Punditry Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry (or Wrong)

[Lemur]

A look back at some fantastic (in every sense of the word) punditry from the 2008 election cycle:

"When he is forced to fight, Sen. Obama's inexperience shows. His record, slight as it is, is tough to defend. He's got a glass jaw, and he will fall into the trap of identity politics. In fact, he already has. The 'could we beat Obama?' conversation is purely academic. It's over. The Clintons have defeated him already, because he is leaving South Carolina as 'the black candidate.' He won't win another state. Even worse, in November Hillary will carry 90 percent of the black vote, despite their cynical, race-based campaign against the first viable black presidential candidate," — Michael Graham, January 26, 2008, NRO

"This year's primary results show no sign that Obama will reverse this trend should he win the nomination. In West Virginia and Kentucky, as well as Ohio and Pennsylvania, blue collar white voters sent him down to defeat by overwhelming margins. A recent Gallup poll report has argued that claims about Obama's weaknesses among white voters and blue collar voters have been exaggerated - yet its indisputable figures showed Obama running four percentage points below Kerry's anemic support among whites four years ago... Given that Obama's vote in the primaries, apart from African-Americans, has generally come from affluent white suburbs and university towns, the Gallup figures presage a Democratic disaster among working-class white voters in November should Obama be the nominee," - Sean Wilentz, May 23, 2008, Huffington Post

"Barack Obama is on his way to a McGovern candidacy," - Victor Davis Hanson, March 29, 2008, National Review

"All of these articles about his boyhood in Indonesia and his life in Hawaii are geared towards showing his background is diverse, multicultural and putting that in a new light. Save it for 2050 ... I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and values. The right knows Obama is unelectable except against Attila the Hun," — Mark Penn, March 19, 2007.

[Husar]

Well, they're experts...

[naut]

I think I have to join Jon Stewart in saying, "Who the are these guys!?"

[Hosakawa Tito]

I think I have to join Jon Stewart in saying, "Who the are these guys!?"

Paid fortune tellers and self proclaimed oracles who profess to have their finger on the pulse of the subject at hand frequently find that it is best not to be too explicit. If one could examine their track records I imagine you would find that most can't prognosticate the future any more accurately than Magic Eight Ball.

But hey, it generates a paycheck and provides comic relief so there are benefits to society.

[lars573]

You own a magic 8 ball? I do, it can right on a surprising amount of times.

[Gregoshi]

You mean I could get paid for punditry?!!!!!!

[Lemur]

"Sen. Obama cannot possibly believe, and doesn't even act as if he believes, that he can be elected president of the United States next year," -- Christopher Hitchens, September 24, 2007

"Polarizing the contest into whites versus blacks will work just fine for Hillary," -- Dick Morris, January 23, 2008.

[CountArach]

Dick Morris

Never, ever, link to Dick Morris again.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Never, ever, link to Dick Morris again.

Why?

He's just as likely to be fabulously wrong as the next "oracle." Did he send mean notes to your sister or some such?

[CountArach]

Why?

He's just as likely to be fabulously wrong as the next "oracle." Did he send mean notes to your sister or some such?

I watch too much Fox News to consider the man to be sane... or human...

[Hosakawa Tito]

You mean I could get paid for punditry?!!!!!!

Greg, you could be the Tiger Woods of that club, get an agent. Remember me when you hit the big time.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I watch too much Fox News to consider the man to be sane... or human...

Why? Seriously?

Anyways, what we need is some sort of meta-scoring site for pundits where there predictions are compared to reality and they get various scores.

CR

[CountArach]

Why? Seriously?

I do it for the lols.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I do it for the lols.

And it has NOTHING to do with the Fox News "cuties" they parade on screen all the time...I'm sure.

[CountArach]

And it has NOTHING to do with the Fox News "cuties" they parade on screen all the time...I'm sure.

Yeah, that Greta van Susteren! HAWT!

[Crazed Rabbit]

I do it for the lols.

Fair enough.

CR

[Louis VI the Fat]

Given that Obama's vote in the primaries, apart from African-Americans, has generally come from affluent white suburbs and university towns, the Gallup figures presage a Democratic disaster among working-class white voters in November should Obama be the nominee," - Sean Wilentz, May 23, 2008, Huffington Post

Fair is fair: I thought the same back in the spring.


I didn't count on McCain's strategists forcing him to the right, leaving the centre for Obama.

If I would've been McCain, I would've presented myself as a moderate Republican, moved/stayed in the centre myself, and make a big fuzz about Obama being a flip-flopper if he too moves into the centre position after his very leftwing presentation in the primaries.

[Ronin]

If I would've been McCain, I would've presented myself as a moderate Republican, moved/stayed in the centre myself, and make a big fuzz about Obama being a flip-flopper if he too moves into the centre position after his very leftwing presentation in the primaries.

And just like McCain in 2000 you wouldn´t have gotten the nomination.

[CountArach]

And just like McCain in 2000 you wouldn´t have gotten the nomination.

Except that McCain was nominated by running on a platform of not being the run-of-the-mill Republican. If McCain had have remained an honest-to-God Maverick after 2000 (Which he didn't) he could have won the nomination in 2008 as a Centrist and perhaps won the Presidency.

[CountArach]

Peggy Noonan in 2006

Conservatives are always writing about the strains and stresses within the Republican Party, and they are real. But the Democratic Party seems to be near imploding, and for that most humiliating of reasons: its meaninglessness. Republicans are at least arguing over their meaning.

The venom is bubbling on websites like Kos, where Tuesday afternoon, after the Alito vote, various leftists wrote in such comments as "---- our democratic leaders," "Vichy Democrats" and "---- Mary Landrieu, I hope she drowns." The old union lunch-pail Democrats are dead, the intellects of the Kennedy and Johnson era retired or gone, and this--I hope she drowns--seems, increasingly, to be the authentic voice of the Democratic base.

How will a sane, stable, serious Democrat get the nomination in 2008 when these are the activists to whom the appeal must be made?

Republicans have crazies. All parties do. But in the case of the Democrats--the leader of their party, after all, is the unhinged Howard Dean--the lunatics seem increasingly to be taking over the long-term health-care facility. Great parties die this way, or show that they are dying.

[Marshal Murat]

It also means, what you said before, about Clinton being

dismissed as a commander in chief wanna-be who did little more than sip tea and make small talk with foreign leaders during her days as first lady.

That doesn't really count now. Instead, she is

"a tremendous addition to this administration. Tremendous."

Senior adviser David Axelrod called Clinton a "demonstrably able, tough, brilliant person."

[Husar]

It also means, what you said before, about Clinton being


That doesn't really count now. Instead, she is

Well, the election is over, they can stop lying now...and start fresh with new lies.

[Martok]

Lies? Or self-delusions?

Either way, though, her appointment as SecState is deeply troubling.

[Gregoshi]

...her appointment as SecState is deeply troubling.

Aye. I think this country has had its fill of Clintons and Bushes. Enough already.

[seireikhaan]

I don't know. I've heard rumors that appointing her sec. of state could be a ploy to effectively neutralize her. Either she toes the line and does a good job, or she can be accused of "undermining the administration", fired, and having forsaken her position in the Senate, be left with no role in government when the next election roles around.

[CountArach]

I don't know. I've heard rumors that appointing her sec. of state could be a ploy to effectively neutralize her. Either she toes the line and does a good job, or she can be accused of "undermining the administration", fired, and having forsaken her position in the Senate, be left with no role in government when the next election roles around.

Some thoughts by Nate Silver on this (Yes... I still read it every day - 2010 here we come!)