December 2007 Archives

This post is a quantitative addendum to an excellent Daily Kos diary discussing the qualitative aspects of the MSM blackout of John Edwards.

Before I delve into any of the numbers, I want to make an important point: nothing I say in this post in any way diminishes what the MSM has done to the other candidates in the race -- Biden, Dodd, Kucinich, and Richardson. The fact that Edwards has received more extensive coverage than these candidates gives you a sense of just how egregiously their campaigns have been slighted by the MSM filter. Moreover, I take nothing at all away from the copious coverage received by the Hillary and Obama campaigns -- I wish the MSM would cover all of us more.

The numbers that I compiled below are a simple way of illustrating that the MSM is actively excluding Edwards from the national dialog the Democratic nomination battle.

When the year began, no impartial observer would have discounted John Edwards' chances, yet for the year, Edwards has appeared in just 18% of the multi-candidate headlines in the New York Times, compared to 93% for Hillary and 91% for Obama.

(When I say multi-candidate headline, I mean a headline which mentions at least two of the top three Democratic candidates. The point of looking at these headlines is that the active exclusion of Edwards from the debate frames the contest as between Obama and Hillary, when it's actually a multi-way contest.)

Even now, with John Edwards surging in Iowa (he's now tied for 2nd with Obama in a "poll of polls" and has gained 3.4 points in these polls over the last month, compared to 2.6 points for Hillary and -2.0 points for Obama), the MSM is continuing this pattern of exclusion.

Of all the multi-candidate headlines on Google News, Edwards appears in just 8%, compared to 97% for Obama and 95% for Clinton.

In other words, out of 2,901 multi-candidate headlines, Edwards appeared in only 228. Obama appeared in 2,813. Hillary, 2,761.

This, my friends, is a f**king blackout.

There's no excuse for this.

First, as I mentioned above, John Edwards is surging in Iowa and may well win.

Second, he's closing the gap in New Hampshire -- climbing to within 10 points.

Third, the fact that he trails national polls is absolutely meaningless. I recently found 13 polls taken in the six weeks before Iowa. In one of those polls, they tested Hillary for the nomination -- and she was the national frontrunner with 43%. Remember, that was in 2004! In the other 12 polls, Kerry cracked the top 3 only once. In other words, out of 36 chances to get into the top three, he did so only once -- tied for 3rd. Dean, Clark, Lieberman, and Gephardt all were beating him.

Put simply, in the only places where there's actually going to be voting anytime soon, Edwards is on the same level as Hillary and Obama amongst the electorate -- yet the MSM excludes him from their framing of the race.

Imagine how much better he could be doing if they didn't try to cut him out of the picture?

The MSM blackout is also reflected in an analysis of all headlines in general, including single-candidate headlines.

In the New York Times, there have been 385 headlines mentioning a Edwards, Clinton, or Obama. Clinton is in 55%, Obama 38%, Edwards 19%. (This adds up to more than 100% because of multi-candidate headlines.)

Google News also reflects the same framing. Out of 27,548 headlines, Edwards is only mentioned in 5,254:

It's very important to note that these numbers actually OVERSTATE the coverage of John Edwards because Edwards is a common name. Unlike in the multi-candidate headlines, when any mention of Edwards is nearly certain to be about the Edwards campaign, in headlines that just mention Edwards, you also get articles about Herm Edwards (KC Chiefs head coach) and other famous Edwardses.

Why is the media doing everything it can to exclude Edwards from its frame on the 2008 election?

In my own view, it's because he more than any other candidate is calling bullshit on their corrupt system. For example:

Nobody likes having their power taken away. (Just wait until you see the expression on Cheney's face on 1/20/2009.)

That's why the MSM fear John Edwards.

I've pulled together a "poll of polls" for the Iowa caucus using all five polls conducted entirely since Christmas.

Here's the top-line for both the Democratic and Republican fields:

As I have noted before, trends are more important than snapshots, especially with the Iowa caucus.

Fortunately, each of the five post-Christmas polls was conducted by an organization that also conducted an Iowa poll in late November or early December.

