{"id":5529,"date":"2008-11-18T20:44:23","date_gmt":"2008-11-19T04:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=5529"},"modified":"2008-11-18T20:44:23","modified_gmt":"2008-11-19T04:04:11","slug":"better-to-remain-silent-and-be-thought-a-fool%e2%80%a6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=5529","title":{"rendered":"Better to Remain Silent and be Thought a Fool\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ziegler_john.jpg\"<\/a>…than to speak out and remove all doubt. This bit of wisdom, oft attributed to former President Abraham Lincoln, is something John Ziegler<\/a> should take to heart. Ziegler is the producer of a new movie that totally proves that a lot of Obama supporters were misinformed, partly through the use of a Zogby poll that asks inaccurate questions<\/a>. Nate Silver called out Zogby earlier today for running what amounted to a push poll; Ziegler responded by demanding an interview with Silver<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hilarity ensues:<\/p>\n

[Nate Silver]: Do you stand by all the statements in the survey as being unambiguously true?<\/span>
\n[John Ziegler]: I stand one hundred percent by the notion that there is absolutely zero ambiguity as to what the right answer is to any of the questions. With the one exception of the Palin-Russia-Alaska question which we asked the way we did for a very specific purpose which was to try and gauge the Tina Fey Effect which I think we did in a very effective manner which was what was actually said by Tina Fey, everyone attributed to Sarah Plain. But for purposes of scoring Obama supporters\u2019 answers we counted Palin as a correct response.<\/p>\n

NS: What was the right answer to that [Palin] question?<\/span>
\nJZ: The technically accurate question [sic] is that none of the four people said that, but we counted it as correct if they said Sarah Palin.<\/p>\n

NS: Why would you commission a survey question with no correct response?<\/span>
\nJZ: The purpose of the question, you pinhead, was we wanted to determine the Tina Fey Effect.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

NS: Did you have financing for the project or was it paid for out of pocket?<\/span>
\nJZ: It is not self-financed.<\/p>\n

NS: Who paid for it?<\/span>
\nJZ: You think I’m going to tell you that? When you’ve already shown yourself to be the enemy?<\/p>\n

NS: Was it paid for by the RNC?<\/span>
\nJZ: [Laughs]. In your world, the question that I would ask you is what question [in the survey] is there any ambiguity as to what the answer is?<\/p>\n

NS: Well, that Obama ‘launched his career’ at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground —<\/span>
\nJZ: That happens to be one of the questions that Obama supporters did the best on! They did better on that question than on any other Obama-related answers! And here you\u2019re telling me that it\u2019s not true?<\/p>\n

NS: What do you mean by “launched his career”?<\/span>
\nJZ: The first campaign as told by the person whose position he took in the State Senate, as told by her admission, his first campaign event was in the home of Bill Ayers and his wife. [Laughs] Unless you live in the Obama kool-aid world! That is astonishing to me that you would not accept that! And by the way, when you’re given four responses to that question, what else was the response going to be? Sarah Palin?<\/p>\n

NS: Well, her husband was a member of a secessionist party.<\/span>
\nJZ: You are such a hack! That’s a very good analogy.<\/p>\n

NS: Do you think that certain types of voters are less well informed?<\/span>
\nJZ: I think anyone that looks rationally at these poll results would have to conclude that Obama voters are incredibly poorly informed about major issues that occurred during the campaign — my guess is because McCain voters got their information from different types of media than Obama voters did.<\/p>\n

NS: What types of media would you consider credible?
\n<\/span>JZ: I think you need a variety of sources, but I do not accept the notion that if it’s not in the New York Times<\/span> it’s not true and if it is in the New York Times<\/span> it is. Just because Sean Hannity says something doesn’t mean it\u2019s not true.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The whole thing is full of win, especially the half-dozen times that Ziegler argues that Silver won’t post the transcript of the interview. Because the transcript, I suppose, makes Silver look bad. Or something.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…than to speak out and remove all doubt. This bit of wisdom, oft attributed to former President Abraham Lincoln, is something John Ziegler should take to heart. Ziegler is the producer of a new movie that totally proves that a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-and-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}