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 | Recycling material from '98-'99, Brooks calls for "national greatness" movement, implausibly suggests could be 3rd party http://j.mp/dmGI9D | |||||||||
| The New York Times > Log In | ||||||||||
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| Another dispatch from the Fox-ification of MSNBC -- Dylan Ratigan softballs Ted Rall's endorsement of violent revolution http://j.mp/bIDooL | |||||||||
| MSNBC's Ratigan Goes Way Off the Deep End : CJR | ||||||||||
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| Another failure of judicial elections http://j.mp/coPtun | |||||||||
| Don’t Blame Me « Cheap Talk A blog about economics, politics and the random interests of forty-something professors | ||||||||||
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| Matt Bai once again horrifies a political scientist (@jbplainblog): http://j.mp/c5tI3v See http://j.mp/cRFxKe & http://j.mp/cvOmqN for more | |||||||||
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| Sabato and Abramowitz correctly mock the idea that Obama can't win in 2012 based on the results of the midterms http://j.mp/alGI28 | |||||||||
| Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball » IT’S “OTB” TIME: ONE-TERM BARACK | ||||||||||
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| RT @smotus Everything u need to know abt dfct reductn: "Conrad: Extend All Tax Cuts; Time to Get 'Serious' About Deficit" http://j.mp/c6wfz7 | |||||||||
| Enik Rising: Pretty much everything you need to know about deficit reduction in 12 words | ||||||||||
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| The once vast gap in party favorability dwindled to nothing in the exit poll - D: 43% fav/52% unfav; R: 41% fav/53% unfav http://j.mp/aZ2dh5 | |||||||||
 Margie Omero: Beneath the Rubble: Some Warnings for RepublicansTo quote the President, and to understate it greatly, I feel bad about what happened Tuesday. Yet official exit polls reveal a few warnings for Republicans tempted (as anyone might be) to overpl... | ||||||||||
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| As @mattyglesias notes, the perceived merits of Obama's personality depend entirely on context (see also Bush, GW) http://j.mp/cC4Qni | |||||||||
| Yglesias » No Policy, No Policy | ||||||||||
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| Truly bizarre. RT @smotus Be sure to check out this slideshow of paintings of presidents holding hams http://bit.ly/dqIS3N | |||||||||
 Enik Rising: Presidents and their hams | ||||||||||
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| Slate article on poli sci research into partisan bias in economic perceptions http://j.mp/cbFOHR (via John Sides) | |||||||||
 How's the economy doing? Depends on which party you belong to. - By Lee Drutman - Slate MagazineBetween 2008 and 2010, a seemingly remarkable transformation took place among voters who say their financial situation has gotten worse in the last two years: They became Republicans. Specifical... | ||||||||||
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| RT @benpolitico Thune's big vulnerability is being the last best hope of the Establishment // Also his greatest strength: http://j.mp/c6zu42 | |||||||||
The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform (Chicago Studies in American Politics) | ||||||||||
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| Reverse supply-side claims also false - raising taxes doesn't decrease revenue http://j.mp/bSK215 | |||||||||
| PolitiFact | Mike Pence says raising taxes lowers tax revenues On one side, we have David Stockman, the budget director for President Ronald Reagan. On the other, it's Rep. Mike Pence, the conservative Indiana Republican and potential presidential candi... | ||||||||||
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| Paging Phil Tetlock! RT @mmfa look at pundits' electoral predictions http://bit.ly/ao63Cc (via @daveweigel) | |||||||||
| Election scorecard: Evaluating pundits' electoral predictions | Media Matters for America | ||||||||||
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| UGA 2010 midterm elections conference http://j.mp/akTo3W Will be streamed all day on Friday at http://j.mp/dnWMlb (requires Silverlight) | |||||||||
| UGA Links - Department of Political Science | ||||||||||
| Casscade Streaming Media Server | ||||||||||
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| Very slick maps of presidential voting by county from 1920 to 2008 from my friend David Sparks http://j.mp/bD408p | |||||||||
| Choropleth Maps of Presidential Voting « David B. Sparks | ||||||||||
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| Not from The Onion: "'Liberal Fascism' Author Annoyed About Fascist Name-Calling" http://j.mp/ddYKQ3 | |||||||||
| 'Liberal Fascism' Author Annoyed About Fascist Name-Calling | The New Republic The New Republic covers politics, culture, and the arts with a focus on the White House, foreign policy, Congress, Capitol Hill, the 2010 midterm elections, literature, and more. | ||||||||||
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| "Economical Crime Control": More certainty of punishment (not severity), more private cooperation, more human capital $ http://j.mp/bX0dbr | |||||||||
| Economical Crime Control | ||||||||||
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November 12, 2010
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About Me
I am an assistant professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College. I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at Duke University in 2009 and served as a RWJ Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan from 2009-2011. I also tweet at @BrendanNyhan and serve as a media critic for Columbia Journalism Review. Previously, I co-edited Spinsanity, a non-partisan watchdog of political spin, and co-authored All the President's Spin. For more, see my bio or academic website.