As a result, it's possible to make assess trends using apples-to-apples comparisons of polls by the same polling organization. This mostly factors out difference in turnout models (a huge source of error in Iowa) in assessing trends in candidate preferences.

Here's a chart of the Democratic race (I excluded Richardson, who is trending down and is well below the 15% viability threshold):

Here's a chart of the Republican race (I included each of the top six candidates because Republicans don't have the same 15% threshold rule and also to show John McCain's progress which may be developing into a bit of a surge, and we all know how much he likes surges):

Here's the raw data for the Democrats:

Here's the raw data for the Republicans:

Special interest groups supporting John Edwards are threatening to take over the entire Democratic Party! They must be stopped!

In case you need a refresher:

...now Mr. Obama has lashed out at Mr. Edwards because two 527s — independent groups that are allowed to support candidates, but are legally forbidden from coordinating directly with their campaigns — are running ads on his rival’s behalf. They are, Mr. Obama says, representative of the kind of "special interests" that "have too much influence in Washington."

The thing, though, is that both of these 527s represent union groups — in the case of the larger group, local branches of the S.E.I.U. who consider Mr. Edwards the strongest candidate on health reform. So Mr. Obama’s attack raises a couple of questions.

First, does it make sense, in the current political and economic environment, for Democrats to lump unions in with corporate groups as examples of the special interests we need to stand up to?

Second, is Mr. Obama saying that if nominated, he’d be willing to run without support from labor 527s, which might be crucial to the Democrats? If not, how does he avoid having his own current words used against him by the Republican nominee?

Today, Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times summed up the state of the primary campaigns heading into the holidays.

December 24, 2007 With Nod to Holidays, Candidates Keep a Vigorous Pace Before the Break By JEFF ZELENY

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — If there were any doubts how competitive the presidential race remained, fresh proof could be found Sunday in the itineraries of Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, who risked testing the holiday patience of voters as they campaigned across the state before suspending politicking for a Christmas break.

Notice someone missing? John Edwards, perhaps?

In fact, Zeleny didn't mention John Edwards or any Democrat not named Obama or Clinton in the entire article -- not once. No Richardson, Dodd, Biden, or Kucinich.

Zeleny even mentioned Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and Bill Clinton.

But nobody else. It's as if John Edwards and the others had dropped out of the race entirely.

Whether its media bias, media incompetence, or a mixture of a two, this kind of bull is nothing new.

The pundits screwed up just as badly in 2004. Take a look at what Adam Nagourney said back then a mere 8 days before the Iowa Caucus (we're now 11 days away):

January 11, 2004 Campaign in Iowa is Called Pivotal and Still Close

Eight days before the Iowa caucuses that will start the voting for the Democratic presidential nomination, Howard Dean and Richard A. Gephardt are battling for dominance in what many Democrats describe as the most contested and potentially decisive caucus campaign their party has seen here in 16 years.

The competition here has been complicated by spirited bids by Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts and Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, each of whom has calculated that coming in second, or perhaps third, in Iowa would lift his candidacy going into the New Hampshire primary a week later.

As we all know, John Kerry beat Howard Dean by 20 points. He beat Dick Gephardt by 26 points. Edwards came in second.

I can see Rick Moranis playing the role of Adam Nagourney in "Honey, I Shrunk the Field!"

If the reporters who cover politics are a sorry bunch of idiots, the people polling Iowa are a useless bunch of wankers. Currently, Pollster.com finds that in Iowa, Barack Obama leads the field with 29%, Hillary Clinton is second with 27%, and Edwards is third with 23%.

These numbers are absolutely meaningless. Pollster.com wasn't around in 2004, so they don't have a track record to review, but until the very final couple of days of the campaign, the caucus polls in Iowa were terribly unreliable. In fact, until five days before the caucus, the polls universally showed a contest between Dean and Gephardt.

