Twitter roundup

From my Twitter feed (2/28-3/4) Brendan Nyhan Mar 4, 2011 at 5:19 pm
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	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan RT @willwilkinson The Case of the Missing Conservative Social Psychologists http://bit.ly/hoxqWC
	The Case of the Missing Conservative Social Psychologists That’s the first post at my new Forbes blog on subjects at the intersection of psychology, economics, and politics. The blog’s called Prefrontal Nudity, because, um, I’ll be laying bare the sour...
	Mar 4, 2011 at 3:15 pm
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Harry Reid revives Dem claims of intentional GOP economic sabotage: http://j.mp/hQYQLB This was a popular meme last year: http://j.mp/gg3nXn
	Liberal claims of GOP economic sabotage proliferate - Brendan Nyhan As I repeatedly pointed out during the Bush years, Republican officials and conservative pundits frequently suggested that Democrats were betraying the country after 9/11. In particular, many su...
	Harry Reid: Republicans ‘Fixated on Destroying Our Government, Our Economy’ | CNSnews.com Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., accompanied by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) - Senate Maj...
	Mar 4, 2011 at 3:14 pm
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Chris Matthews out of control, compares Newt Gingrich to a car bomber and torturer http://j.mp/h4Txvj
	New Tone? Chris Matthews says Newt Gingrich 'looks like a car bomber!' 'Hardball' host says voters don't like Gingrich and probably won’t vote for him
	Mar 4, 2011 at 3:10 pm
	benpolitico Ben Smith Sherrod Brown compares GOP anti-union efforts to ... wait for it ... Hitler! http://is.gd/ZPCviZ
	Sherrod Brown: Like Hitler... - Ben Smith Sherrod Brown notes that Hitler and Stalin were also anti-union. Wonders the source who sent this one over: "When will politicians ever figure out that you never – ever – invoke Hitler, Nazis or...
	Mar 3, 2011 at 8:36 pm
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan First Huckabee plays madrassa card, now Wash Times: "Obama is enabling jihad" http://j.mp/eMniYk It's 2008 all over again.
	EDITORIAL: Obama is enabling jihad - Washington Times Al Qaeda and Iran are cheering on the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East, so why does the Obama administration think the Islamic extremists are losing?
	Mar 4, 2011 at 2:34 pm
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Headline of the day RT @mjbommar Jersey Shore's "J-Woww" a Leading Cause of Viruses http://bit.ly/eR1U2E
	Web Security Report: Jersey Shore's "J-Woww" a Leading Cause of Viruses | Fast Company You may be surprised to learn that in the digital world, "Jenni J-Woww" is just as likely to lead to infection.
	Mar 4, 2011 at 1:42 am
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan British media group exposes recycled PR in the UK press ("Churnalism"): http://j.mp/gHbPnc Who's going to do a US version?
	Churnalism Exposed : CJR A new website identifies press release copy in the news Churnalism, Daily Mirror, Daily Telegraph, Martin Moore, Media Standards Trust, press releases Digg Facebook Reddit StumbleUpon Delicious ...
	Mar 3, 2011 at 9:28 pm
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan New psychology study provides more evidence of the difficulty of correcting false information http://j.mp/eWqfB5
	http://www.psy.uwa.edu.au/Users%20web%20pages/cogscience/documents/Ecker.IP2011.PBR.pdf
	Mar 3, 2011 at 5:07 pm
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan As @mattyglesias says, gaffes and other campaign events rarely matter http://j.mp/fo4j34 See http://j.mp/gfeP3v and http://j.mp/hlFRRI
	Yglesias » The Gaffe Effect Mark Kleiman, reflecting on Mike Huckabee’s apparent belief that Barack Obama grew up in Kenya, says “That even Huckabee fell into this trap in the context of a friendly interview with a right-w...
	Why Obama Won: Campaign Dogs that Didn't Bark, Part 1 Awhileback,InotedsomeofthemanyinterestingtidbitsinDanBalzandHaynesJohnson'sbookonthe2008election,_TheBattleforAmerica_.Nowit'stimetodealwithitsproblems.It'salittleunfairtopickonthisbookinparticu...
	Why Obama Won: Campaign Dogs that Didn't Bite, Part 2 Followingonmyearlierpost,IwanttoexaminethreemoremomentsinthecampaignthatDanBalzandHaynesJohnsonseeassignificant.Indeed,Ithinkmanyobserversthoughtthesemoments
	Mar 3, 2011 at 5:05 pm
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Highly underrated factor in cable's influence MT @mattyglesias Good news! "Plouffe... keeps his office TV turned off." http://ygl.as/eJemGL
	After White House Staff Shifts, a Calmer Discipline Prevails - NYTimes.com With the departures of Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, a calmer discipline prevails.
	Mar 3, 2011 at 4:22 pm
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Are the rich better represented? New NBER paper says no http://j.mp/htoHXd but surtax on rich DOA despite 81% support http://j.mp/hpzJ99
