Wingnuts' latest: Obama voters are stoopid because media didn't spread their smears
Ed Morrissey at Hot Air is plumping the efforts of an outfit called HowObamaGotElected, which in turn is now being bandied eagerly throughout the wingnutosphere.
Their main theme, apparently, is that Obama voters were "ignorant" because they hadn't absorbed the wingnuts' favorite smears about Obama during the campaign. The site claims that it commissioned a "Zogby Poll" which came up with the following results:
512 Obama Voters 11/13/08-11/15/08 MOE +/- 4.4 points
97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates
Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions
57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)
81.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)
82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)
88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)
56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).
And yet.....
Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes
Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter
And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her "house," even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!
Only 2.4% got at least 11 correct.
Only .5% got all of them correct. (And we "gave" one answer that was technically not Palin, but actually Tina Fey)
Now, the data about the voters' ability to correctly identify facts about Sarah Palin -- as well as their understandable confusion about what Palin actually said about Russia, considering that in fact she did say that one could see Russia from Alaska -- is essentially meaningless; a survey of McCain voters would almost certainly come up with similar statistics.
But as Nate Silver says, this is flat-out push-polling. Look at the questions in the first half of the data summary -- nearly every one of the supposed "facts" is either simply false or a grotesque distortion:
-- Biden's plagiarism: While it's true that the media swirl around the "plagiarism" story probably drove him from the 1987 primary campaign, Joe Biden was in fact cleared of those charges.
-- Obama kicked opponents off the ballot: Also false.
-- Obama wants bankrupt the coal industry? Complete bullshit.
-- Obama and Ayers: The claim he began his political career in Ayers' living room is false: "Ayers was one of many who sponsored coffees for Obama in 1995 when he declared for the Illinois Senate. The official campaign launch occurred at the Hyde Park Ramada. Their relationship barely goes beyond serving together on an education foundation board in Chicago."
So what the wingnuts are complaining about is the fact that the news media, for some strange, unknown reason, failed to pick up these falsehoods and loudly broadcast them as factual.
But in a sense, it is true that this polling does make clear that the media did fail in its education mission. It failed to educate the wingnuts -- of which, evidently, Zogby pollsters are now a special subset.
But one suspects that even if they had, it wouldn't have done a bit of good. On Planet Bizarro, liberals always be evil and stooopid.
Pretty much says it all, doesn't it?
me-oww!
High Five
NOBODY 2012
Here at home, 100% of grandchildren ages 3-4 did not know that the answer to the question "who stole the cookie from the cookie jar" was "he/she did it".
100% of grandchildren aged 11 did not know that the answer to the question "are you really going outside dressed like that" is "no, what do you think I am, some kind of hussy?".
I know these ads may not be the responsibility of the website, but this story and this "Did Obama Buy The Election?" really kind ticks me off. Who is this outfit SodaHead.com and why is this hate ad on this site?
[The site will address the advertising sometime after the New Year. The basic explanation is, we don't choose the ads, they are chosen based on content on the site. Advertising pays the enormous monthly bandwidth bill, which you all get to access for free-sitemonitor]
So the content of this site is mostly political, anti-Obama hate speech is the kind of ads that we would naturally want? And we wonder why people are uninformed to the truth and can't make choices based on educated judgment? SICK.
All I see is [AD], :P.
Firefox, with NoScript 1.8.5 add on, and running Outpost Firewall Pro(free download). It even works in vista64 OS!!!
Works great!
I'm gonna start using Firefox in 2009
NOBODY 2012
Thanks for a response.....I wanted to preference my post with a qualifier, mainly because I didn't think C&L would knowingly put these kind of ads on (I've even see Yes on Prop 8 ads). So I figured they were automated, but wanted to put out my gripe anyways. Thanks.
The new way to attend church (summertime only)
Stop spreading the stupid!!!!
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
When the rightwing can't argue based on sane policy or fact, it resorts to smear and lie. The latest, which I heard from a rightwing relative, is that Obama went to Hawaii before the election to have his grandmother offed, on account of the fact that she knew he wasn't born in the US and was ready to squeal.
That sort of hatred and misinformation feeds the Need to Feel Superior that characterizes most of the rightwing. They need to feel that everyone who is not like them is somehow evil or idiotic, etc. We saw it in spades the past five or six years. Everyone who didn't support Bush and the invasion of Iraq must be slandered as terrorist symps who hate America and want radical Muslims to take over the country.
Look for more of the same for the next four to eight years, unless we can figure out a way to smash them.