What happened? In the final few days, lots of people changed their minds. Take a look:

It wasn't just Iowa. In the 12 national polls I found that were conducted after December 1, John Kerry broke into the top three spots only once -- and it was a third place finish, with just 12%. Dean, Gephardt, Clark, and Lieberman all outpolled Kerry. I even found a poll showing showing Hillary at 43% -- in early December, 2003!

The fact that the polls shifted tremendously in short periods of time should be no surprise; primary and caucus voters are the most knowledgeable voters out there. As a result, they are aware of the full range of options before them, and the more options a voter has, the more likely it is that he or she will change his or her mind.

Still, the prognosticracy went on the record with some pretty stupid predictions.

For example, the day before the Iowa Caucus David Yepsen opined:

I think Howard Dean's still in pretty good shape. I mean, even though these polls are showing Kerry and Edwards surging, Edwards just doesn't have the organization that the other candidates do.

On the day of the caucus, Yepsen predicted a Dean victory:

Howard Dean should win the Iowa caucuses tonight.

Of course, Yepsen was wrong, and he wasn't alone. After Kerry's resounding victory, the media, which had completely fucked up its analysis of the horse-race, shifted into head-scratching mode. Golly-gee, they asked themselves, how could we have missed the mark by such a wide margin? (Perhaps they could have asked Judy Miller?)

Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times wrote the obligatory "Ooops, we did it again" article.

Results Show Conventional Wisdom Short on the 'Wisdom'

By JIM RUTENBERG
Published: January 20, 2004

For weeks, reporters practicing the tricky art of political prognostication here declared the Iowa Democratic caucuses to be a two-man race, with former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont riding to front-runner status on a jet stream of antiwar sentiment and Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri close behind.

That piece of conventional wisdom and countless others, espoused on television and radio, in newspapers and magazines, were incinerated Monday night, as political punditry went into a frenzied recalculation of voter sentiment that was certain to reset the tone of the coverage for the race as it heads to New Hampshire.

When Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts emerged as a clear winner around 8:30 in Iowa, some members of the mainstream media were asking themselves whether they had missed the story, or whether it had simply changed at hyperspeed.

Despite polls showing late surges by Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts and Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, many pundits still believed as late as Sunday that Dr. Dean had the best chance to win.
...

Wolf Blitzer declared on CNN, "The pundits had basically written off John Kerry and John Edwards, yet they did so remarkably well here."
...
Jon Banner, the executive producer of "World News Tonight" on ABC, said in a telephone interview: ''The race was turned on its head. I don't know that we missed the story, but the story changed."
...
"When MSNBC/Reuters/Zogby had the poll which showed Kerry ahead, people held their breath and said, What does that mean?" said Tim Russert, the moderator of "Meet the Press" on NBC, referring to results released last week showing Mr. Kerry leaping to the head of the pack. "That won't hold up."

Tell you what: Jeff Zeleny and the others are going to be proven wrong again.

They can try to silence our candidates, but they can't silence our voices.

Real Democrats don't do this (or this). They just don't.

But, typical of a campaign with a reputation for exploiting every advantage and trying to neutralize every disadvantage, Mrs. Clinton’s communications team, led by Howard Wolfson, is not leaving Mr. Drudge to the Republicans. Five current and former Democratic officials said Mrs. Clinton has on her side the closest thing her party has ever had to Mr. Rhoades in Tracy Sefl, a former Democratic National Committee official, who has established a friendly working relationship with Mr. Drudge — and through whom Mrs. Clinton’s campaign often worked quietly to open a line of communication.

I think this is even worse than playing ball with Fox News. At least the damage done with Fox News is self-contained. But when you aid and abet Matt Drudge, you're strengthening his grip on the entire news cycle.

In the case of Hillary Clinton, it's truly an act of self-hatred.

The title of this post is one of the most important maxims in all of politics.

Case in point:

I just watched Steny Hoyer on CNN. John King asked him about Joe Lieberman's comments that Democrats weren't going to be able to convince America that they were prepared to defend America's security.

Hoyer hemmed and hawed about how FDR won WWII and some other things, and then said of course Democrats will demonstrate they are strong on national security.

