Brendan Nyhan

Bill Kristol cites a report by the “journalist” Ronald Kessler in today’s New York Times claiming that Barack Obama attended an incendiary sermon by Jeremiah Wright on July 22, 2007:

It certainly could be the case that Obama personally didn’t hear Wright’s 2003 sermon when he proclaimed: “The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, not God bless America, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people. … God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human.”

But Ronald Kessler, a journalist who has written about Wright’s ministry, claims that Obama was in fact in the pews at Trinity last July 22. That’s when Wright blamed the “arrogance” of the “United States of White America” for much of the world’s suffering, especially the oppression of blacks.

What Bill Kristol doesn’t tell you is that Kessler writes for Newsmax, the shady right-wing tabloid site. And as Marc Ambinder points out (via Josh Marshall), Kessler’s report is contradicted by documentary evidence showing that Obama was in Miami that day (it has also been denied by the Obama campaign).

PS If you want a sense of what Newsmax is like, check out this excerpt from Spinsanity on the website’s Deck of Weasels trading card set:

The most explicit comparisons [to Iraqi leaders depicted on the now-famous deck of cards issued by the Pentagon to troops in Iraq to help them identify top Iraqi officials], however, have been made by NewsMax.com and Greenpeace, who have both issued their own decks of cards featuring their political enemies. The NewsMax includes a picture of a politician or celebrity doctored to include a beret bearing the logo of the Iraqi Republican Guard and a “quote revealing his anti-American, pro-Saddam ranting”. Prominently featured are French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac as the Ace of Spades (Saddam Hussein’s position in the Pentagon deck) and “Sen. Robert ‘KKK’ Byrd” as the Ace of Diamonds.

This is who Bill Kristol is citing on the New York Times op-ed page.

Update 3/17 2:11 PM: Via Greg Sargent, Kristol has corrected his column:

In this column, I cite a report that Sen. Obama had attended services at Trinity Church on July 22, 2007. The Obama campaign has provided information showing that Sen. Obama did not attend Trinity that day. I regret the error.

James Joyner questions my criticism of Newsmax, citing Kessler’s credentials as a reporter, but I think the institutional association tarnishes any such credentials. More importantly, the original article depends not on Kessler’s reporting but on the word of a “freelance correspondent” that Kessler concedes may have gotten the date wrong (via Michael Crowley):

[T]he Obama campaign said the senator was not present at the July 22 service.

A few minutes ago, Kessler told us by telephone that “the NewsMax editors have talked with Jim Davis” and “he might have been wrong about the date.”

Davis, Kessler added, “says he could have been wrong about the date, but it definitely happened.”

Kessler added that he’s confident about the rest of Davis’ reporting because “I was impressed by the details he had.” Asked if getting the date wrong isn’t something that would raise questions about the rest of a reporter’s work, Kessler said no. And he said that “in general, (Obama’s) claim that he doesn’t know anything about these sermons is ridiculous.”

Kessler said NewsMax will be posting a new story about this shortly.

The site has also posted a vague “clarification”:

The Obama campaign has told members of the press that Senator Obama was not in church on the day cited, July 22, because he had a speech he gave in Miami at 1:30 PM. Our writer, Jim Davis, says he attended several services at Senator Obama’s church during the month of July, including July 22. The church holds services three times every Sunday at 7:30 and 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. Central time. While both the early morning and evening service allowed Sen. Obama to attend the service and still give a speech in Miami, Mr. Davis stands by his story that during one of the services he attended during the month of July, Senator Obama was present and sat through the sermon given by Rev. Wright as described in the story. Mr. Davis said Secret Service were also present in the church during Senator Obama’s attendance. Mr. Davis’ story was first published on Newsmax on August 9, 2007. Shortly before publication, Mr. Davis contacted the press office of Sen. Obama several times for comment about the Senator’s attendance and Rev. Wright’s comments during his sermon. The Senator’s office declined to comment.

I love this quote — a state representative from Kentucky admits that his bill banning anonymous blog comments is probably unconstitutional:

In response to a constituent whose high school daughter had been the target of derogatory comments online, Tim Couch, a state representative for Kentucky’s 90th District, filed a bill to make it mandatory for people to register before posting to a blog.

“I’m not pursuing the bill, because it’s probably unconstitutional,” Mr. Couch said, “but the way I was looking at it, people who say something bad should have the guts to have their names attached.”

Like Matthew Yglesias, I’m a non-economist without much to say about the ongoing financial meltdown, but one recommendation I can make is that you should read The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It is by far the best thing I have read about the ways in which humans — and particularly arrogant hedge fund types — fail to understand and account for risk. I recommend reading it with CNBC on in the background tomorrow…

Via Greg Mankiw, outgoing National Bureau of Economic Research president Martin Feldstein is worried that the United States is in for a nasty recession:

The United States is in a recession that could be “substantially more severe” than recent ones, National Bureau of Economic Research President Martin Feldstein said on Friday.

