The excellent Andrew Gelman tears the execrable Gregg Easterbrook a new one. Easterbrook writes:
At this point in the 1992 election cycle, the elder George Bush held an 89 percent approval rating. . . . Clinton beat a popular incumbent with a fantastic approval rating. For the 2012 election, Barack Obama is just as vulnerable as the elder Bush, if not even more so. Obama currently has an approval rating of 23 percent.
Gelman corrects him:
1. It’s not true that at this point in the 1992 election cycle, the elder George Bush held an 89 percent approval rating.
2. It’s not true that Obama currently has an approval rating of 23 percent.
Easterbrook’s column is a 300 word Huntsman blowjob, not surprisingly.
Easterbrook’s number aren’t even close. What a fucking wanker. Not the first up against the wall (Cokie Roberts and Bobo go first) but in the top ten.
Lolis
Can we have an Occupy open thread?
Maude
@Lolis:
You beat me to it.
smintheus
Not to mention that the 89% was a blip, an obviously inflated number following the Gulf War that was bound to come crashing down fairly quickly.
Btw, Andrew’s name is spelled Gelman.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
To be fair, Easterbrook divided Obama’s actual approval rating exactly in half. That’s fourth grade math, IIRC.
ETA: Skimming the link. GE used Obama’s “strongly approve” number, from Rasmussen, and got that wrong, too.
John Cole
The saddest thing about the Poorman basically closing down is missing him rip Easterbrook to shreds.
Dougerhead
@smintheus:
Thanks, I corrected it, that second g in Gregg throws me off with everything nearby.
4tehlulz
@John Cole: Deadspin does a pretty nice job of that.
Anne Laurie
@John Cole: Hey, Cole — check ur email, also the last post, kay?
Roger Moore
Numbers: how the fuck to they work?
smintheus
@4tehlulz: The comments on Gelman’s post are fun as well.
gocart mozart
Here are the correct numbers:
George H.W. Bush
64%
(October 1991)
Barack Obama’s Most Recent Weekly Approval Rating Average:
40%
(Oct 3-9, 2011):
http://www.gallup.com/poll/116479/barack-obama-presidential-job-approval.aspx
Maude
Gregg seems to be lost in the space, time, numbers continuum.
smintheus
Wait a minute, the top ten up against the wall would include Easterbrook? Hmmm. I would like to see that list.
Think it would have to include a lot of really nasty neocons, beginning with Smiley Kristol and Ruel Marc Gerecht.
Dougerhead
@smintheus:
Kristol would be up there obviously.
jwb
@Maude: Since both Doug and John ignored the request for a OWS thread, I think you should feel free to thread jack.
jwb
@Lolis: Here‘s a live feed from Times Square. It’s kind of intermittent, but it’s the best I’ve been able to find.
Dougerhead
@jwb:
I will do one, I’m putting one together with some other stuff that readers sent in.
Zandar
Gastritis broke his calculator.
TBogg
Here.
Maude
@Dougerhead:
What’s that phrase that was used about commenters taking over the blog? It was some time ago and I can’t remember.
CarolDuhart
I remember that back then there was a Clinton, charismatic, intelligent, a 5-term governor who was youthful, energetic, and brilliant. Any of the Republican field like that? Yes, the Democrats were called the “Seven Dwarves” but it was actually Six Dwarves and Clinton.
Daddy Bush also had an in-party rebellion on his hands with Buchanan, and a Ross Perot. Obama will have neither.
Clinton was popular with his party once they got to know him. Huntsman has yet to break 2% in any poll, and Romney stuggles to leave the 20% mark. Perry may surprise, but he has no cross-over appeal.
Everybody else are no-hopers looking for some Fox money once their time for running is up.
RossInDetroit
Bobo IS the wall. As in ‘talking to the’ and thick as a brick.
Oh, hell. Why am I trying to think? My best friend came over and found the single malt stash. I’m hopeless. Pavement makes sense to me and that’s a bad sign. Gonna be unconscious before Terror Twilight is over.
‘night.
MeDrewNotYou
@smintheus: @Dougerhead: Bobo needs to be first so much so that when the Revolution comes, we’ll need to wait a few days before anyone else joins him. Hell, if we accomplish only getting rid of him and nothing else, I’d still consider things a modest success.
Yutsano
@TBogg: Win. As usual.
Maude
Banquet has these little fruit pies that you bake and eat. They were 5 for $5. The apple and cherry berry are excellent. Mom would be jealous.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Considering he’s about to drop out due to lack of funds I hope Easterbrook doesn’t expect payment.