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The soft-balling of items that deserve criticism might more appropriately be called New York Times-ification. Considier this recent AP article:
Edited spill report stains White House credibility
Associated Press, by Dina Cappiello
The oil spill that damaged the Gulf of Mexico's reefs and wetlands is also threatening to stain the Obama administration's reputation for relying on science to guide policy.
Academics, environmentalists and federal investigators have accused the administration since the April spill of downplaying scientific findings, misrepresenting data and most recently misconstruing the opinions of experts it solicited. (Snip)
The latest complaint from scientists comes in a report by the Interior Department's inspector general, which concluded that the White House edited a drilling safety report in a way that made it falsely appear that scientists and experts supported the administration's six-month ban on new deep-water drilling.
This is an important story. It's a scandal for the White House to falsify a scientific report. And, the drilling moratorium put thousands of people out of work. It did significant damage to the economy of the Gulf region.
How did the New York Times report on the report by the Interior Department's inspector general? They ignored it completely!
Posted by: David in Cal | November 12, 2010 at 10:43 AM
Drutman gives two examples that purportedly show bias by both Republicans and Democrats. In fact, they show only Democratic bias. The Republican beliefs were accurate, while the Dems beliefs were not.
The examples are:
1. Between 1980 and 1988, inflation fell from about 14 percent to about 4 percent. But when asked what had happened to inflation over Reagan's two terms, more than half of "strong" Democrats insisted that inflation had gotten somewhat or much worse over that period, whereas only 8 percent said it had gotten better. For "strong" Republicans, it was pretty much the exact opposite.
2. Shortly after the election of 2006, when Democrats took back control of Congress, Democratic voters reported significantly higher optimism about their economic future, as compared with just before the election. Republican voters, meanwhile, turned pessimistic.
In both cases, the Republican belief matched reality.
Posted by: David in Cal | November 12, 2010 at 11:41 AM
The question, David, is which elites spread the myth that inflation increased under Reagan. When I asked this question in September about other myths believed by large portions of the public, Brendan responded that "the fact that I said that elites played a role in spreading the Obama Muslim myth doesn't mean I believe all myths are spread by elites -- there's obviously a lot of variance in the manner by which misperceptions spread." That leaves open the question, however, how one determines which myths are spread by elites and which occur as a result of other factors. Anecdotal evidence, especially of mentions on programs watched by few people or articles read by even fewer, is a poor substitute for scientific proof of causality.
I continue to believe that many such misperceptions represent more of a reflexive proxy for opposition to a particular politician or party--i.e., symbolic beliefs--than to respondents' being actually misinformed about the facts.
Posted by: Rob | November 12, 2010 at 02:29 PM
You may be right, Rob. I theorize that media bias also plays a role by failing to correct myths that hurt conservatives.
It's incredible that many Dems thought inflation had gotten worse, when it had actually dropped all the way from 14% to 4%. I agree that specific elites may have spread the false story. However, I suspect also that the Dem-leaning main stream media had not given sufficient credit and praise to the Reagan Administration for this remarkable achievement.
For another example, how many people believe that Bush enacted tax cuts for the rich? The reality is that Bush cut taxes for everyone paying federal income tax. The cuts in the lower brackets were a larger percentage of FIT than the cuts in the higher brackets.
Lots of Bush critics were pushing the story that Bush's tax cuts were only for the rich. (The phrase "tax cuts for the rich" gets almost 7 million google hits.) However, I also blame the Dem-leaning main stream media for failing to adequately correct this myth. They didn't want to give Bush credit for helping the working poor and middle class.
Posted by: David in Cal | November 12, 2010 at 04:26 PM