Twitter roundup

Comments

[David in Cal]

Suppose Sarah Palin declaimed that the residents of Washington D.C. were wrong about some local issue and were "crazy zealots" for holding their opinion. The nicest response would be to point out that Washingtonians know more about Washington D.C. than someone from Alaska does.

I think it's comparable situation when Brinkley blasts the majority of Alaskans who suport drilling in ANWR. However, arrogant big-city mice always think they know better than country mice, even about rural issues.

[Rob]

Though not included in his list of tweets (which omits retweets), Brendan retweeted Jay Rosen's link to a Columbia Journalism Review article pointing out that the Wall Street Journal had declined to publish Professor Klein's offered follow-up column to his flawed 2010 piece. The CJR writer did not report whether Professor Klein offered to write the follow-up piece for the WSJ gratis, or whether he wanted to, you know, get paid for it. Because it would be hard to fault the WSJ for not considering Professor Klein's second thoughts as entitling him to another publication fee. In fact, it would have been honorable for him to return the publication fee for the original op-ed column. Look for that to happen while staying on the alert for flying pigs.

[Rob]

Professor Klein graciously responded to an inquiry from me that he didn't receive any fee for the initial WSJ op-ed, and presumably wouldn't have received any for a follow-up op-ed. So as to my previous comment, in the words of Emily Litella, "Never mind."

[JP]

Someone needs to collect 1000 volunteers. Randomly select 500 of them and require them to watch Fox News 1 hour a day for one year and require the remaining 500 to not watch Fox News for one year. Is there grant money out there for a project like this?

[David in Cal]

Thomas Friedman says that Obama should have promoted the Simpson-Bowles plan to reduce the deficit. I agree. I think with Presidential leadership, some version of it would have passed with bilateral support.

However, I don't like the idea of a delayed Simpson-Bowles combined with an immediate "stimulus." "Stimulus" is pretty much defined in Washington as "deficit spending." The policies of Presidents Bush and Obama have put us into the midst of perhaps the greatest "stimulus" in history, and it appears to be an unending "stimulus." The last thing we need is even more deficit spending.

I not trust our elected representatives in Washington to cut some "temporary stimulus." I think any new "stimulus" would simply add that much more permanent government spending and make the ongoing deficit even worse.

[bnyhan]

JP, someone should do an experiment like this, but it's very difficult due to compliance issues. The people who don't like Fox are unlikely to keep listening to it day after day without strong incentives, and similarly those who like Fox will be more likely to keep watching.

[JP]

Good point! I suppose someone could require the first 500 to watch Fox News for an hour a day whereas the other 500 would be required to watch some arbitrary television. People would be free to watch what they want during their free time the result would be that the first group are all watching at least one hour of Fox News a day. Subjects could also be asked whether they watch Fox News in their free time.