — what do you interpret it to be?

PALIN: His world view.

GIBSON: No, the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war.

PALIN: I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation. There have been blunders along the way, though. There have been mistakes made. And with new leadership, and that’s the beauty of American elections, of course, and democracy, is with new leadership comes opportunity to do things better.

GIBSON: The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us. Do you agree with that?

PALIN: I agree that a president’s job, when they swear in their oath to uphold our Constitution, their top priority is to defend the United States of America.

I know that John McCain will do that and I, as his vice president, families we are blessed with that vote of the American people and are elected to serve and are sworn in on January 20, that will be our top priority is to defend the American people.

GIBSON: Do we have a right to anticipatory self-defense? Do we have a right to make a preemptive strike again another country if we feel that country might strike us?

PALIN: Charlie, if there is legitimate and enough intelligence that tells us that a strike is imminent against American people, we have every right to defend our country. In fact, the president has the obligation, the duty to defend.

And here’s the video:

Someone who was minimally conversant with the debate over President Bush’s foreign policy would have recognized that Gibson was asking about preemptive attacks against countries that do not pose an imminent threat. Palin did not.

Barack Obama and Bill Clinton met for lunch today, and the New York Times worked hard to bring you this important report:

The lunch menu, according to the campaign, was a choice of sandwiches and flatbread pizza from Cosi, plus salad. Beverages were not specified.

No details on the beverages?! The Pulitzer committee will not take this well…

Josh Marshall has a post up describing the current McCain campaign as “the sleaziest, most dishonest and race-baiting campaign of our lifetimes.” I’m not sure if that’s true, but it is unquestionably sleazy and dishonest. What I think Marshall and others are missing, however, is the extent to which McCain’s campaign builds on the precedents of the Bush White House (described in All the President’s Spin) in its approach to the press and campaign communication, which is probably a result of the influence of former Bush operative Steve Schmidt.

Let’s start with the media. During his presidency, Bush and other top officials have frequently challenged the legitimacy of the media and its role in the democratic process. For instance, then-White House chief of staff Andrew Card told the New Yorker “They don’t represent the public any more than other people do. In our democracy, the people who represent the public stood for election… I don’t believe [the press has] a check-and-balance function.”

When McCain’s campaign was preventing the media from interviewing Sarah Palin, campaign manager Rick Davis expressed a similar view:

Why is she scared of answering questions? [Fox News Channel’s Chris] Wallace asked.

“She’s not scared to answer questions,” Davis said, “but you know what? We run our campaign, not the news media.”

Wallace said inappropriate intrusions into Palin’s family and personal life aside, there are legitimate questions about whether she is prepared to be vice president.

“Sarah Palin will have the opportinity to speak to the American people,” Davis said. “She will do interviews, but she’ll do them on the terms and conditions” the campaign decides.

Like Bush, McCain’s campaign has also tried to undermine dissent and harsh questioning. During the same interview quoted above, Davis told Chris Wallace that Palin won’t be interviewed “until the point in time when she’ll be treated with respect and deference” (via Steve Benen). Demanding “deference” from the press is almost explicitly anti-democratic — Merriam-Webster defines it as “respect and esteem due a superior or an elder; also: affected or ingratiating regard for another’s wishes.” An elected official has no right to expect to be treated this way by a member of the press or the public.

Finally, McCain’s campaign is following Bush’s lead in making a series of highly misleading claims that are often based on some slender reed of truth (see here and here for compilations). For instance, as Bob Somerby noted on the Daily Howler, Palin’s claim at the GOP convention that she put the state’s luxury jet on eBay was “carefully constructed” to “mislead the public without misstating the facts.” The jet actually did not sell on eBay and was later sold at a loss. Palin’s statement was so well constructed that it even fooled McCain, who falsely claimed she sold the plane on eBay for a profit.

Similarly, McCain’s campaign is relying on Obama’s vote for a Democratic budget resolution to justify its claims that he will raise income taxes on all Americans. (In fact, Obama’s plan would lower income taxes on most Americans by more than McCain’s would.) The key to this strategy is to exploit the norms of “objective” reporting, which require a “he said”/”she said” approach even when disputes concern questions of fact.