Bleh. Defensive, whining crap. Weak and unconvincing. Pathetic.

Grow some balls, Steny. When Joe Lieberman attacks, you fight back.

I mean, should the Democrats really take advice from the guy who not only wrote the Iraq War Resolution, but is now advocating military action against Iran?

Should Democrats really take advice from a guy who ran for re-election as a Democrat, quit his party when he lost in the primary, and then promised to serve as a Democrat if elected to the Senate, only to turn around and endorse a Republican in the presidential contest?

Who is Joe Lieberman to give any Democrat advice?

Why doesn't Hoyer say that? Why does he politely disagree?

Lieberman just said that Democratic victory will lead to the death of many Americans.

And you politely disagree?

What is your problem, Steny?

You've been in the bowels of Congress too long.

You've lost all perspective.

You, Steny, are weak.

Learn to fight back.

When they hit you, you hit them back, harder.

It's called game theory. Learn about it. Or get out the way.

New York Times:

Iraq vote dogs Clinton (again)

Did you know that Fox News hasn't published a single poll showing a general election matchup between John Edwards and a Republican?

On the other hand, Fox has released 23 matchups featuring Hillary Clinton and a Republican -- and 10 with Barack Obama.

Fox must know what a comprehensive analysis of publicly available polling data shows: John Edwards is the most electable Democrat, leading Republicans by 8 points on average, compared to 5 points for Obama, and 3 points for Hillary.

Over the last few days, I conducted a comprehensive analysis of all the publicly available polls showing general election matchups that I could get my hands on.

I explain the details of my methodology below, but the key point is that the analysis was limited to polls including all three Democrats matched up against the same Republicans. In other words, instead of comparing a Hillary Clinton - Rudy Giuliani matchup taken in March to a John Edwards - Mike Huckabee matchup from December, this analysis only makes apples-to-apples comparisons: Democrats matched up against the same Republicans in the same timeframe by the same polling organization.

As the above chart shows, since July 1, John Edwards consistently receives the highest support and holds the Republican to the lowest support. As a result, John Edwards would enter the 2008 general election with the largest lead of any Democrat.

What makes this especially impressive is that Edwards has actually gone through a national campaign -- he's been on the ballot in all fifty states. Like Hillary, he's already been through the Republican attack machine -- and he's still the strongest Democrat.

Given these numbers, it's not suprising that Fox hasn't been releasing any poll data on John Edwards' electability. On the other hand, they've been dumping a flood of data about Hillary Clinton. 23 of the 33 general election matchups Fox has released this year have included Hillary -- 13 of them featuring Hillary versus Republicans in without any other Democrat tested in the poll.

In those 13 polls, Hillary has an average lead of 7% -- well above her 3% average lead in all other polls. Is it any surprise that Fox would release data making our weakest potential candidate appear the strongest? In the polls where they've also tested Obama, Obama has had a higher average margin than Hillary. Fox's solution to this inconvenient problem? Just pretend that Obama (and Edwards) don't exist and exclude them from most polls!

(Of course when Hillary brags about her electability, she includes these Fox polls in her analysis. Who could blame her? It's probably the only really nice thing Rupert Murdoch has ever done for her, besides contributing to her campaigns.)

_______________________________________________________

Just for fun, I put most of this data in a YouTube video clip. ***WARNING*** It is really wonky! Only for geeks! (Or Ben Harper fans!)

How I conducted this analysis:

First, I developed a database of all polls taken in 2007, drawing from the polls at Real Clear Politics and adding a single Rasmussen poll from mid-October that RCP had neglected to include in its listings. I also included the most recent CNN poll, which RCP had not fully included at the time I pulled their data.

After completing this step, I had 485 poll matchups in my dataset (e.g., Clinton-Romney, Obama-McCain, Edwards-Thompson, etc.).

One of the real challenges in comparing performance in polls is that not all polls test all Democrats. Since any good comparison must be apples-to-apples, I sifted through the polls and identified each one where Clinton, Edwards, and Obama were each matched up against identical Republicans. I expanded this to include Rasmussen Reports polls where each of the three Democrats were matched up against identical Republicans in the same time frame, generally a few days apart.