Someone just needs to pull a 'Campbells vs. Progresso' on these people everey time they try something. Imagine how long the list would be if ignorance about McCain Shenanigans was the test.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
That picture reminds me of:
http://www.impawards.com/1970/posters/mash.jpg
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
With that pic I thought this was going to be an article on Larry Craig.
Damn. If I could do that I'd never leave the house!
If you could do that, you shouldn't leave home.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
exactly.
If you've ever read the posts/comments at HotAir (as I have), you can appreciate the delicious irony of an inference of intellectual superiority.
that we won.
It's Steeewpit, with a southern twang.
And life is like a box of choklits...
Forrest Gump.
(btw that's not you :))
Divine Right of Kings (1600's); Divine Right of Corporations (2011)
Bullcrap! all of us know that Obama voted for alot of bad things like the patriot act re-authorization, immunity for AT&T wiretapping, (HR 1955), and the bailout. ...but it doesnt take a genious to figure out that he was better than McCaint.
...Mainstream media gave us TWO choices...and I am confident that Americans made the best...choice., ....of the two that they gave us...
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
we'll see a third or fourth choice in 2016. You never know.
NOBODY 2012
Greg Brady?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Is it just me, or are these people getting more and more unhinged? It seems to be getting nastier out there. For the last 8 years they've only had to lie and make stuff up to cover up Republican stupidness and bad policy. Now, they have to lie and make up stuff to cover up Republican stupidness and lie about why their policy and ideology didn't work and the liberal ideology and policy will.
Why is Zogby taking a poll based on B.S?
ziegler created the questions...he paid them to make the calls...thats it
ziegler has challenged anyone to replicate the same results after calling repugs
so big deal...repugs listen to lies
how about if we ask repugs if they think obama is an arab
I find this whole thing funny. Bottom line is that it tells us that not enough people believed the lies to elect McCain.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
At some point, heads have to explode. This may be the single best reason to install HRC as Secretary of State.
I don't think any of this "noise" is getting through to the American People, and probably for the same reason that there was a swing to Obama.
The economy is bad, people are hurting and they just don't have time for this bullshit.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
Not knowing the number of corn kernels in a pile of wing nut is a sign of intelligence.
[Deleted. User banned. Spammer-Sitemonitor]
Since we didn't know THEIR answers to the questions we're stupid? Might as well be a "test" of who watches Fox rather of who knows what!
Go to the Zogby site and read the pdf of the results. They asked if people were NASCAR fans, shopped WalMart. How often they attended church. If they resided on this planet.
Putzes.
Who paid for this foolishness? So what do they intend to do with their results?
If you make up your own questions and then create what you want to be the correct answers (facts be damned) don't you have an edge going in, over the people you will question?
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
John Ziegler, he plans on using it for an upcoming documentary titled "Media Malpractice... How Obama Got Elected"
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.cfm?ID=1642
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ziegler_(talk_show_host)
when he was booted off of kfi radio, he said he was doing a documentary on hillary clinton....where is that?
this "doc" will end up in the same place that the larry elder doc on gun rights and michael moore ended...wallowing on the internet with no buyers
who cares...the guy is a loser
Obama supporters are stupid because they believe he'll break from the failed economic policies and horrific foreign policies shared by both parties.
they're sitting in a corner masturbating and sucking their thumbs.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
We need to start a Show called "THE MORON FACTOR". There is plenty of material for a hit show.
the left wing hated on bush when he won in 2000.
the right will hate on us.
its to be expected.
we'll see where we stand in 2010. I have high hopes.
...they keep playing this way.
I must admit, even as a supporter, the Obamathon is getting a little out of hand.
I mean, he hasn't done anything yet, and already Time magazine has him as the next FDR, the entire world is singing and dancing, etc.
So what could possibly account for this jubilation? It's not like Obama has actually earned any of this yet.
His campaign, yes. The historic nature of his win, yes. But, most of all, the utter and complete total Epic Fail of the Republican party to govern with anything like competence or vision.
Obama is the natural end of Lee Atwater politics. Eventually, all that mud and scum your smear around is going to turn people off.
Negative campaigning works, yes, but if you win you have to turn around and actually GOVERN in such a way so as to earn the trust of the people.
So, let's all hope and pray extra hard every night that the Republicans decide that their biggest mistake was that they weren't negative enough on Obama.
If only people knew the truth about William Ayers! If only they could hear the stories of the disgruntled former members of the Harvard Law Review! If only we'd really driven home the message that Obama the Socialist is going to raise Joe the Not-A-Plumber's taxes!
If only our negative fear mongering had been more intense, more widespread. Because we have nothing positive to say.
Yes, Republicans, that's your lesson for '08: the American People(tm) are too stupid to frighten themselves into voting against their interests.
