5 myths about Solyndra

The Washington Post punctures conventional wisdom from the left and right about the solar-power company, which went bankrupt after receiving loan guarantees from the Obama administration. (Background.)

Fact-checking the Washington Post's Fact Checker

Ben Smith at Politico says (a) Biden did call Tea Party activists "terrorists," and (b) the Washington Post's Fact Checker isn't checking facts.

Do tax cuts "pay for themselves" by increasing government revenues?

Nope, argues Bruce Bartlett — who was an economic policy advisor to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

But that hasn't stopped Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty from using this idea to justify his economic plan, relying on statistical claims that, as Bartlett explains, are "completely untrue."

Bartlett also clears up the association people often make between Reagan and the "pay for themselves" idea:

[N]o one in the Reagan administration ever claimed that his 1981 tax cut would pay for itself or that it did. Reagan economists Bill Niskanen and Martin Anderson have written extensively on this oft-repeated myth. Conservative economist Lawrence Lindsey made a thorough effort to calculate the feedback effect in his 1990 book, The Growth Experiment. He concluded that the behavioral and macroeconomic effects of the 1981 tax cut, resulting from both supply-side and demand-side effects, recouped about a third of the static revenue loss.

As you'll see if you click the link, Bartlett similarly debunks Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's claim that George W. Bush's tax cuts increased revenues.

Attorney General Eric Holder: “The facts are clear. Intimate partner homicide is the leading cause of death for African-American women ages 15 to 45."

And he's right that the facts are clear. The facts are clear that Holder is wrong.

As that Volokh Conspiracy blog post explains (corroborating a column by Christina Hoff Sommers), homicide is not the most common cause of death of African-American women ages 15 to 45. It's the 5th most common. And those are homicides by anyone, including strangers; only a fraction of them involve domestic violence.

Sommers adds:

Holder's patently false assertion has remained on the Justice Department website for more than a year.

How is that possible? It is possible because false claims about male domestic violence are ubiquitous and immune to refutation. During the era of the infamous Super Bowl Hoax, it was widely believed that on Super Bowl Sundays, violence against women increases 40%. Journalists began to refer to the game as the "abuse bowl" and quoted experts who explained how male viewers, intoxicated and pumped up with testosterone, could "explode like mad linemen." During the 1993 Super Bowl, NBC ran a public service announcement warning men they would go to jail for attacking their wives.

In this roiling sea of media credulity, one lone journalist, Washington Post reporter Ken Ringle, checked the facts. As it turned out, there was no source: An activist had misunderstood something she read, jumped to her sensational conclusion, announced it at a news conference and an urban myth was born. Despite occasional efforts to prove the story true, no one has ever managed to link the Super Bowl to domestic battery.

Snopes has a longer takedown of the Super Bowl myth. Snopes concludes:

The ensuing weeks and months saw a fair amount of backpedalling by those who had propagated the Super Bowl Sunday violence myth, but — as usual — the retractions and corrections received far less attention than the sensational-but-false stories everyone wanted to believe, and the bogus Super Bowl statistic remains a widely-cited and believed piece of misinformation. As Sommers concluded, "How a belief in that misandrist canard can make the world a better place for women is not explained."

Obama as Muslim and other myths

Maureen Dowd's latest column is on the myth that President Obama is a Muslim -- which, it's been widely reported, is a belief held by 18% of Americans (or 24%, according to a different poll). She says:

The country is having some weird mass nervous breakdown, with the right spreading fear and disinformation that is amplified by the poisonous echo chamber that is the modern media environment.

Many people still have a confused view of Muslims, and the president seems unable to help navigate the country through its Islamophobia.

It is a prejudice stoked by Rush Limbaugh, who mocks “Imam Obama” as “America’s first Muslim president” . . .

You can have an opinion on the New York mosque, for or against. But there aren’t two sides to the question of whether Obama is a Muslim.

As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

How can a man who has written two best-selling memoirs and been on TV so much that some Democrats worried he was overexposed be getting less known and more misunderstood by the day?

My mom (Ann Althouse) says Dowd is taking Limbaugh out of context, as he was clearly joking. My mom quotes Limbaugh:

"If it was laudatory to call Bill Clinton America's first black president, why can't we call Imam Obama America's first Muslim president?"

That is certainly said in a joking (half-joking?) tone, but Limbaugh can't be allowed to insulate himself from criticism that easily. His rhetorical question is still going to have the predictable effect of implanting the association of "Obama" with "Muslim" in people's minds. That association will stick with many Americans even after they've long forgotten where they heard it. Now, there are some people who would like this to happen, and other people who hope it doesn't happen. Limbaugh is clearly in the former category, and I'm in the latter category. While he may have been joking, the question of how successful he and others are in propagating this association is no joke.

