Author: BooMan

What’s going on besides Plamegate?

After reading, re-reading, and partially digesting (I really can’t fully stomach it) Judy Miller’s article on her grand jury testimony, I am convinced she is still protecting the administration.

It appears to me that she is going to be a hostile witness when she testifies in Scooter Libby’s trial. Even so, if she was primarily interested in protecting Libby she could have done a better job of it. To see why, let’s start with the heart of the matter: the appearance of the words ‘Valerie Flame’ in Miller’s notes from her second meeting with Libby on July 8th, 2003.

What’s up?

Stephen F. Hayes has just published one of the most dishonest and misleading columns I have ever seen. It is ostensibly a comprehensive history of the Valerie Plame affair. In fact, it is a case study in the obfuscation and mendacity of the right-wing wurlitzer. It will undoubtedly become one of the most sourced resources of the wingnut blogosphere. So, let’s take this mutha apart.

Before we do, I want to make a concession to Hayes. Proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Iraq did not procure uranium from Niger does not prove that Iraq did not attempt to procure uranium from Niger, or from other African nations. And, the real question before the intelligence community was trying to ascertain Iraqi intentions, as well as Iraqi capabilities. Okay. Let’s move on.

Hayes begins:

Here is something interesting I learned today at the voting fraud debate at the University of Pennsylvania between Walter Mitofsky and Prof. Steve Freeman (.pdf). Take a look at these numbers from the 2000 and 2004 elections:

From this data we can see several things. First, there was much higher turnout in 2004. Second, there were many fewer third party voters. And third, Bush improved his numbers more than Kerry improved on Gore’s. So, where did Bush get his votes? To try to figure it out, Prof. Freeman looked at the exit polls. One of the questions on the two-page exit poll asked who the voter voted for in 2000. There were four possibilities: the voter did not vote in 2000, they voted for Bush, they voted for Gore, or they voted for someone else (other). Here are the results, cross-tabbed for the 2004 election:

Looking at these numbers we quickly see that Gore voters stuck with the Democratic Party at 90%, and Bush voters stuck with Bush at 91%. There is no evidence of movement from one party to the other. So, it seems unlikely that Bush picked up his new voters by attracting more Gore voters than Kerry could attract from Bush’s voters.

So, maybe Bush picked up the lion’s share of new voters and that explains his advantage? But, no, Kerry picked up 54% of the new voters.

Well, then, maybe Bush took advantage of the fall-off in third party voting?

No. Kerry got a whopping 71% of third party voters from 2000.

So, where is exactly did Bush makes his gains? The only possibility is that many 2000 Gore voters stayed home in 2004, while very few 2000 Bush voters stayed home.

Yet, it is hard to see how this could account for Bush’s 3,500,000 million differential improvement when Kerry did so well with former third party voters and new voters.

I’ll write more about the conference tomorrow. This is just a warm up.