	Does Less Income Mean Less Representation? Contrary to popular opinion, we find evidence that the views of residents of both higher and lower income neighborhoods are represented by their legislators. Analyzing the voting behavior of Cal...
	First Read - First Thoughts: Chased by a tiger NBC/WSJ poll suggests GOP is caught between a cliff (independents who might not like deep budget cuts) and a charging tiger (a Tea Party that does)… What’s popular and unpopular to cut… The poll...
	Mar 3, 2011 at 3:44 pm
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan In fairness, NBER paper I cited which questions thesis that rich are better represented doesn't look at agenda-setting http://j.mp/htoHXd
	Does Less Income Mean Less Representation? Contrary to popular opinion, we find evidence that the views of residents of both higher and lower income neighborhoods are represented by their legislators. Analyzing the voting behavior of Cal...
	Mar 3, 2011 at 8:04 pm
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan New poll on budget misperceptions -- estimated costs of foreign aid & waste/fraud too high as usual http://j.mp/hEfqJJ (via @mattyglesias)
	http://j.mp/hEfqJJ
	Mar 3, 2011 at 2:50 pm
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Media Matters: "Fox & Friends Unethically Pushes Dubious 'Autism Cure'" http://j.mp/eIe2px cc: @sethmnookin
	Fox & Friends Unethically Pushes Dubious "Autism Cure" | Media Matters for America March 02, 2011 1:08 pm ET — hosted Kenneth Bock, a doctor who purports to be able to treat autism through a change in dietary habits, and Michael Larsen, the owner of a product made from ferment...
	Mar 3, 2011 at 2:44 pm
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan When bad regressions lead to mistaken causal inferences -- effects of Medicaid edition http://j.mp/ibNwIN
	Medicaid and health outcomes (again) | The Incidental Economist Avik Roy has read and posted about the papers I reviewed as part of my Medicaid-IV series. If you've forgotten, the purpose of that series of posts was to
	Mar 3, 2011 at 2:20 pm
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Whatever Pawlenty pays for his videos, it's not enough--compare http://j.mp/fQfD7d http://j.mp/hkpRXm to the real thing: http://j.mp/hjreYq
	Pawlenty Courts The Tea Party With New Campaign Video Tim Pawlenty continues his Michael Bay-like metamorphosis, releasing yet another video, this time lauding the Tea Party as "a great addition to the conservative coalition and the coalition for c...
	Tim Pawlenty Releases Action Movie Campaign Trailer (VIDEO) Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty has posted a new Web video, promoting his soon to be presidential campaign. Or should we say, he's posted a movie trailer.
	Mar 2, 2011 at 1:54 pm
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan "Aliens of extraordinary ability" sounds like a comic book, not an immigration provision http://j.mp/eZnSM9
	Celine Dion Bodyguard Seeks Special U.S. Visa - NYTimes.com Celine Dion’s bodyguard says his skills are so special that he should get a permanent residency visa from the United States. The government disagrees.
	Mar 2, 2011 at 12:43 pm
	GrahamDavidA David A. Graham Today in paradoxical, self-defeating gestures. RT @nationaljournal Ignore @SarahPalinUSA Petition hits 32K signatures http://njour.nl/ehdBgT
	NationalJournal.com - Petition to 'Ignore Sarah Palin' Surpasses 32,000 Signatures - Tuesday, March 1, 2011 National Journal delivers the latest political news and analysis. An online petition by Left Action Network seeking to declare “Ignore Sarah Palin Week” through March 5 has almost reached its go...
	Mar 1, 2011 at 3:13 pm
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Fascinating interview about Qaddafi's Libya with my future colleague Dirk Vandewalle on @nprfreshair http://j.mp/e75T64
	Dirk Vandewalle Peers Inside Gadhafi's World : NPR Dirk Vandewalle, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth College, gives an inside look at Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and his 42-year rule. Vandewalle has studied and written about L...
	Mar 1, 2011 at 2:15 pm
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Excellent @SteveKornacki analysis of how shifting CW on Obama's 2012 prospects mirrors Reagan and Clinton http://j.mp/gOaODs
	War Room: Why Republicans are suddenly afraid of Obama After their midterm triumph, you'd think they'd be lining up for a chance to run against him. But they're not
	Mar 1, 2011 at 2:07 pm
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan .@mattyglesias on dual threat to economy (and Obama) from oil -- direct effect + possible pretext for monetary tightening http://j.mp/h7SFsh
	Yglesias » The Dual Oil Threats When people talk about the risk posed to the economy by oil price spikes it’s worth keeping in mind the fact that there are really two separate threats here. One is that expensive oil is a negat...
	Feb 28, 2011 at 8:12 pm

