Today’s Washington Post carries a front-page article that (inadvertently) explains why empirically-oriented political scientists* like myself for the most part avoid doing anything that has anything close to real-world implications. And, it’s a no-win situation unless you’re a raging lefty “new politics” type (i.e., the sort who wouldn’t be hired by Democrats or Republicans to do this sort of work in the first place): somehow I doubt those in our discipline who want our discipline to be more “relevant” will be cheering the efforts of my future colleagues Peter Feaver and Christopher Gelpi to reinforce public support for the Iraq war and the War on Terror.

James Joyner’s comments further underscore the reasons for this reluctance:

Peter Baker and Dan Balz have a front page editorial, er “analysis,” at the Washington Post pointing out that President Bush is a politician who crafts his public speeches with his audience in mind. Even more damning is the suggestion that he hires experts to advise him.

Another data point: a few weeks ago, I made the mistake of trying to explain 50 years of empirical public opinion research to a reporter for the Jackson Free Press (for this article) who was asking why nobody voted in Jackson’s mayoral race, and all I got for it was being accused of being a “cynic.” Talk about shooting the messenger.

Here’s a new one: a parliamentary leader who wants to lose a vote of no confidence:

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will call a vote of confidence in the German parliament on Friday as part of his plan to hold early elections.

Schroeder is hoping he will lose the vote of deputies in the Bundestag, a move that would allow him to resign as chancellor and call fresh elections in the autumn—probably in mid-September.

He would then begin campaigning for a fresh mandate to push through tough economic reforms.

There’s some background on Germany’s rather unusual confidence procedures here at Wikipedia (the standard Wikipedia caveat applies)—there are actually two different types of confidence vote, one of which replaces the chancellor (the “constructive” vote that most comparative politics textbooks talk about) and the other of which requests (but does not require) that the president call new elections.

Yet another proposal to eliminate the telephone excise tax that dates back to the Spanish-American War has apparently been introduced in the Senate, although given the ballooning deficit and the typical political wrangling, I wouldn’t hold my breath on seeing the repeal happen anytime soon.

þ: Ars Technica.

More presidential election speculation from Hei Lun of Begging to Differ, who makes the early case for Hillary Clinton in 2008 after surveying the field and finding it, to put it mildly, wanting. Don’t forget, there’s only 1,223 shopping days left until Decision 2008!

Mark Steyn on the daft proposal to ban flag burning:

A flag has to be worth torching. When a flag gets burned, that’s not a sign of its weakness but of its strength. If you can’t stand the heat of your burning flag, get out of the superpower business. It’s the left that believes the state can regulate everyone into thought-compliance. The right should understand that the battle of ideas is won out in the open.

Quite right. As it turns out, one of my first bits of political almost-participation—I say “almost” because I never mailed it—was a letter to the editor to the Stars and Stripes opposing such an amendment in the wake of Texas v. Johnson. My political views on a few things have changed since then—I was something more of a nanny-statist in my youth—but not on flag burning.

þ: Peaktalk and a host of others.

The Baseball Crank notes that Joe Biden is throwing his hat—or at least his hairpiece—into the ring for 2008, while the SoCons are apparently in the market to coalesce behind a single Republican contender already, according to this piece linked by John Cole—after all, there’s only 1,226 shopping days left before the next presidential election. All hail the permanent campaign.

Of course, the drawback of predicting the “redshirts” at this point is that, unlike in Star Trek (or, in general, when using the Law of Economy of Characters*), you don’t know who is going to buy it until after the fact.

Matt Bai thinks national Democrats could learn a lot from Hank Hill and Gov. Mike Easley (D-N.C.). He’s probably right, although Tom Maguire has the Democrats’ likelihood of success with this theme pegged:

No more sneers? No more “Vote for my health care plan, you racist, homophobic gun nuts”?

Republican strategists can relax.

