Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty
July 2, 2010
In This Issue . . .
1. He Botched the Verse? Call It Comprehensive Immigration Deform
2. Research 2000, the Green Alligator of Pollsters
3. From Russia with Love, If Not Quite Competence
4. Addenda
Happy Independence Day weekend! No Jolt until July 6...
Enjoy,
Jim
1. He Botched the Verse? Call It Comprehensive Immigration Deform
Perhaps it was because I was occupied with other tasks -- like searching for some sort of independent verifiable evidence that Research 2000 exists, and is neither a mass hallucination nor a giant rabbit that only Markos Moulitsas can see and hear -- but President Obama's big speech on immigration seemed to come and go with no one noticing and no serious consequence; it was deemed to be a passing annoyance, something that had been preceded by many like it and destined to be followed by many more, so ubiquitous and relentless that the outrage had been worn down and barely anyone bothered to raise a voice in objection. Come to think of it, the speech was almost like an illegal immigrant.
It is a hot-button issue, and the leader of the free world gave an address on it -- how did this not become big news? We can't all be distracted because we're looking for more pictures of that striking, redheaded alleged Russian spy, right?
Ed Morrissey took notice of President Obama's declaration that "Being an American is not a matter of blood or birth, it's a matter of faith," a bit of treacle that will prompt ICE to start researching and developing a hand-held "belief-o-matic."
Ed: "We know what Obama meant in this passage -- a similarity to those who have expressed the notion that they were Americans before ever setting foot in the US, thanks to their love of liberty. However, the people expressing that concept came to the US through legal immigration, and didn't presume to break our laws in order to express their desire to live in freedom. They understood that the aspirational concept of being American and the legal status of American citizenship (or even residency) are two completely different things. Besides, if being an American is a matter of faith, then the religion in question is devotion to the rule of law. We have created the laws by which we live through representative democracy within a framework set by our Constitution. Breaking the law to get into the country isn't an expression of faith; using Obama's construct, it's actually heresy. Obama and his open-borders allies attempt to blur the difference between illegal and legal immigration. Almost no one of consequence opposes the latter. Everyone of the 'faith' of Americanism should insist on enforcing the laws against the former. Unfortunately, this President -- and many of those who have come before him -- have proven rather faithless in this task."
Jim Hoft perks up his ears when Obama recites the lines from Emma Lazarus's poem "The New Colossus," which appears on a bronze plaque in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, and your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free."
He notes, "Umm . . . It's 'yearning to breathe free,' Barack."
At Ace of Spades, Drew M. live-blogs Obama's remarks despite what it will do to his blood pressure: "Shockingly, Obama is making no distinctions between immigration and illegal immigration. Obama just said something to the effect of 'illegal immigration makes a mockery of those going through the legal process.' Um, so the answer is to jump the illegals ahead of those playing by the rules? I guess my pants aren't sufficiently creased to understand that thinking. . . . Remember when Obama was considered a great orator? Why was that again? My God, this is a speech filled with warmed over ideas, straw-men and catchphrases. At least it's being delivered in a low energy, stumbling manner. If Obama really wanted to get something going on this issue, he'd be giving this speech in a bigger, higher energy setting doing his 'Fired up, ready to go! Yes we can!' shtick. This pseudo-serious stuff will get him a little credit from the left but not put himself so far out there that he's committed to doing something. . . . Shorter Obama: 'Hey, that 2007 immigration effort worked out well, let's just try the same thing again. Now watch this drive!'"
Former California Senate candidate Mickey Kaus notices, "The Washington Post keeps hiding (http://tinyurl.com/26frclp) that its poll shifted 9 pts AGAINST immigration amnesty since 2009."
2. Research 2000, the Green Alligator of Pollsters
As mentioned earlier, Research 2000 is a weird entity with strikingly limited proof of its operations as a "normal" pollster. I figured I might head over to their offices, only to discover that their only listed address is a P.O. Box.
Patrick Ruffini asks around to get a sense of how much the going rate would be for the kinds of polls Research 2000 said it was providing Daily Kos, and concludes: a quite hefty sum. The sample size, the length of the questions, and the many sub-categories of voters would have required enormous amounts of time, an enormous staff, and accordingly exorbitant fees.