Comments

[Rob]

The poor leader of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya ( ‏الجماهيرية العربية الليبية الشعبية الاشتراكية العظمى‎). It's no wonder he's unstable. Not only did he fail to win promotion above the rank of colonel, but he also suffers from the disorienting experience of having his name spelled every which way. Putting aside the whole "al-" or "el-" controversy, consider the spellings of his first and last name:

• New York Times, Fox News, CBS News, Encyclopedia Britannica, The Economist, the White House, the Arab League, Brendan Nyhan: Muammar Qaddafi
• Wall Street Journal, CNN, MSNBC, ABC News, AP: Moammar Gadhafi
• Washington Post: Moammar Gaddafi
• Los Angeles Times: Moammar Kadafi
• Wikipedia, Time Magazine, BBC: Muammar Gaddafi
• United Nations, State Department, Congressional Research Service, CIA World Factbook: Muammar Qadhafi

Note that even the White House and the State Department can't agree on how to spell the man's name. Or are they simply engaged in PsyOps?

Meanwhile, after recent events in Egypt I couldn't help thinking wistfully about King Farouk, who was deposed at the instigation of the CIA pursuant to its delightfully named Project FF.

[David in Cal]

If we take those Medicaid studies at face value, we should be very upset. One expert says Medicaid patients do worse than if they were uninsured. The other expert says that there is no credible evidence that Medicaid is worse for health than being uninsured. So, it seems that, at best, Medicaid is useless.

Obamacare will add millions of people to Medicaid. Given the inevitable government cash squeeze, chances are Medicaid will perform worse in the future than it does now. State budgets are already being devastated by the cost of Medicaid. Their cost will rise substantally when Obamacare's millions are added to the program. So, it appears that we are bankrupting our state governments for a program that doesn't do any good.

[David in Cal]

Matt Yglesias assures us that "Nothing about political upheaval in Libya implies that America’s on the verge of a wage-price spiral with unemployment over 9 percent." But, how credible is Yglesias's opinion is on economic matters? He graduated from Harvard, so he must be smart, but his degree was in philosphy.

Yglesias thinks high unemployment will prevent high inflation. He's too young to remember the Jimmy Carter stagflation. Unfortunately, I think a repeat is quite possible.

[JP]

T-Paw will get my vote if his future ads are less like Armageddon trailer and more like the Green Lantern trailer.

[David in Cal]

Kudos to Media Matters for their critique of Fox News' presentation of a quack autism cure.

[Rob]

Au contraire, David, boos to Media Matters for its headline: "Fox & Friends Unethically Pushes Dubious 'Autism Cure'". Giving airtime to this promoter may have shown poor judgment, and it may not have been good journalism, but there's nothing in the Media Matters article to suggest that anything Fox & Friends did was unethical. If Fox was profiting from the sale of the snake oil, that would have been unethical. If it was paid to let the quack appear and didn't disclose it, that would have been unethical. But simply doing a story about something isn't unethical--and it's unlikely Media Matters would have thought so unless the object of its scorn was Fox. (Note that failure to disclose his financial interest may have been unethical on the part of the quack, but that's different from Fox acting unethically.)

Similarly, we are obliged to conclude that Media Matters' headline may have been meretricious and biased, but it wasn't unethical.

[David in Cal]

For some reason, autism leads many parents to believe in invalid theories. Millions of infants aren't being vaccinated today because of a sham study supposedly relating vaccines to autism. Until fairly recently, many parents of autistic children and even many therapists were taken in by Facilitated Communication. So, I fear that a sham autism cure will find a willing audience. I regret that FNC gave air time to this quack.

However, Rob has a point. "Unethical" is probably the wrong word. Just as FNC disseminated Dr. Bock's quack medicine, Brendan disseminated Matt Yglesias's quack economics in his tweet above. The word "unethical" wouldn't be used to to describe Brendan's tweet, so I suppose that word is equally inapproprate for the FNC broadcast.