Or, to paraphrase another modern Southern legend, when the red meat your party activists want turns off the voters you need to reclaim that (oh-so-slowly) “emerging” majority, you might be a Democrat.

Update: Mr. Mike thinks Bai seriously misreads King of the Hill; not being a viewer of the show, I wouldn’t presume to know.

Another Update: Ann Althouse has more thoughts on KotH (þ: Instapundit).

James G. Lakely of the Washington Times compares the press reaction to Karl Rove’s recent remarks about liberals and/or Democrats with Sen. Richard Durbin’s apparent attempt to draw an equivalence between Gitmo and Naziism, but I think some of Lakely’s evidence is rather specious… including this item:

The White House press corps also handled both stories dramatically differently. Questions about Mr. Rove dominated the White House press briefing the day after the speech was delivered with spokesman Scott McClellan being peppered with 22 questions on the subject.

A solitary reporter asked for the White House’s response to Mr. Durbin’s speech—two days after it was delivered—and Mr. McClellan was asked about it just two more times.

Karl Rove works for the president of the United States; one would expect that the president’s representatives would be asked to answer questions about his comments. Durbin, on the other hand, is a member of the legislative branch. This disparity doesn’t show bias—it shows that one person works for the president, and the other doesn’t.

I suppose RINO is as good a label for me as anything else, so long as I don’t have to pretend to like über-RINO John McCain. Not that liking someone is a prerequisite for getting my vote, mind you: ask John F’ing Kerry. So, I’m in.

Not having analyzed the data (a big caveat for a social scientist, mind you) I’ll agree with the critics who aren’t buying the evidence from a Heritage report that suggests that “abstinance pledge” programs work. Not that the story makes that much sense, since it’s clear the author doesn’t actually know anything about social scientific research and just relies on an expert and the authors of the original study to rebut the paper.

But Matthew Yglesias’ critique really goes off the rails. First he complains, “the study was not peer-reviewed, is unpublishable in real academic journals, uses an unreliable data source, and only supports the conclusion when you use a non-standard test for statistical significance.”

The first two critiques are bizarre, since (a) it has never been submitted for peer review and (b) we don’t know whether or not it’s publishable, since submission for peer review hasn’t happened yet; the lack of publishability is an opinion expressed by someone in the article, not a factual statement. They don’t use any “non-standard test”; they use a p-value of 0.10 as their cutoff, which isn’t the traditional 0.05 and not quite as convincing as 0.05, but isn’t inherently invalid either, and confidence levels aren’t tests (examples of tests are “t” tests and “Wald” tests; p values are the results of statistical tests).

The only critique that’s even vaguely valid is that the data source is unreliable, as it relies on self-reporting by respondents of their behavior. This is a problem, to the extent you believe that people who have signed abstinence pledges are more likely to lie about their sexual activity than those who haven’t. I’ll concede that it’s possible that that’s the case. Mind you, Heritage didn’t come up with the data—HHS did—and trying to get people to accurately self-report anything is harder than it looks.

Then Yglesias turns and goes completely bizarro:

The only newsworthy information in the story is that the Bush Department of Health and Human Services has decided for some reason to start contracting out research on controversial questions to an ideological think tank that is non-partisan in name only, rather than to proper independent analysts.

There is no evidence in the story that Heritage was working under any sort of HHS contract. On the contrary, Heritage appears to have analyzed data, produced under HHS and CDC contract, which is in the public domain.* They then presented their results at a government-sponsored conference. The next step would be to fix any problems in the paper (and the article suggests there were some), and then submit the paper to a peer-reviewed journal. That’s how social science is done.

Now, mind you, it might be premature for the New York Times to be calling attention to this story, but given public interest in the issue—and the Times’ possible interest in discrediting this evidence, not that I’d suspect the paper of having an ideological bias in its reporting decisions—I’m not sure I can fault them for covering preliminary results that (potentially) rebut a serious critique of administration policy.

