Strange connections

Deep thought: Damme, my internets are slow today. I guess my brother is downloading something.

Deep thought: Newsweek's cover story today is on how Obama should emulate Cheney. It's asstastic, but I'm not terribly concerned - I know Biden has said harsh words about Cheney. He (Biden) said that Bush should fire Cheney in front of Bush and Cheney.

Anyway, I wanted to tell the story of John Ziegler and me. I've never met him, thank goodness. But John Ziegler is a name I've seen three times in my life, and all the incidents involving him are interesting. John Ziegler Incident #3 concerns my favorite hockey mom, and my dad's self-described girlfriend, Sarah Palin. John Ziegler now is a filmmaker, making a documentary (in the sense that Fahrenheit 911 was a documentary) on how Obama got elected. The video here is his interview with Palin. I have not watched this video, because I have fulfilled my Sarah Palin quota until 2101. (I hope whatever wars she was beginning during her future presidency have finished by that time.) I understand she plays the victim. Republicans love to do that, blame the liberal media for being biased. (And I think: Cheney has a 9% or so approval rating and Newsweek did a cover story on how Obama should emulate Cheney, so wtf.) And, yanno, victimized by Katie Couric? She couldn't say where she got her news from! The truth is, she probably got briefed on news by her aides (no doubt she had a full schedule) - but she didn't say it! WHY.

Anyway, my screeching about that was topical in September. I found out about this video via Mudflats, which is my second favorite blog I've discovered last year. Here's the Mudflats analysis of it.

Like I said, Mudflats was my second favorite blog I discovered in 2008. My favorite? Fivethirtyeight.com, which seriously kept me sane in October, when the MSM was yammering on about the Bradley Effect or the Wilder Effect or racist whites or Reagan Democrats - all that bullshit. But Nate Silver kept me cool, kept me sane. And this brings me to John Ziegler Incident #2, Nate Silver's bizarre interview with him on this push poll he commissioned. The push poll was conducted by Zogby, one of the more interesting pollsters I encountered, and who is worth a brief excursion (blogs aren't great for footnotes): CA primary, Super Tuesday, Obama has the momentum gathered from the endorsement of Ted and Caroline Kennedy. Zogby put out a poll showing Obama winning CA by 13%, Survey USA put out a poll showing Clinton winning CA by 10%. Clinton won CA by 10%. So that's Zogby.

Back to Silver's interview: Ziegler was conducting a push poll on Obama to support his argument in the film I mentioned above, Media Malpractice... How Obama Got Elected. Silver wrote an entry on his blog calling out Ziegler's push poll. Then the interview, which speaks for itself. (Do read it.) I will only add that the other SC senator is Jim DeMint, about whom I know very little. He's probably really conservative, but too junior to be entrusted with any position of power in the Republican senate caucus.

Anyway, all this fussin' and feudin' inspired one of Silver's finest pieces of writing in the election cycle...and which reminded me of something I forgot, John Ziegler Incident #1. Before Ziegler became a conservative documentary filmmaker, he was a right wing radio talk show host. Not as popular as a Limbaugh or a Hannity, probably less popular than someone like Neal Boortz as well. Probably closer in ideology to Boortz (right wing libertarian) than to Limbaugh or Hannity. My encounter with Ziegler in this incarnation was noteworthy: he was the subject of David Foster Wallace's final essay in Consider the Lobster, "Host." I was rereading that today and it's perhaps more sympathetic toward Ziegler than Ziegler realized. Wallace was liberal, but Ziegler comes off well. It's a nuanced essay - Wallace usually is nuanced, he's not strident or preachy. Here's the essay. Wallace hanged himself in September, and that was the rare death outside my family that affected me. Wallace wrote like I thought, or perhaps like how I aspire to think. All those footnotes, tangents, his inimitable descriptions. We lost a great writer in 2008. The essay is well worth the time spent reading. (I don't know if the linked essay is the same as the unedited one in Consider the Lobster. The unedited one is 70 pages. Click on the hyperlinks; those are his footnotes.)

And here is John Ziegler's Wikipedia entry. I couldn't link to that earlier, or this whole post would be spoiled!