So we need you to not only turn up the fear factor, but if you could make it just a wee bit more condescending and insulting to our intelligence, that would just be super.
See you in oh-ten.
I mean, he hasn't done anything yet.
He hasn't even been sworn in yet.
john ziegler....google him
he used to be a wingnut radio talk show host
he has been fired from almost all of his gigs, cuz he has a habit of pissing off station management and harrasing female employees
he was here in la for a bit, and got into a fight with on air guys, john and ken
this wasnt a poll...it was gotcha questions...he refuses to post the raw data or the questions
two of the questions have already proven to be blatant untruths....the coal industry and the question about getting his start with ayres
the question about how obama got his opponents knocked off the ballot, while true, is innacurate...he followed the rules...thats the chicago way
eff ziegler
Yeah, this guys a real tool, after the OJ verdict he went into a deep depression and seriously considered assassinating Simpson.
He also used the N-word on one of his shows, on the premise that if Mike Tyson can say it so could he. Only problem was Ziegler didn't have the guts to say it, he had to spell it out. He was canned the next day.
There was a factor of fear in my head until Novemeber the 4th. I was scared to death that McCain/Palin might win. The thought of Palin getting that close to the oval office scared me to death.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
If something happened to McCain and they gave Palin the nuclear codes, I wouldn't sleep until she left office.
NOBODY 2012
they werent there last nite
i bullied him into this
ill still kick that weasels ass
...the corollary.
The Republicans are facing one single nightmare scenario: that the bad times have bottomed out (or will bottom out in the next 18 months), that Obama's policies will be implemented by a Democratic congress and that We The People(tm) will decide that "big government tax and spend" programs aren't so bad considering that we seem to have an bottomless bucket of money to pour all over Iraq, AIG, FannynFreddy, the automakers, the banking industry and, oh, what the hell, why not Starbucks? Starbucks is definitely too big to fail.
Taking some of those hundreds of billions of dollars and, you know, buying us all health insurance and giving us all reasonable college and business loans might, just might (I know this is crazy talk, but I'm feeling daffy), be a better investment for us than handing it over to Blackwater in giant suitcases.
They're staring down the barrel of a socialist shock doctrine of their own making. They've sold "deregulate, dismantle, privatize" as the solution for every crisis from Chile to Katrina and it's never, ever worked. Ever.
And the harder they try, the worse it works, but they've always had a little ace up their sleeve. During the Cold War, they managed to convince us that gun barrel kleptocracy was the only way to keep "the commies" from turning us into a bunch of godless zombies.
And that's the program they've tried to run here. "Oh, this crisis is big. We have to do something. But nothing insane like nationalizing institutions that are deemed 'too big to fail.' Heavens no. What we need is a large infusion of taxpayer dollars into the 'free' market, with no strings attached and no oversight applied. After all, wouldn't want to ruin the magical free hand of the market with a bunch of pointy-headed government regulations!"
And it didn't pass the laugh test.
True, much can be blamed on the Bush Administration. But the chief mistake of the Bush Administration is that they were true believers. They actually tried to govern based on Republican rhetoric.
Don't seem to recall too many Republicans crowing how the administration was betraying their values back in '05.
These people give dumb a bad name. They are so jaw droppingly stupid that there is just nothing you can really do except marvel.
And hope that natural selection kicks in and culls their numbers soon so that the rest of the world can move on.
Half the time when arguing with a wingnut, they can't spell properly even the topic of the debate (e.g. intitlemints). It's very hard to take them at all seriously. They just rant. Any reasoning present is anecdotal and based upon logical fallacies. The only smart republicans are the ones that are rich and are doing it out of greed. What's funny is that a slightly above-average wingnut usually act as though they are brilliant (or at least know-it-alls) because relative to other wingnuts they are indeed geniuses.
I wish President Elect Obama all the best.
I had this bizarre idea that after the election things might start to get better.
I know... wishful thinking.
I don't think I can deal with this non-stop anti-everything moron-freak-fest that the slugs insist on putting everyone through any more.
How about we wait until he is sworn in and has the presidential power before writing him off for not making things better? The election was only two weeks ago today. Bush is still the president and Obama isn't yet.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
...and even when Obama is sworn in, that alone isn't going to make wingnuts any smarter.
PoP I didn't say he couldn't make things better. I think he will in spite of all they throw at him. He already has in a lot of ways.
I said "I" can't take it any more. I cannot deal with the dog-shit stupid mentality these ass backward haters dish out nonstop 24/7.
Honestly, how do these people breathe in the shower without drowning themselves?
I cannot stand it. So I'll probably read my fave blogs a little less because it's just too depressing to read about how the stoopids are doing all they can to fuck things up for the rest of us.