* If the CDC had helped fund either analysis, it would be traditional for the studies to acknowledge the funding at the beginning of the paper in a note. I think it’s more likely that the Times meant to say that the CDC helped fund the HHS survey, not the Heritage study.

As reputed Klansman Edgar Ray Killen goes on trial for his role in the Philadelphia Three murders, the U.S. Senate decided to apologize for its complicity in Klan terrorism, which I suppose would be a more meaningful gesture if more than 6% of the Senate had shown up for the vote or if either senator from Mississippi, a.k.a. Lynching Central, had co-sponsored the bill. Steven Taylor has more thoughts on the belated apology.

Mind you, I’m not sure which is worse… the locals who are ignorant of the past or the non-locals who are ignorant of the present.

Monday’s Washington Post reports that conference negotiators are finally getting somewhere on the renewal of the federal transportation authorization bill, which expired 21 months ago. The reason for the sudden burst of progress: members of Congress are sick and tired of wrangling over the bill:

“I just want to get it all over with,” Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said as final negotiations began Thursday.

At stake are around $290 billion in road, rail, and transit projects over the next six years (well, four years and three months, at this point). The same article also reports that the Senate may actually come up with a workable compromise on the energy bill. The stars must really be aligned this month or something…

Also on the roads beat, an interesting article on the trend toward building more toll roads recently appeared on Wired News. One such project is North Carolina’s proposed Triangle Parkway, an extension of the Durham Freeway south to the I-540 Western Wake Expressway through Research Triangle Park.

Nick Troester on the latest round of arguments about the potential success of third party presidential candidates:

Political parties, being more-or-less coalitional, actually need to take positions on a wide number of issues to be able to draw in people who are oriented towards things other than the party’s main issue—that is to say, one might think both parties are bad when it comes to good government issues, but one still probably lines up as a D or R when it comes to entitlement spending, the deficit, foreign policy, etc. A lot is needed to uproot people from where they are.

Or, to put it another way, there just aren’t enough people who care about politics who’d support the “not stupid or evil party” just because it’s not stupid or evil.

And, many observers suggest Roosevelt would have won the Republican nomination—and almost certainly the presidency—had the 1912 convention not been stacked with Taft patronage appointees from “rotten borough” delegations from the South. I don’t know that there’s a specific lesson for John McCain in there, but the route to power is much easier if you can take over a major party than starting your own… ask the Christian Coalition or the Deaniac crowd, who now effectively control the two major parties, if you don’t believe me.

Stephen Fry and John F. Kerry. I link, you decide.

And let me get this straight: Kerry hid his military records to cover up the fact he was a mediocre student at Yale? Sheesh. Of course, since the “smart” guy got 4 D’s and the “dumb” guy got 1, I guess I could see how that would make at least a modicum of sense.

I’d personally like to thank the Supreme Court for announcing its decision in the medical marijuana case Gonzalez v. Raich (né Ashcroft v. Raich) today. I guess the silver lining is that I have a week before I actually have to talk about the case in my con law class.

Slightly more seriously, James Joyner approves (although not of the public policy in question), while Glenn Reynolds doesn’t. More, of course, at the Volokh Conspiracy from Orin Kerr and David “Buy My Book” Bernstein.

On the recommendation of Orin Kerr and Glenn Reynolds, I read this Jon Henke post that makes a fairly compelling case that there are systematic problems with detainee abuse in the War on Terror—relying on sources that most would consider to be objective.

Henke also proposes two solutions, POW status and real trials, both of which should be familiar to longtime Signifying Nothing readers—heck, it’s been a recurring theme from Robert and I for over two years now.

A day late and a dollar short, I find out that John Ford resigned from the Tennessee Senate in the wake of the Tennessee Waltz arrests. Good riddance, although I think there’s a fair shot he’ll be back—even if it’s after a trip to the Big House. (þ: Wizbang)

American Airlines’ pathetic campaign to protect its monopolistic practices in Dallas-Fort Worth has reached a new low with this jaw-droppingly asinine press release that actually accuses Southwest of monopolistic behavior.

