Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Nate Silver is the Gift That Keeps On Giving

My interest in this story began this morning when I read Nate's latest post on fivethirtyeight.com. I began thinking about it and looked through a book that I read this past summer titled Just How Stupid Are We? since John Ziegler's premise is two-fold:
Obama supporters were poorly-informed about Obama because the liberal media did not do their job (this implicitly suggests the conservative media didn't either since it is impossible not to surf through a right-wing zealot at some point during the day) and that they are generally not very bright.

A lack of basic knowledge about our government is pervasive (on both sides of the aisle), and Shenkman contends the problem starts in our schools, not in the media....but I digress.

Ziegler, from the cabal of conservative talk radio, is out to discredit the election of Obama with of his web site and documentary, and is attempting to give his "research" credibility by having a Zogby poll back it up. Nate Silver has called him on it, citing the effort as "push polling." Both the clip from the documentary and the Fox interview are worth watching. If you don't have disdain for Ziegler after reading and viewing, the story gets better.

Zogby issued a statement today defending their polling, and Ziegler agreed to be interviewed by Nate Silver, issuing an F-Bomb himself. The interview is worth reading (maybe twice) as Ziegler proves to be as arrogant as both Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity (he would probably be flattered).
NS: Would you consider yourself well-informed
JZ: I’d consider myself extremely well-informed.

NS: Who are the two senators from South Dakota
JZ: Thune and, uh, Johnson.

NS: Very good. South Carolina?
JZ: Go f--- (sic) yourself. I'm done with this interview if you're going to ask me stupid questions like that. Obviously I know who Lindsay Graham is.

Enough said.

1 comment:

Mike said...

This is one of those things that are too confusing for people to understand why it is such an absurd poll. It takes too much work for people to really understand. On another note, this passage stood out to me in the Atlantic article about Zeigler:

"And KFI's John Ziegler is not a journalist—he is an entertainer. Or maybe it's better to say that he is part of a peculiar, modern, and very popular type of news industry, one that manages to enjoy the authority and influence of journalism without the stodgy constraints of fairness, objectivity, and responsibility that make trying to tell the truth such a drag for everyone involved. It is a frightening industry, though not for any of the simple reasons most critics give."