“The situation is very bad, the situation is getting worse, and the risks are that it could get very bad,” Feldstein said in a speech at the Futures Industry Association meeting in Boca Raton, Florida…

Answering questions from the audience, Feldstein said the downturn could be the worst in the United States since World War Two.

If Feldstein is right, what are the political consequences? The last recession we had at the end of a president’s term was Jimmy Carter (January-July 1980) and the result was an election that was perceived as a massive repudiation of Carter and his policies. Ronald Reagan’s election — while not a popular vote landslide — was seen as a “mandate” election that led many Democrats to deviate from their usual voting patterns to support his early legislative program (see Mandate Politics by Grossback, Peterson, and Stimson for more).

While President Bush obviously isn’t up for re-election, it’s not hard to imagine that his already low approval ratings might go even lower, dragging down John McCain. The recession will also create an extremely unfavorable issue environment for McCain, who has admitted to knowing little about economics.

Under these circumstances, is a “mandate” election possible for a Democratic president? Maybe, although I suspect that the Democrats will lose a couple of percentage points from their popular vote margin due to their historically unprecedented choice of an African American or female nominee.

But this presidency still isn’t some great prize for the Democrats. Even if they have a “mandate” for a few months, George W. Bush has created an almost impossible set of problems for the next president. Is there a historical precedent for a president leaving so many unsustainable policies to his successor? The exhaustion of the overstretched military will eventually require the troop surge in Iraq to come to an end. Our strategic failure in Iraq will require a humiliating and potentially bloody withdrawal. The situation is Afghanistan is deteriorating. The financial system is in near-collapse. Medicare is on an unsustainable financial course. And President Bush’s backloaded tax cuts for the wealthy are scheduled to expire in 2010, setting up the next president to be accused of raising taxes.

These are the kinds of circumstances that make one-term presidents. The Democrats may be excited about their prospects in 2008, but things will get a whole lot harder for whoever wins on Inauguration Day.

I don’t think anyone is clamoring for Jesse Ventura to launch a third party presidential campaign, but he’s apparently using it to try to sell copies of his fourth (!) book Don’t Start the Revolution Without Me!:

To hear Jesse Ventura tell it, he’s either out to become president or an expatriate.

In the opening to his fourth book, due out April 1, the former wrestler and governor of Minnesota writes: “As I begin to write this book, I’m facing probably the most monumental decision of my 56 years on this planet. Will I run for president of the United States, as an independent, in 2008? Or will I stay as far away from the fray as possible, in a place with no electricity, on a remote beach in Mexico?”

…The epilogue of the book imagines eight months of 2008 headlines, as Ventura decides to run on a “WWE independent ticket.” Ventura envisions “shoving McMahon off to the side” and announcing his candidacy before 70,000 fans at the 24th annual WrestleMania. Which must mean he can’t be serious.

Um, yes.

Let me join Matthew Yglesias and others in reiterating what I’ve said before — primary election performance is not predictive of general election outcomes. Pundits: Stop doing this!

Here’s a good example of why this approach is incorrect from TNR’s Josh Patashnik:

John King on CNN just pointed out that Clinton did better in more Republican parts of Mississippi, and implied that this might mean that Clinton would do better among Republicans in November. This is patently the wrong conclusion to draw, and is a good demonstration of the perils of attempting to predict general-election outcomes based on primary results. Obviously, whites voted heavily for Clinton, and white areas of the state support Republicans in presidential elections–thanks to the votes of people who don’t vote in Democratic primaries. Clinton’s strong showing in these parts of the state doesn’t demonstrate anything about the preferences of a single Mississippi Republican. This is a simple enough point that CNN should be able to convey it to viewers.

Jay Cost makes a similar point in his blog on Real Clear Politics:

[A] reader writes in with the following question:

I’ve been hearing a lot lately that since Hillary won battleground states of OH, FL, and MI (and will probably win Pennsylvania) then she is better positioned to win those states in the general election. But is this actually true?

Not necessarily. Clinton’s flacks can indeed be seen on the airwaves arguing this point – but in so doing they are committing an inferential error. What they are assuming is that because partisan Democrats (her core support group) in a given state support Clinton over Obama – the entire state will. This need not be the case. It could just as easily be that Independents and persuadable Republicans would prefer Obama to Clinton in those swing states. So, in an ironic twist, Clinton would win the primary but not the general. Perhaps the Clinton campaign wishes to argue that Obama could not win in the general the voters she has won in the primary. Maybe – but the primaries alone do not indicate whether that is the case.