The poll that was closely tied to Moulitas's book idea would have cost $100,000 for most pollsters, given the sample size, the number of respondent rejections, and so on. Ruffini notes that if the price was significantly less, "anyone with a rudimentary understanding of polling would have known you can't do a poll like this for that amount of money."
As of yesterday afternoon, two days after one of the most shocking accusations in the history of political polling, there was no statement, response, or even acknowledgment of the Kos controversy on the company's website. Yet the site's Google News feed links to several unflattering stories about the controversy, including the post in which statisticians studied the results and told Kos, "We do not know exactly how the weekly R2K results were created, but we are confident they could not accurately describe random polls."
The more you look at Research 2000, the more their polls emit an odor. Ruffini noticed that the firm "claims to have contacted 2,774 Obama voters in Massachusetts within a few hours of the polls closing on January 19 special election." He also notes that Research 2000 president Del Ali referred to the site as "the Daily Kos" -- a weird misnomer for what must have been one of his biggest clients. (As with National Review, there is no "the.") By late afternoon, Ruffini was asking his Twitter followers if anyone could remember being contacted by Research 2000 for a poll; so far, it seems he has one hazy reply.
When I can't find something on a website's search engine, I always suspect there's a good chance that I'm doing something wrong, or that there's something wrong with the search engine. But yesterday, I could find exactly one reference to Research 2000 on LinkedIn, a professional networking site where people post their resumes: the personal listing of firm president Del Ali. It is possible that in the history of Research 2000's existence, not one employee or former employee has ever chosen to list themselves on LinkedIn . . . but that just seems unusual. Also, I'm having trouble finding anything close to "Research 2000" in the Business Entity Information database of the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place.
And here's another "whoa" moment, at least for me: Greg Sargent got a look at the lawsuit that Moulitsas is filing against Ali and notes, "The suit says that there was no formal written contract between the two parties, claiming the deal was made verbally and by email."
Del Ali offers a defense in a statement that, er, I suspect many will find rambling.
This section's title, by the way, refers to Michael Yon's observation about the widespread public perception that alligators are green, which is reinforced by such diverse sources as Disney cartoons, the Unicorn song, the mobile on my son's crib, golf shirts, and the University of Florida. Alligators are, with very rare exceptions, black; they are almost never the bright green that is standard in almost all depictions of them. For years, people have operated on the assumption that Research 2000 was just another pollster, and that just doesn't seem to be the case.
3. From Russia with Love, If Not Quite Competence
If I ever have to go toe to toe with Russian intelligence, I want them to send whichever remaining agent most reminds them of Anna Chapman. Easy on the eyes, and not too strenuous on the wits, either: "'She also had problems keeping her cover stories straight. She made up a different story every time,' he said. 'The first time, she said she ran a real-estate Web site. Then the next time, she was working on an oil deal. [Then] she told me she was a derivatives trader. I asked her one thing any derivatives trader would know and she didn't know what I was talking about,' he said. 'She was just dumb, quite frankly.'"
You get the feeling that, at some point, she must have sent a message back to Moscow begging for cash, because she had been swindled out of her lunch money by a moose and a squirrel.
Anne Applebaum offers a plausible theory of why the Russians put so much effort into creating agents who couldn't really get access to much valuable information: "In its time, the KGB did not believe in the free circulation of information, either -- the so-called free press was always held to be a tool of the capitalist exploiters -- and neither does a part of the current Russian ruling class." If it's in the American newspapers, it can't be true.
I realize the great Adam Baldwin is busy with at least 13 episodes of Chuck, but I could see a great comedy-drama about a ring of Russian spies who go hopelessly native in America and lose any real interest in ever returning to the motherland, much less seriously undermining the security of their new home. Jewel Staite must play the role of the redheaded shopaholic; we could have Robert Davi and Janine Turner as the deep-cover Montclair suburban couple constantly demanding that Moscow give them the down payment for a jumbo mortgage on that ideal McMansion. Of course, the spy ring could have some actual bad guys. And all the while, FBI Agent Adam Baldwin is homing in on the ring, his suspicions aroused by the latest strange fact that doesn't add up . . . who then has to wonder whether this thoroughly Americanized, not terribly competent crew of FSB spies is a bigger security risk to us or to the Russians.
4. Addenda
Washington Post headline this morning: "Oil spill will hurt U.S. economy, but not big enough to cause recession."
Cause a recession? With a "Recovery Summer" like this one, who can tell? |