SRW1
Reuters seems to be having a bit of a bad time lately. I suppose Felix Salmon has a real sad today.
Raenelle
In the first against the wall contest, I think Erin Burnett has already popped her head out of a foxhole to compete.
Tom Pretentious Art Douche Levenson
Easterbrook is a hack at whatever he does; in a couple of weeks, I’m having one of his interviewees come into my grad student science writing course to dissect the horrors of an Easterbrook attempt to justify faith by rewriting the recent history of physics.
We do this every couple of years. Never gets old.
Cat Lady
Alex Pareene’s Hack Thirty is the Up Against The Wall First primer, Journamalism Edition. There will be plenty of wall left for the politicians, think tankers and banksters. I’m going to take up knitting again.
Joel
Gregg Easterbrook has me rooting for an asteroid to strike Earth.
PeakVT
Somewhat related: Fallows tears the Test Prep Daily a new one.
RossInDetroit
He’s been sitting on this data point for nearly 2 decades to make a weak argument look credible. Pathetic just got a new definition.
Roger Moore
@smintheus:
I would think it would start with the worst of the smug, power-behind-the-throne billionaires (e.g. the Koch brothers, Scaife, etc.) then the war criminals (e.g. Cheney, Yoo, etc.) and only get into the media after the real villains were taken care of.
Roger Moore
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
FTFY. Huntsman is in no way short of funds. It’s just that he knows he cause is hopeless enough that he’s not willing to spend his own money on it. If he were running based on serious convictions, I think he’d be willing to put his money where his mouth is.
David
It’s pretty much a given that Easterbrook is gonna make a stupid argument. That’s what he does. But did Reuters get rid of all their editors and fact-checkers? Those were such easy mistakes to catch.
Julia Grey
Huntsman is only running pro forma now to set himself up for 2016. He thinks Obama will win this year and figures that four years from now the Tea Party madness might be discredited (especially if Perry is the candidate this year and loses big).
Unfortunately Huntsman might have miscalculated and Mitt might win the nomination, giving the Tea Party ammunition for the “Romney lost because he wasn’t crazy enough” line when Obama wins again. Or worse, Romney will win and Huntsman might have to run as the representative of the Incumbent Power in 2020. (There’s a reason the White House tends to change parties every 8 years.)
kindness
Dude, you can’t say
in the heading of a thread. Could be ‘misinterpreted’. As much as many of us might go there from time to time you aren’t supposed to say it.
TenguPhule
A recommend they all first be marched on a trail of Delicious Wanker Tears to weed out the weakest first. The survivors can be herded onto reservations for faster and more efficient processing.
Basilisc
Easterbrook is the kind of guy – we all knew them in college – who yaks and yaks confidently about some obscure subject or another, tossing out all kinds of “facts” and “figures”, until you finally say, “OK, Gregg, I guess you’re right about that. You sure know that topic. Now will you shut up please?”
Then, later, you talk to someone who actually does know about the subject, and it turns out that Easterbrook was completely full of s–t. But it’s too late, because he’s already convinced some faculty committee to give him a research fellowship.
I read his NFL column, though more for the laughs than the insights – often his confident laws about football strategy are contradicted by something he mentions a few paragraphs later within the same column. But last week he really got my blood boiling when he trotted out the “rich people who advocate higher marginal tax rates on the rich should just donate more money to the Treasury!” line. Making that argument is like putting a flashing light on your head with a siren that blares “I’m ignorant and shallow! I’m ignorant and shallow! I’m ignorant and shallow!”
Bobbo
Also, wouldn’t the fact that Bush once had a high approval rating, then lost, just as much make the point that while Obama has a low approval rating now, he could still win, because a lot can happen in 13 months? Not to mention that despite his poor numbers, Obama still leads every Repub.
Scott Supak
I once was on a lighting call at ABC in LA, and we were lighting Cokie Roberts. The lighting director was a real asshole Republican, and he was an idiot–he had all kinds of key lights going into her face, creating giant nose shadows all over her cheeks and chin. She has a sizable snoz. The director in New York was yelling over the box that someone needed to do something, and get rid of that LD. So, they fired him and asked me (I was the whole lighting crew) if I could fix it. Which I did. And she thanked me. And I said, well, I didn’t really like making Republicans look good, but it was my job. She didn’t like that much. She said, she was a journalist. I said, well, your inner Republican shines through brighter than any of these lights and I went back to my little room. I learned later that she complained about me, and the director told her to shut up, that I had saved all their asses.