After doing this, I was left with 228 datapoints -- 76 identical polling questions for each Democrat, matched up against the same exact Republican opponents.

For the charts I presented above, I included all data from July 1 to present -- 90 data points for 30 identical matchups for each Democrat. I'll present the full data below, but the matchups for the entire year don't change the electability story. Indeed, they make Hillary look worse, because she only won 45% of the apples-to-apples polls in the first half of the year.

Why is it so important to do an apples-to-apples analysis?

Beyond the obvious, analyses that don't do apples-to-apples can yield misleading results.

Take the example of Fox News, for example.

This year, Fox has released 33 polling general election polling matchups, 23 featuring Hillary Clinton and 10 featuring Barack Obama.

According to Fox's polling, Hillary Clinton wins 78% of the 23 matchups with an average margin of 6%, compared to 70% for Obama with a 4.7% margin.

However, in the 20 polls that are apples-to-apples, Hillary and Obama both win the same percentage (70%) and Obama actually has a higher victory margin than Hillary (4.7% to 4.1%).

Indeed, while Hillary Clinton has a 7% average margin in the 13 Fox News general election matchups excluding both Obama and Edwards, in all other matchups (198 in all) she has just a 3.1% margin.

Now, returning back to the analysis at hand, let's take a look at all the data, including results from January 1 to present.

As you can see, Edwards has the strongest performance of the Democrats in terms of margin of victory not just for July 1 - present, but for January 1 - present.

Barack Obama also does very well. In fact, he has a slightly higher winning percentage than John Edwards. It's important to understand what that means, however. For example, since July 1, Edwards has had an 80% winning percentage and Obama 83%. What's the difference? A single poll, by Quinnipiac, matching Democrats up against McCain. Edwards trailed that matchup by 1, and Obama led it by 2.

Average margin is actually a more important statistic. It's the same idea as tracking runs scored versus runs allowed in baseball. For years, there was a myth that the teams that win one-run games are the best teams in baseball. It turns out, that idea is total hogwash. A team's total net runs scored is a far more accurate way of predicting a team's future success. If it's the all star break and you're betting on whose going to win the World Series, you want a team capable of blowing its opponents out night after night, even if another team that has gotten lucky in some close games has a slightly higher winning percentage. (I could go on with this comparison, but I won't. If you're interested in learning more, read about Bill James Pythagorean Theorem of baseball.)

What does John Edwards large lead mean for Congressional elections?

If we nominate John Edwards, the presidential election won't be as close as it would be with Obama or Hillary. As a result, the party will be able to devote more of its resources to Congressional elections -- and a huge Democratic majority in Congress is essential to enacting a progressive agenda.

What's the bottom-line?

The bottom line is clear: based on an apples-to-apples comparison of publicly available general election polls, John Edwards is the most electable Democratic candidate. Barack Obama is also a strong candidate, but the difference between him and Edwards is significant: about 3 points in marginal performance since July 1 and 1.5 points for the entire year. (Moreover, Edwards has already been through a national campaign and the GOP attack machine, while Obama hasn't.)

Both John Edwards and Barack Obama are clearly stronger than Hillary Clinton, however, who trails both Obama and Edwards. She averages just a 3% margin since July 1, 2 points below Obama and 5 points below Edwards. For the year, she averages just a 1% margin. Because she is a weaker candidate than Edwards or Obama, the Democratic Party will be forced to spend more of its resources on her election, which will have a negative impact on our ability to win a huge Congressional mandate.

If electability is your number one priority, John Edwards should be your candidate.

(Full disclosure: John Edwards is my first choice in the Democratic primary. Barack Obama is a close second, however.)

For a few days after Hillary's disastrous "Kindergate" moment, she dialed down her attacks on Barack Obama to a slow simmer. She'd crossed an obvious line, and her campaign risked becoming a parody of itself and imploding if she kept at it.