Obama’s supporters have made their own errors. For instance, one can often find them arguing that his primary strength with self-identified Republicans is evidence of an advantage in the general. By themselves, primary results cannot indicate this. The only data we have on these voters is their self-identification. We do not have histories of how they voted in general elections. To argue that Obama’s margins among self-identified Republicans is a sign of strength in the general, they would have to show that these voters are typically reliable votes for Republicans in the general who are being wooed away from their party. We cannot assume that this is the case. Remember that there is always a portion of each party that votes for the other side. So, these voters might actually be reliable Democratic supporters who see themselves as Republicans (lots of people see themselves that way…”I vote for the person, not the party” – but it always seems to be that the better person is of the same party!). In that case, their support for Obama does not necessarily portend general election strength.

As Cost points out, it’s also not true that the higher Democratic turnout in the primaries (relative to Republicans) implies anything about general election outcomes:

Even when we exempt the years in which the Republican Party had non-competitive contests (1972, 1984 and 2004), the Democrats typically out-perform the GOP. Pulling in 62.2% of the primary vote [the current total for Democrats] is no unique feat for the Democrats. 1996 is telling. Bill Clinton had no serious challenge while Bob Dole faced a protracted battle against multiple opponents. And yet the GOP still only pulled in 55% of the primary vote.

Another key year is 1988. This is the best apples-to-apples comparison of 2008 that there is. That year, both parties had open nomination battles. The Democrats out-performed the GOP by a margin larger than what they have done this year, pulling in a little more than 65% of the total primary vote. Did it do them any good in the general? No. George H.W. Bush beat Michael Dukakis, 54% to 46%.

Finally, smart pundits like Noam Scheiber and Yglesias are speculating that Obama could put states like Kansas, Montana, and the Dakotas in play, but that’s just unrealistic. Obama’s primary support in “red states” and his appeal to independents doesn’t mean he’s going to put heavily Republican states into play in the general election, as his supporters have suggested:

Mr. Obama has been toting up his victories to suggest a striking range of popularity in states that usually fall outside the Democratic electoral map. Yet though these states have helped give him a lead in pledged delegates, it appears far from likely that he would be able to carry some of them in a general election.

Kansas, Mississippi and Wyoming, for instance, tend to be reliably Republican states for that party’s presidential nominees. And his big victories in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina were based in large part on black Democrats coming out in droves to support an African-American candidate.

“Most of those states haven’t voted Democratic in a presidential since the Johnson landslide over Goldwater in 1964, and we don’t see that changing,” said Harold Ickes, a senior adviser to Mrs. Clinton. “They’re great states, but Idaho, Nebraska and the Carolinas are not going to be in the Democratic column in November. He’s winning the Democratic process, but that is virtually irrelevant to the general election.”

Look deeper, the Obama campaign contends, and there is another argument in his favor in traditionally non-Democratic states: He has drawn more votes from independents and Republicans than Mrs. Clinton has. But it is unclear whether independents and some Republicans in swing states or Republican-leaning states would choose him over Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee.

The list of battleground states may change on the margin, but in the end it’s going to look pretty similar to 2004. And if Obama’s the nominee, he’ll be focusing all his resources on those states in the end just like every previous nominee.

Via Bob Somerby, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews demonstrates his staggering ignorance about policy issues:

During the March 11 edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, guest Chris Matthews asserted that in order to “get something done in this country,” politicians need to “do the surprising move that grabs the center” and that “if a Democrat were smart, who gets elected president, they wouldn’t go back to the old Canadian model … single-payer model.” In fact, neither Sen. Barack Obama nor Sen. Hillary Clinton has proposed a health-care plan that resembles the Canadian health-care system or a “single-payer model.” Matthews also suggested that the Democratic candidates should “take something that looks practical out of Massachusetts with [former Gov.] Mitt Romney [R] … and put [their] name on it” and “try some kind of mandated benefit.” However, Obama’s and Clinton’s health-care proposals both include “mandated benefit[s],” and Clinton’s plan has drawn comparisons to the plan Romney implemented in Massachusetts.

Contrary to Matthews’ suggestion, the health-care plans proposed by Obama and Clinton do not follow the “Canadian model,” which provides federally funded and managed universal health insurance. Obama’s health-care plan does not require the government to manage or fund health insurance for all Americans; rather, his plan allows individuals to keep — and pay for — their private health insurance if they so choose, while establishing “a new public insurance program, available to Americans who neither qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP [the State Children’s Health Insurance Program] nor have access to insurance through their employers, as well as to small businesses that want to offer insurance to their employees.”

Despite my extremely low opinion of Matthews, this is still staggering. He’s on TV every day and he has no idea what the Democrats are proposing on the most important domestic policy issue in this election. None!