I'm hardly disagreeing with my mom here -- she herself makes a similar point:

I'm sure [Limbaugh will] have his fun on tomorrow's show. And it will give him license to spend a few more minutes massaging Obama-Muslim, Obama-Muslim, Obama-Muslim... into the listeners' confused mushy heads."

My mom also has a good two-part answer to Limbaugh's question:

1. Back in 1998, when Morrison wrote her essay, Americans — or at least the Americans she was writing for — really did think it would be a fine thing to have a black president, but today, when Rush Limbaugh said that, Americans have a big problem with the idea of a Muslim president and Rush knows that.

2. Since we know Bill Clinton isn't black, calling him black creates no confusion. Calling Obama a Muslim, even as a trope, plays with — stokes — the doubts people have.

Point 2 is the most obvious distinction. That's reason enough for people not to refer to Obama as "Muslim," even jokingly, and think they can somehow excuse themselves based on Toni Morrison's quip about Clinton.

There are also deep historical reasons for point 1. Even if you personally would be just as enthusiastic about the idea of America's "first Muslim president" as you would about our "first black president," we can still understand why many Americans would not consider these to be equivalent. Blacks have been uniquely oppressed in America. I'm not saying there hasn't been any oppression of Muslims in America, but the oppression of blacks is a defining legacy of our country's history -- an evil from which Americans understandably seek redemption. Most Americans didn't think much about Muslim Americans until September 11, 2001, and then, of course, they felt victimized by Muslims, albeit a relatively small group of Islamic extremists. I wish that all Americans would be careful to distinguish between terrorists who happen to Muslim from the vast majority of Muslim Americans, but the Park51 fracas has revealed that we have a long way to go there.

The historical differences are also augmented by demographic differences. There are at least 10 times as many black Americans (about 12%) as there are Muslim Americans (around 1%, if even that). And the former are more than 12 times more visible than the latter, since most Americans have an easier time immediately recognizing someone as black than immediately recognizing someone as Muslim. The result is that white Americans are regularly reminded of the existence of the group that was oppressed for so long in America; it's much easier to conceive of Muslims as a mysterious Other.

Somewhat incongruously, Dowd includes this philosophical rumination on error, which was my favorite part of the op-ed:

In “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,” a history of such national follies as England’s South Sea Bubble and Holland’s Tulip Frenzy, the Scottish historian Charles Mackay observed: “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”

He also concluded that people are more prone to believe the “Wondrously False” than the “Wondrously True.”

“Of all the offspring of time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder’s welcome,” Mackay wrote, adding that “a misdirected zeal in matters of religion” befogs the truth most grievously.

I say this is incongruous because the idea that "they only recover their senses slowly, one by one" doesn't seem to apply to the Obama/Muslim myth. The White House or liberal activists could have an effective truth campaign to dispel this myth en masse.

Although I don't find the quote particularly relevant to this topic, it's one I want to keep track of for other contexts. (It resonates with a fantastic book I'm in the middle of reading, Thomas Sowell's Economic Facts and Fallacies.) When I update my list of quotes after the blog's third anniversary, I'll make sure to include this:

“Men . . . think in herds . . . [and] go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”

The most reasonable conservative I've heard in a long time

Bruce Bartlett in this Bloggingheads video (embedded at the end of this post). He's plugging his new book, The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward.

Here are a few of the points he makes in the video (paraphrased, not direct quotes). These are hardly original, but they're refreshing to hear from a conservative (he worked in the Reagan and first Bush administrations):

1. America needs to raise taxes. Conservative leaders know this will eventually be necessary, and they're being brazenly irresponsible by fighting against tax increases for now.

2. The idea that cutting taxes raises government revenue is a conservative myth. So is the idea that you can "starve the beast," i.e., cut taxes so that government spends less and deficits shrink.

3. We have the least efficient health-care system in the developed world.

4. The United States should become more like Europe.

On that last point, he calls out conservatives in a way that needs to be done more often:

We're traveling down the route of Europe. And many Americans just hate that idea. If you're in any group of conservatives, and you say, "Oh, that will take us down the route of Europe," they will say, "Oh no, we don't want to do that! That's awful!" Nobody ever explains what's so terrible about Europe.

By the way, I'm not saying I agree with everything he says here. I'm not convinced by his main idea, the value added tax. On the other hand, Matthew Yglesias makes the liberal case for it.

The Hillary Clinton media sexism myth, continued

Continuing with yesterday's discussion of the charges of anti-Hillary media sexism ...

The criticism of Chris Matthews's statement -- that Hillary's Senate win resulted from public sympathy for her following the Lewinsky scandal -- is completely unfounded, as my mom explained in a discussion with the pro-Clinton blogger Jeralyn Merritt (video).