What’s incredible is how much McCain has been able to get away with in what seemed like a Democratic year. I have always attributed much of Bush’s success at spinning the press in the 2001-2004 period to his post-9/11 boost in stature and legitimacy. McCain does not enjoy the same advantage and yet his tactics are still (seemingly) working. When will the press start calling him out?

Update 9/11 11:21 PM: The irony is that “objective” analysts like NBC’s Chuck Todd and Time’s Mark Halperin, who have not exactly been at the vanguard of the movement for more aggressive fact-checking, are drawing the line at the absurd “lipstick” controversy. While it’s great to have them on board, where were they for the last eight years? What we’re seeing now is the culmination of a process that they previously ignored.

Josh Marshall flags another example of a political reporter pretending to read people’s minds — here’s what Adam Nagourney of the New York Times wrote about the bogus “lipstick” controversy (more on that soon):

Here in Lebanon today, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois also made his own lipstick allusion, drawing on a very old aphorism as he belittled attempts by Senator John McCain and Republicans to embrace the change mantle that has been central to his campaign.

“John McCain says he’s about change, too – except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics,” Mr. Obama said. “That’s not change. That’s just calling the same thing something different. You can put lipstick on a pig – it’s still a pig.”

At that point, Mr. Obama paused for just a moment, no doubt imagining the whoops that were going up at the McCain headquarters where they were no doubt monitoring the speech, and aware of the extent to which both campaigns are seeking to seize on anything even approaching a slip of the tongue.

So he added: “You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change, it’s still going to stink after eight years. We’ve had enough of the same old thing.”

For the record, Mr. Obama did not even mention Ms. Palin until a few minutes later in his speech. Still, within 45 minutes, Mr. McCain’s campaign – well aware of the competition for the women’s vote and how this might be interpreted among women voters – leapt onto the remark.

And this isn’t Nagourney’s first offense either — back in July he and Patrick Healy pretended to read Evan Bayh’s mind too:

In Indiana last week, Mr. Obama appeared with two of the more speculated-about names on Democratic lists, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana and former Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia…

This is not, aides to both Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama were quick to say, the kind of vice-presidential Off Broadway run-throughs that some past candidates — think Walter F. Mondale in 1984 — have forced potential running mates to endure.

But it is indeed calculated and does provide a chance for the candidates and their aides to assess how they and their prospective running mates look as a ticket, in the newspaper photographs and television images these events are producing. That is no small thing, as could arguably be seen in Mr. Bayh’s eyes last week as he cast a vice-presidential gaze at Mr. Obama.

The best part is “arguably” — what’s arguable about it? Either Nagourney can read minds or he can’t. I’m pretty sure he can’t. Does the Times have reason to think otherwise, or does it just think its readers are stupid?

I’d have to see a lot more research before I was convinced by David Frum’s argument that high inequality leads to more Democratic voting. What’s important about the article, though, is that he presents a political rationale and a substantive argument for Republicans to take inequality seriously:

In short, the trend to inequality is real, it is large and it is transforming American society and the American electoral map. Yet the conservative response to this trend verges somewhere between the obsolete and the irrelevant.

Conservatives need to stop denying reality. The stagnation of the incomes of middle-class Americans is a fact. And only by acknowledging facts can we respond effectively to the genuine difficulties of voters in the middle. We keep offering them cuts in their federal personal income taxes — even though two-thirds of Americans pay more in payroll taxes than in income taxes, and even though a majority of Americans now describe their federal income tax burden as reasonable.

What the middle class needs most is not lower income taxes but a slowdown in the soaring inflation of health-care costs…

Unlike liberals, conservatives are not bothered by the accumulation of wealth as such. We should be more troubled that the poor remain so poor…

Meanwhile, the argument over same-sex marriage has become worse than a distraction from the challenge of developing policies to ensure that as many children as possible grow up with both a father and a mother in the home…

To make progress on inequality and similar issues like climate change where there’s a partisan/ideological divide over the extent of the problem, people like Frum need to convince the GOP that it’s politically costly not to act.