On the heels of two Dallas-area congressmen introducing legislation to repeal the Wright Amendment and evidence that DFW Airport tried to cover up findings by its own consultant that ending Wright would lower air fares, DFW board members like Dallas’ mayor are even recognizing that Wright’s days are numbered—but American still isn’t budging. (þ: Xrlq and Vance of Begging to Differ)

While I was off in North Carolina, apparently five current or former Tennessee legislators, including John Ford, were indicted for alleged involvement in influence-peddling after a two-year sting operation by Tennessee and federal authorities. I can’t say I’m particularly surprised that the long arm of the law has caught up with Ford, although I am surprised it wasn’t due to his TennCare or child care shenanigans.

I haven’t really been on the case, but Mike Hollihan has, so just start at the top and keep scrolling.

Well, that was fun while it lasted:

Fourteen Republican and Democratic senators announced this evening they had reached a compromise designed to prevent a showdown over President Bush’s judicial nominations.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), speaking for the group of seven Republicans and seven Democrats, announced the agreement at a news conference at 7:40 p.m.

Under the deal, the Democrats agreed to accept cloture votes on three of President Bush’s judicial nominees: Priscilla R. Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor.

In return, the Republicans pledged not to support the so-called “nuclear option” to end the ability of the minority to use filibusters to block nominees.

I suppose it’s interesting that the guaranteed votes are for the three nominees anyone had ever heard of. Now at least Washington can move on to its next kabuki theatre event. (þ: Robert Tagorda)

Update: Steve at Begging to Differ provides a conventional wisdom watch (McCain, Reid win; Bush, Frist lose) that sounds reasonably right to me, while Stephen Bainbridge thinks it was a worthwhile compromise. I tend to agree with BTD Steve that Republicans probably won’t get the credit for being “bipartisan,” but if you’re the sort of person who likes the small-c conservative nature of the filibuster, Bainbridge points out it’s the smart long-term move—although, should the Democrats ever regain the majority, there’s nothing stopping them from going “nuclear” absent some (highly unlikely) pangs of conscience due to further hypocrisy on their part.

Continuing a theme, Tom Traina has a worthwhile post on Lochner and Roe. I don’t have anything to add beyond what I already said in comments to Tom’s post.

You can tell things have gotten bad in Washington when even Democrats are being compared with Adolph Hitler. I think Ed Cone put it best:

Yes, it’s bad, it’s deplorable, a United States Senator should not say such things. But let’s maintain perspective: it’s Rick Santorum. What do you expect?

Original story here for those who haven’t heard enough Hitler comparisons in the past six months.

Kevin Aylward apparently thinks people who violate court orders with impunity should get off scot-free since the people who are calling for enforcement of the court order have, in the past, defended people Kevin doesn’t like. For that matter, I don’t really like those people too, but neither do I particularly like people who confuse public schools with Sunday school.

Steven Taylor links a story that says Fox blames the furor over his recent comments about Mexican immigrants doing jobs that “even” African-Americans won’t do on a misinterpretation. Political scientist Michelle Dion, who is in Mexico City and read the original remarks in Spanish, notes that Mexicans were also outraged by the remarks—but for different reasons. She also has more on the retraction/apology.

You know, I’d be stunned by this lead graf—at least, if it were written about the CIA:

Seven months before the invasion of Iraq, the head of British foreign intelligence reported to Prime Minister Tony Blair that President Bush wanted to topple Saddam Hussein by military action and warned that in Washington intelligence was “being fixed around the policy,” according to notes of a July 23, 2002, meeting with Blair at No. 10 Downing Street.

Accurate intelligence about something everyone in the whole world already knew at the time delivered by a Western intelligence service? Who’d have thunk it? Give them a cookie. (þ: memeorandum)