Matthews tends to get very excited about whatever point he's making in a way that often causes him to overstate things. He often seems to value being vivid and blunt over being accurate. So the guy isn't perfect, and he was certainly overstating things to say that her Senate win was entirely dependent on people feeling sorry for her for being wronged by Bill Clinton. (I should note that he later apologized profusely for saying it.)

But can you really say it's sexist? Wasn't there some truth to what he was saying -- that Hillary benefitted politically by being publicly seen as the wronged spouse who had to bring her family back together? More importantly, even if you do think it's sexist, why would you think that the sexism hurt Hillary Clinton rather than helping her by adding to the self-flagellating media frenzy over media sexism?

Then there are two related complaints: the media discussed Hillary's cleavage and voice.

As for the cleavage, I'm biased because my mom (in addition to Robin Givhan) got some attention for writing about it:

I see a deliberate, controlled gesture that was exactly what she wanted to do, what she thought would be advantageous. ... Givhan uses words like 'teasing' and 'surreptitious,' but I'm thinking: subtle, deniable, diplomatic."

Now, do I agree with that specific analysis? I don't know. I don't have much of an opinion on Hillary's attire, and it's not something I would have chosen to blog about at the time. But I do have a strong opinion about this: you're allowed to analyze a politician's choice of clothing. The politician is trying to manipulate you; you're allowed to scrutinize this phenomenon at a more rational level than the politician would prefer.

But of course, many people disagree with this and say that talking about Hillary's cleavage is plainly sexist. Well ... I don't think there's anyone who knows my mom personally who thinks she's a misogynist. And whatever faults people might find in me, I don't think anyone who knows me personally has ever thought to themselves, "Oh, that John -- what a misogynist!" Would you honestly be willing to look someone in the eyes who thinks it's OK to talk about Hillary Clinton's cleavage or her voice and tell them: "You're a misogynist"? I hope not.

And speaking of Clinton's voice, I'm sorry, but she does have a bad speaking voice. I'm sure consultants have worked with her on it, because she did an excellent job of modulating it in the debates to make it more pleasant and less grating. I actually admired these performances: she had started with a weakness that wasn't really her fault, and she did a pretty good job of overcoming it. But if you watch a random clip of her giving a stump speech, it's not so good. Charisma actually matters in a president (I've written that I wish the media would talk about this more), and one's speaking voice is part of that.

Media pundits are certainly not holding back from trashing McCain for his poor speaking skills -- even the pundits who agree with his message. I'm baffled by the suggestion that they should have refrained from criticizing Clinton's speaking skills, and that includes her speaking voice.

If saying that Hillary has a bad speaking voice is sexist, then I must be sexist. Well, I don't think I'm sexist.

I'm still not zeroing in on what bothers me most about the myth of anti-Hillary media sexism, but I'll have to leave that for next week.

The Hillary Clinton media sexism myth

Now that Hillary Clinton has so passionately and eloquently called on all her supporters to help elect Barack Obama, it sort of feels besides the point to analyze the details of what happened in the Democratic primary season. But the notion that the media's sexism played a major role in sinking the Clinton campaign, and that this might sway some of her supporters on Election Day, is pervasive enough that I think it's worth explaining why the argument is unfounded and ahistorical.

Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has been one of the many people trying to stoke the anger over this idea:

There has been an enormous amount of sexism in this campaign on the part of the media, including the mainstream media. ... And there are a lot of women in this country who -- there's two issues here. One is one candidate is ahead and one is not. That happens all the time in primaries, and you get over that. What you don't get over is deep wounds that have been inflicted on somebody because they happen to be a woman running for president of the United States.

And when Clinton held back from endorsing Obama for a few days after Obama officially clinched the nomination, the McCain campaign immediately began harping on the theme of media sexism as a vehicle for reaching out to Clinton's supporters. From the following Meet the Press:

MR. RUSSERT: Kelly, John McCain has spent the week reaching out to Senator Clinton, praising her, condemning the media for the way they treated her, trying to embrace some of the constituencies that are important to Senator Clinton--women, blue collar workers, Hispanics. What did the McCain campaign watch and how did they react yesterday as opposed to Tuesday?

MS. O'DONNELL: Well, I think they viewed the span between Tuesday and Saturday as helpful to them. If there was still a sense among Hillary Clinton's supporters that they had somehow been wronged or disappointed, that's an opportunity for John McCain to embrace Hillary Clinton as he did. Now, throughout the campaign, we saw him much less contentious when it ever came to Hillary Clinton. He would always save his fire for Obama. So he's been preparing for this because they knew all along her voters could potentially be their voters. So it was certainly a warm embrace over and over in these last several days.

(In fairness to McCain, he's also tried to win them over with his musical taste.)