To paraphrase Brad DeLong’s saying about Bush, Matthews is worse than I imagined possible, even after taking into account the fact that he is worse than I imagined possible. But as Somerby (obsessively) points out, most pundits won’t say anything about him because they want to go on “Hardball” and raise their profile.

Yale’s Donald P. Green and Alan S. Gerber, the co-authors of the voter turnout study (PDF) I mentioned last week, are releasing the second edition of their book Get Out the Vote: How to Increase Voter Turnout. There will be a seminar on the book and its findings at the Brookings Institution next Thursday for those who are interested:

The Brookings Institution Press will host a discussion of voter mobilization based on the findings of the book Get Out the Vote: How to Increase Voter Turnout, Second edition. Since the publication of the first edition of this book, more than 100 new studies have been conducted in real electoral settings across the United States. Co-authors Donald P. Green and Alan S. Gerber will summarize the latest findings and explain how they affect organizing the grass roots and getting out the vote.

The event will shed new light on the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of campaign tactics—door-to-door canvassing, e-mail, direct mail and telephone calls—as well as tactics that were not discussed in the first edition, such as Election Day festivals and radio and television ads. Professors Green and Gerber will examine the challenge of voter mobilization and the effectiveness of mass media campaigns and events. Their analysis questions much of the conventional wisdom about what works and what does not in political campaigns.

Event Information
When
Thursday, March 20, 2008
3:00 PM to 5:00 PM

Where
Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

Via Mark Thoma, Douglas Hibbs has updated the 2008 forecast of his respected “Bread and Peace” model of presidential election outcomes and the news is good for Democrats (IE-only link):

Presidential election outcomes are well explained by just two objectively measured fundamental determinants: (1) weighted-average growth of per capita real personal disposable income over the term, and (2) cumulative US military fatalities owing to unprovoked, hostile deployments of American armed forces in foreign conflicts not sanctioned by a formal Congressional declaration of war. At the end of 2007 weighted-average growth of real incomes during Bush’s second term stood at 1.1 percent per annum. If the same performance were sustained for the rest of the term it might barely suffice to keep the Republicans in the White House, other things being equal. However the economy slid into recession at the beginning of the year and per capita real incomes will most likely decline throughout 2008. Moreover, by Election Day cumulative US military fatalities in Iraq will approach 4,500 and this will depress the incumbent vote by more than three-quarters of a percentage point. Given those fundamental conditions the Bread and Peace model predicts a Republican two-party vote share of 46-47% and therefore a comfortable victory for the Democrats in the 2008 presidential election.

This projection represents a substantial improvement for Democrats relative to Lane Kenworthy’s previous estimate from the Hibbs model of approximately 50% (which I blogged about at the time).

Via Ezra Klein (among many others), the 1990s comic Sinbad has resurfaced to contradict Hillary Clinton’s claims of foreign policy experience:

Finally, the Barack Obama campaign has found a big gun to help shoot down Hillary Rodham Clinton’s self-proclaimed foreign policy experience. And he may be the wackiest gun of all: Sinbad, the actor, who has come out from under a rock to defend Obama in the war over foreign policy credentials.

Sinbad, along with singer Sheryl Crow, was on that 1996 trip to Bosnia that Clinton has described as a harrowing international experience that makes her tested and ready to answer a 3 a.m. phone call at the White House on day one, a claim for which she’s taking much grief on the campaign trail.

Harrowing? Not that Sinbad recalls. He just remembers it being a USO tour to buck up the troops amid a much worse situation than he had imagined between the Bosnians and Serbs.

In an interview with the Sleuth Monday, he said the “scariest” part of the trip was wondering where he’d eat next. “I think the only ‘red-phone’ moment was: ‘Do we eat here or at the next place.’”

Clinton, during a late December campaign appearance in Iowa, described a hair-raising corkscrew landing in war-torn Bosnia, a trip she took with her then-teenage daughter, Chelsea. “They said there might be sniper fire,” Clinton said.

Threat of bullets? Sinbad doesn’t remember that, either.

“I never felt that I was in a dangerous position. I never felt being in a sense of peril, or ‘Oh, God, I hope I’m going to be OK when I get out of this helicopter or when I get out of his tank.’”

In her Iowa stump speech, Clinton also said, “We used to say in the White House that if a place is too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the First Lady.”

Say what? As Sinbad put it: “What kind of president would say, ‘Hey, man, I can’t go ’cause I might get shot so I’m going to send my wife…oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.’”

As Jon Chait writes, “When your main campaign theme is foreign policy experience, and that experience is persuasively refuted by a comedian, it’s time to find a new theme.”

I have nothing else to add; I just think it’s hilarious that Sinbad has become relevant to the campaign. Who’s next? Carrot Top? Gallagher?