As anyone who has observed her political career should have expected, however, Hillary regrouped and returned to the attack trail, this time with more vigor and with renewed intensity. Most importantly, her campaign is attacking Obama with more savvy -- using surrogates to launch attacks on his character, giving her "plausible deniability" in the media's twisted version of reality.

It's absolutely clear that her latest attacks are part of a coordinated strategy, and they are more savage then ever, but the difference between this week and last is that while Clinton has changed her tactics, Obama hasn't. Just as he did ten days ago, Obama is now saying that Clinton's attacks are desperate, and that they are the sign of a campaign that is fading fast and panicking.

Last week, complaining that Hillary is being negative worked. This week, it isn't working. Last week, it looked like the front-runner (Hillary) was attacking the underdog (Obama). This week, it looks like the underdog (Hillary) is attacking the front-runner (Obama).

Instead of adopting a posture of strength by returning fire, Obama is clinging to the narrative of Hillary as attack dog. In so doing, Obama hopes to claim the high moral ground, but I fear that instead of sounding like a bold statesman, he sounds like a defensive whiner.

Hillary's campaign message is that she is the candidate of strength and experience. By failing to respond to Hillary's attacks with aggressive new attacks of his own, Obama, in a perverse way, is playing right into her hands. It makes him seem weak, and that is the kiss of death for any politician.

The good news for Obama is that we're only a day or two into this most recent phase of the campaign. There's still plenty of time for him to huddle with his team and open up a new front in the battle.

I'd suggest that he use the other meaning of the phrase "Hillary attacks" -- that she attacks countries, like Iraq and Iran. The path to war with Iran is her Achilles' heel. Her campaign momentum suffered its first serious setback after she voted for Kyl-Lieberman. At the height of her inevitability, she exhibited a pattern that progressive Democrats have feared most: her willingness to embrace right-wing policies when she thinks they are politically advantageous.

Today, I posted two web ads which demonstrate one way he could launch this attack. If he released similar videos, it would change the debate from one about Hillary's attacks on Obama to one about Hillary's attacks on the world.

These videos, of course, are but one of many potential approaches to the final weeks of the presidential campaign. Whatever Obama chooses to do, he must go on the offensive. If he continues to respond to Hillary's attacks with demands that she stop attacking him, he will not beat her.

In 1992, Hillary Clinton established the war room in Little Rock, Arkansas. It was the first rapid response centers of its kind in a presidential campaign. It's motto was speed kills, and it's credo was that if you get hit, you better hit back -- harder.

It's time for Obama to hit back.

If Hillary Clinton can't stand up to the Republican war propaganda on Iran, how can we trust her to stand up to their war policies on Iran?

Hillary says she is standing up to Bush and Cheney, but she repeats their rationales for war with stunning precision.

She says that she favors preventing a "rush to war" -- but what is the opposite of a "rush to war"? A "leisurely stroll"? No thanks.

In 2002, Hillary Clinton said she opposed a "rush to war" with Iraq -- but she still supported the war with Iraq.

As Democrats, we have a choice to make this winter: who will represent our party for the next eight years? It would be a terrible mistake to select Hillary Clinton.

We need a candidate with the strength to stand up to Bush, Cheney, and the neocons.

Fortunately, each of the other Democrats has shown some backbone when it comes to Iran -- Hillary Clinton, as evidenced by her support for Kyl-Lieberman, is on the hawkish edge of the primary field.

Most of the other candidates don't have a perfect record on Iraq or Iran -- but all of them have a better record than Hillary.

None of the candidates, however, has had a more consistently pro-peace position than Dennis Kucinich, and his courageous resolve deserves recognition.

Although I am personally supporting John Edwards and Barack Obama as my first and second choices, I will support happily support Dennis in the primary if it comes to that. I will not, however, support Hillary Clinton in the primary. She just hasn't demonstrated the strength we need to unravel the war legacy of Bush and Cheney. (If she wins the nomination, I will of course support her.)