But what exactly is the media-sexism meme really about? It's often just assumed, with no support, that she must have been deeply wronged. But when supposed examples are given, the list often includes:

• Chris Matthews declaring that “the reason she’s a U.S. senator, the reason she’s a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around,”
• MSNBC reporter David Schuster asking whether Chelsea Clinton was being “pimped out” for her mom's campaign,
• the Washington Post’s Robin Givhan writing about Clinton's cleavage,
• criticisms of her speaking voice.

(That list is mostly quoted from this National Review article. Not surprisingly, conservatives such as the author of that piece are giddy at the prospect of the Democratic party being torn apart by overblown accusations of prejudice.)

And while they're not "media," one of the most commonly cited examples of anti-Hillary sexism is a couple guys who stood up in the middle of one of her campaign events and chanted "iron my shirts" out of the blue.

One woman who watched a YouTube clip show that purported to string together evidence of anti-Hillary media sexism wrote this in the comments section of a blog:

Just got through watching this with my 18 yr. old daughter and frankly, I was crying like a baby. ... Hoped it would be different for her when I brought her home from the hospital 18 yrs. ago. ... To see what is systematically being done to her by the press / blogosphere / public at large just fills me with such rage and such despair.

Well, I'm not going to say people shouldn't be upset about the existence of sexism in "the public at large." Sure there's sexism in society, and it's deplorable that she lost any votes due to sexism. But that has more to do with sexism among ordinary citizens. I see no reason why Hillary supporters should get upset -- let alone "filled with rage and despair" (!) -- about sexism in the media.

Of course, the rules of political correctness say that you're not allowed to criticize ordinary citizens. No, anytime you're making a scathing social critique, you always have to pick some authority figure to level the charges against. "The media" is often a handy scapegoat -- it's so huge and amorphous that it's very hard to refute any assertion that _____ exists in "the media." I could make up any ridiculous claim, like "The media is obsessed with turtles" or "The media has an anti-avocado bias," and I'm sure I could find evidence to support it if I wanted to.

By the way, I mentioned that the charge has been repeated often. Well, repeated where? In ... the media! And what do you think is the ratio of (a) references to supposed media sexism to (b) actual sexist comments made in the media? I would guess it's at least 100 to 1. Well, (a) is favorable to Hillary since it creates the impression that she's being treated unfairly. That suggests a pro-Hillary bias in the media.

Anyway, let's start with the easiest case: the "iron my shirts" idiots. I suspect that the reason this is so often mentioned is that it's one of the few clear-cut examples of sexism: the guys were implying she should be doing housework instead of running for president.

And yeah, I know most instances of sexism aren't clear-cut and that we need to be cognizant of more insidious sexism, etc., etc. But Hillary Clinton's supporters often seem to forget that it wasn't her vs. Mr. Generic Presidential Candidate. We're talking about her vs. a black candidate named Barack Obama in a country with a long, terrible history of racism (and a candidate whom many voters incorrectly believe to be a Muslim just a few years after we were attacked on our own soil by Muslim terrorists). It would be odd, very odd, to just assume that Clinton faced more prejudice than Obama did. So the burden of proof is on Clinton supporters if they're claiming she was the one who was more badly hurt by prejudice. (This is especially true given the large number of votes Hillary received that were cast by racists and/or Republicans who didn't actually prefer her on the merits.)

Here's the problem: the "iron my shirts" incident doesn't make sense as evidence that she was hurt by sexism. The guys yelling that phrase were completely unsympathetic. Does anyone honestly believe they persuaded a single person not to vote for her? In fact, the incident probably helped her, since people tend to sympathize with her more when they perceive her as a victim of sexism.

David Shuster's "pimped out" comment was obviously foolish. It was an overstated criticism of someone campaigning for their parent who's running for president -- something that's usually not criticized at all no matter what gender anyone is. But I fail to see how the "pimped out" incident proves sexism by even the person who said it, let alone the media at large. What it shows is that talking heads get paid to churn out hour after hour of vaguely titillating pseudo-analysis about politics, and sometimes they get desperate for points to make and resort to dumb comments that don't make much sense like "Chelsea Clinton is being pimped out."

As an aside, that incident also shows that while the Clinton campaign should have been focused on trying to ... you know ... convince actual voters to vote for her (i.e. bottom-up politics), the campaign was wasting its contributors' money on futile top-down strategies like trying to make people lose their jobs for making isolated dumb comments. Not only did they use that strategy against David Shuster to get him briefly suspended, but they also used it against Samantha Power, the woman who was advising Obama on foreign policy and has been acclaimed for her work fighting genocide. I've read some of her book A Problem from Hell and have watched an interview with her; she has at least as much passion and intellect as Hillary Clinton herself. Do Clinton's fans really see making that brilliant woman lose her job (the Obama campaign fired her under intense pressure) as a ringing victory for women's rights because Power called Clinton a nasty word ("monster")?

I still have to address "Chris Matthews," "cleavage," "voice," and some other stuff, but that'll have to wait till tomorrow...