Well, the OP links to a Salon story with the thesis that we may reach some conclusion because Obama has been subject to more false stories (68% of 87) than Bush was (36% of 47).
So if your stipulation is correct, then Salon guy’s thesis applies even more strongly to Palin (100% of ten gazillion).
I don’t have an opinion on the thesis itself – I just wanted to ask if the thesis extends to Palin. My suspicion is that Salon guy would not endorse his thesis as applied to Palin.
At a very quick glance: ten rumors of which seven are false, one is true, one is undetermined, and one is a mixed bag of true and false (comparisons to Teddy Roosevelt).
The numbers for Obama and Bush are as reported in the OP. It’s worth noting, however, that not all “rumors” are inherently negative or indeed directly on the subject. Obama’s list includes a (true) quote from Robert Kennedy that a black man could become President within forty years. Bush’s includes a number which reflect well on him.
Well Obama is the anti-Christ while Bush was merely a moron.
Sounds like one of those bullshit facts/stats someone just pulled out of his ass. In any case, at least you don’t seem to spreading your obnoxious lunacy to the rest of the globe as you did with Bush. I used to always have to read all kinds of stupid bullshit conspiracy theories about Bush. Fortunately I have so far been spared this with Obama.
Is Obama also a Skull & Bones man? And a member of the Illuminati and Bilderberg Group? Has Obama been implicated in a major terror attack on USA?
I quickly skimmed over the supposed 47 rumors for Bush, and if this is supposed to be an exhaustive list then all I can say is the entire basis of the article from Salon posted in the OP is a joke. There is one (one!) listed rumor concerning 9/11, and it’s about him hugging a 9/11 victim. That alone pretty much blows the list out of the water, since there are more than 47 (hell, more than 87) internet rumors about Bush’s supposed actions and knowledge on this subject alone. Looking through the rest, I don’t see many of the more juicy internet rumors I remember getting. A quick search on ‘Katrina’, for instance, shows no listings for any rumors about this.
All I can say is that Snopes.com (which, btw, I use quite often) just didn’t get into the political silly rumors game during the Bush years (for whatever reason) while they seem to have have decided to post more regularly about ones concerning Obama now (again, for whatever reason…I’ll leave it to the reader to decide why both of these seem to be the case).
-XT
I don’t know. Why don’t you tell us? It’s pretty easy to do a search on snopes like the guy in the linked article did.
I did tell you:
I kind of doubt that the count of rumors either in the linked Salon article or on Snopes makes any pretense to statistical significance.
Plus, I had a glance at the list of Bush rumors. The “Bush resume” seems to be a compilation of a shit load of others, but only gets counted as one. It is the usual collection of lies, damned lies, and statistics.
On example might be illustrative of some of the difficulties in judging these things -
Much of the rest of the resume is debunked here. (pdf)
Regards,
Shodan
If you mean paragraph 2, that was an obvious joke. If you mean paragraph 3, then no, you didn’t. I don’t see that speculating about what the salon guy might do in some hypothetical circumstance adds anything to the debate.
Both Katrina and 9/11 have their own sub-categories on the Snopes main page. And Katrina not only has its own category, politics/katrina has its own subcategory.
I don’t know if counting Snopes articles is a meaningful measure or not. I just know in my email inbox, I have seen many more emails about Obama than I ever did about Bush, by several times over. I would be interested if anyone can honestly report the opposite.
I’d agree with this. I don’t think the Salon article is what one would call a “rigorous analysis”. I also get a lot of craziness in my inbox about Obama, but I really only have one liberal friend who sends out crazy e-mails, as opposed to 4 or 5 on the other end of the political spectrum.
There were all kinds of “OMG, Bush is issuing signing statements” (as if no other president had ever done so) and "Cheney is profiting off Haliburton’ (when he wasn’t), but it seems like I get at least one crazy Obama e-mail every week. Still, ones own personal experience isn’t remotely a “rigorous analysis”, either.
Really? Salon Guy’s thesis is so specific to Obama and Bush that it cannot be generalized for Palin?
I’m not sure I get more anti-Obama emails then I did anti-Bush. But the difference is the anti-Bush emails I get are almost all trying to make fun of Bush (with varying degrees of success). I must’ve gotten the one where Bush’s face is compared to a chimp about six times over eight years.
But the specific domain of unflattering rumors or conspiracy theories about the subject that end up being BS seem to be less bipartisan, by a four or five to one ratio, IMO.
And as I said, the same disparity predates Obama. I remember the same thing with Gore and then Kerry. And its not just political candidates like Obama/Gore/Kerry, I get a lot that target something “hippies” or PETA or ACORN or whatever supposedly did.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but that does not seem to be the same things as:
Are you saying he would dispute the data if it did, or that he wouldn’t bother publishing it because it went against his preconceived ideas?
The incident involving Obama walking on water has actually been verified according to Snopes.
I’m saying that I suspect he would No True Scotsman it, by finding some way to distinguish it. That is, his thesis seems to be: even if the Bush haters were spreading irrational and false rumors about Bush, the Obama haters are worse, because they are spreading more rumors, with an even higher rate of falsity, about Obama.
My reaction is: if he were confronted by evidence that Palin e-mails had a still higher number/percentage of false claims, he would not then endorse the proposition that Palin haters are worse still.
Are you actually famililar with the guys writings or even personally outside this one article? It seems bizarre to try and psychoanalyze him to propose what he’d do in some hypothetical situation based on eight paragraphs and a tag line. Plus, who really cares what “J.L. Bell” would do in made up situations?
I actually happen to know for a fact, that if the Chinese invade Hawaii, Bell would be the first to volunteer for an elite US commando squad that would go behind enemy lines and destroy the Communist infrastructure, saving the State. J.S Bell is, hypothetically, Americas greatest War-hero, and I’m disgusted that you would hypothetically slander such a hypothetically great man!
What are we talking about again?