Let's send a loud and clear message to the establishment that we won't take any more of their wars. Please share these videos with friends and family who will vote in the Democratic primary. Here are the YouTube URLs:

"Trust Hillary on Iran?" / (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BoXVLFVCG0)
"Rush to War with Iran?" / (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2StQsXTy19c)

Iran is Hillary Clinton's Achilles' heel, both politically and substantively. It reminds Democratic primary voters of her support for Iraq, and of her tendency to parse words in apparent attempts to mislead the public.

Over the past few days, I've created two short YouTube videos (each about one minute long) that demonstrate this weakness. The videos are currently in draft form, and if you've got a moment, I'd like to ask you for your thoughts and suggestions on them. In addition to your feedback on the videos themselves, I'd like to ask for your ideas on how we can wage an online campaign to distribute them to as many primary and caucus goers as possible.

The first video shows how closely Hillary's rhetoric parallels that of Bush and Cheney, and questions how she can stand up to their war policies at the same time that she echoes their war propaganda. (It's 76 seconds long.) The second video shows that although she opposes RUSHING to war with Iran, her carefully chosen words don't mean she opposes GOING to war with Iran. It shows that she used the same rhetorical framework in 2002 with Iraq. (That video is 52 seconds long.)

I don't know what's dumber: a press secretary who doesn't know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was, or a press secretary who admits it. I pray this country does not confront a crisis in the next year, because this band of jokers currently populating the White House would be lucky to tap a keg.

Still looking for that last-minute Christmas gift for White House press secretary Dana Perino? May we recommend a gift certificate for the forthcoming book on the Cuban Missile Crisis by our colleague Michael Dobbs, "One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War," due out next summer?

Appearing on National Public Radio's light-hearted quiz show "Wait, Wait . . . Don't Tell Me," which aired over the weekend, Perino got into the spirit of things and told a story about herself that she had previously shared only in private: During a White House briefing, a reporter referred to the Cuban Missile Crisis -- and she didn't know what it was.

Watson’s Black D.N.A.: Ultimate Irony?

By Mike Nizza

It turns out that the Nobel-winning geneticist who was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” is inherently 16 percent African, or an amount of “someone who had a great-grandparent who was African,” according to a scientist who made the discovery.

Two months ago, Dr. James Watson, who helped crack the D.N.A. code decades ago, apologized for suggesting black people, over all, are not as intelligent as whites. He also resigned as chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island.

Something tells me the same cannot be said of the the world's dumbest man, Will Saletan.

Microsoft shuts down Santa for talking dirty

Automated program asked kids what they wanted for Christmas

SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. quickly shut down Santa Claus’ Web privileges after it found out the automated elf it created for kids to instant message with was talking naughty, not nice.

...

The holiday cheer soured this week when a reader of a United Kingdom-based technology news site, The Register, reported that a chat between Santa and his underage nieces about eating pizza prompted Santa to bring up oral sex.

One of the publication’s writers replicated the chat Monday. After declining the writer’s repeated invitations to eat pizza, a frustrated Santa burst out with, “You want me to eat what?!? It’s fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else.”

The exchange ended with the writer and Santa calling each other “dirty bastard.”

Residents: Menorah Dwarfs Christmas Tree Wed Dec 5, 2007 11:08 PM EST Associated Press

LONG BEACH — Residents don't want to have themselves a merry little Christmas tree. They want a big one. When city officials planted a 7-foot-tall Christmas tree next to a 20-foot-tall menorah in the plaza in front of City Hall, some residents barked. They telephoned City Hall, wrote letters and testified at a public hearing that the tiny tree in the shadow of the huge Hanukkah symbol was an insult to the Christian community.

"What's up with the giant menorah and the Charlie Brown Christmas tree?" resident Rick Hoffman asked.

City Manager Edwin Eaton said he had looked far and wide — all the way to Canada — for a bigger tree but couldn't find one.

"This year is going to be kind of a 'bah, humbug,' Christmas," Eaton had said.

But on Wednesday the city of about 35,000 residents 25 miles southeast of midtown Manhattan found a tree to match the 20-foot menorah: a 20-foot blue spruce.