Honestly, how do these people breathe in the shower without drowning themselves?
Now THAT was funny! May I use that elsewhere?
Absosmurfly ;)
is that most americans dont listen to right wing hate radio, or watch fox...thats it
epic fail
To be fair, Biden was never "cleared" of the allegation that he plagiarized Kinnock, just the law school thing, and the link to the NYT story clearly says that.
Biden did plagiarize Kinnock, by taking a story Kinnock told about his own family, and using it practically word-for-word, changing the venue and a few details.
and the plagerism was one issue...as was the issue of how he ran in 84
but lets look at his record since...he has not repeated these errors...he just likes to stick his foot in his mouth sometimes
This is why so many people think Americans are stupid.
... after all, the Media has normally served as a reliable meaphone for any disgusting falsehood or distortion the right chooses to smear on opponents. (Generally doing so by loudly repeating claims while softly pointing out that they are unproven, until after the election, when they give three column inches to the proof that the original claims were false.)
Fortunately, the people were not buying it as easily this time - not that the media didn't try.
I'm confused - are Obama supporters stoopid, or are they "intellactual elitists"? Could you wingnuts just pick one smear or the other? (50% chance by guessing)
You have to use the part of your brain that allows you to believe that Obama is both (1) completely controlled by a Christian reverend, and (2) a Muslim. I think it's called the corpus Republicum.
No no no, you've got it all wrong. The second you actually use your brain, the whole thing falls apart.
The sooner these losers accept that and deal with it the better.
Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity. Albert Einstein
Oh yes, they were all "country first", until the country chose Obama.
but I have no grace when it comes to the rightwing nut machine and the hatred and racism they seem to thrive on. I would never get vetted by Obama's team. One question on his application asked if you've ever sent an angry email. Damn, you know how many I've sent in the last 8 years? I might have to fire up some more for these stupid fuckers.
What are they, some kind of elitists? Why do they hate America?
I have always thought that the site Hot Air was very appropriately named!
All I can say is this video is probably heavily edited-the people who could answer appropriately were left on the cutting room floor; a lot of McCain voters would not know this info either; of course the desired answers were ones in the affirmative to smears used during the campaign-why would a voter who is supporting a certain candidate answer "yes" when the question is a slimeball tactic that has already been discredited?!
Talk about grasping at straws! When Rethugs try to do the investigative expose that progressives often do, it doesn't work well since they don't rely on facts and instead on exageration and manipulation and outright lies and distortion.
I don't agree with Ziegler's views. I don't agree that the media favored Obama (quite the opposite).
But I can't cathegorize this as a push poll and be certain.
The questions/answers in the poll may not have been "true" in THE sense of the word, but all those claims appeared and permeated the media airtime somewhat. That's what the poll was about, how much the media influenced the views of voters through the "facts" the media itself helped spread.
Nate Silver at 538.com has a short interview up with Ziegler (NSFW). Ziegler gets mad, and from his point of view, I think rightfully so. He throws in a few cuss words and insults. But he seemed outraged that his effort got dismissed in such a manner. Anyway, the interview was very interesting to me, and is the first time I've seen Nate Silver fall short of brilliance.
A lot of stupid questions, to be honest.
nate shouldve asked him why he cant get a job on radio anywhere in the united states
ziegler is a sad excuse for a human being
They have to blame anyone or anything but their own years of epic failure!
Man it's funny watching stupid people (conservatards) try to think.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
About the "photo" of the man with his head up . . .
This is the single most tasteless thing I have ever seen on the internet.
I, for one, will never visit your website again.>
Really? Try searching for "two girls one cup".
:D
I'll never be able to eat chocolate ice cream again...
Before enlightenment - chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment - chop wood, carry water.
Rod,
Is that a photo of a man?
I thought it looked like sarah with her hair cut.
"the single most tasteless thing" you "have ever seen on the internet"?
Is this the only site you've ever visited?
In my years of experience ... you can take for example and let an opened jar of peanut butter sit for too long (kind of like the GOP party) and know it's there, but don't find the time to make use of it because you're busy consuming other things (such as information on things to keep yourself informed). That when you go back to opening that jar of peanut butter, it gives off that bad smell ... then it leaves you no choice but to throw it away, that's what the GOP had done to it's own party, left it for Americans to throw them away because they have gone stale because they thought they could win us over with the use of fear tatics and push their form of imperialism over us.
All I have to say is, Kiss My Ass, GOP ... you guys had your chance, you blew it, you have yourselves to blame for it, so don't go finger pointing at the other guy because of your foul-ups. YOU DID IT TO YOURSELVES.
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