The old tree, a Bacheri spruce, was pruned of its lights, was dug up and was taken to a mall.

A lighting ceremony for the new tree is scheduled for Friday. Merry Christmas, Long Beach.

p.s.: Happy Hannukah.

Sad news from the world of poker:

Poker Player Reese Dies at 56

By RYAN NAKASHIMA – 12 hours ago

LAS VEGAS (AP) — David "Chip" Reese, a card star who won one of the biggest cash games in the world and three World Series of Poker championships, has died. He was 56.

Reese died in his sleep and was found by his son early Tuesday morning at his Las Vegas home after suffering from symptoms of pneumonia, said poker great Doyle Brunson, his longtime friend.

"I knew him for 35 years, I never saw him get mad or raise his voice," Brunson said. "He had the most even disposition of anyone I've ever met. He's certainly the best poker player that ever lived."

After attending Dartmouth College, Reese was on his way to Stanford business school in the early 1970s when he stopped by a Las Vegas poker room and won big, said World Series of Poker media director Nolan Dalla.

"He just accidentally stumbled into Las Vegas and never left," Dalla said.

I recall a story about Reese involving Orel Hershiser, the hall of fame baseball pitcher. Hershiser wanted to improve his poker game, and Reese's son was a high school baseball pitcher who wanted to improve his skills. So Reese made Hershiser a deal, offering poker lessons in exchange for pitching lessons for his son.

In 2006, Reese won the first ever $50,000 HORSE tournament. I watched about six hours or so of the heads-up battle between him and Andy Bloch, for whom I was rooting because he is a friend of a friend.

One of the things that struck me was that Reese's family was there, at the event, rooting him on, including his teenage son. You don't often see children of poker players rooting their parents on (actually, you never do), and that says something about the kind of person that Reese must have been.

Bush Says Iran Still a Danger Despite Report on Weapons

By BRIAN KNOWLTON

WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 — President Bush said today that a new intelligence finding that Iran halted its nuclear weapons work in 2003 had not altered his sense that Iran remained a danger.

The world needed to view the report as “a warning signal,” not grounds for reassurance, he said, and the United States would not renounce the option of a military response.

A "warning signal"? A military response? Are we going to attack them for stopping their nuclear weapons program?

Right-wing National Review spin on the NIE on Iran:

Revisionism and The Iranian Non-Bomb [Victor Davis Hanson]

The latest news from Iran about the supposed abandonment in 2003 of the effort to produce a Bomb — if even remotely accurate — presents somewhat of a dilemma for liberal Democrats.

You gotta' see it to believe it...Karl Rove blamed Democrats for the Iraq war. Even Ari Fleischer, Bush's press secretary, disagrees. Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen calls Rove on his baloney, and Chris Wallace demonstrates once again that Fox News channel is propaganda.

...but Jennifer Love Hewitt is right.

Iran has no nuke program, U.S. intel says

The consensus view of 16 agencies is that the nation halted its weapons project in 2003 because it feared international sanctions.

By Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

10:01 AM PST, December 3, 2007

WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON -- U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the threat of international sanctions has worked in compelling the Islamic republic to back away from its pursuit of the bomb.

These judgments were among the key findings of a long-awaited intelligence report in which U.S. spy agencies retreated from earlier assessments that were more hard-line in their view of Iran's nuclear ambitions and intentions.

The document, and the nuanced tone it strikes toward Iran, is likely to generate fierce new debate within the U.S. government, challenging the positions of officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, who have urged taking a hard line against Tehran.

One of the few truly bright things the FOX Sports announcers said today was that Lofa Tatupu must be invisible. His new best friend, AJ Feeley, threw him 3 interceptions on the afternoon, including a game winner.

Here's the pass on it's way:

Lofa makes the grab:

Now he's running it back? Oh my god just take a knee young man!

Lofa's my hero, but it's always amazing to me how many times picks are returned when they shouldn't be. Case in point: Marlon McCree.

Fortunately, the Seahawks won.

8-4 -- I'll take it, though they should be 10-2. (Well, actually, they should have lost today's game...)