Why are liberal Senators mounting an investigation of the DOJ action in firing three attorneys, when Bill Clinton fired all of them upon entering the White House, and the silence was deafening?
Why, in the aftermath of Katrina, has not the mass media screamed for the heads of Kathleen Blanco and Ray Nagin? They went after Brown with a vengeance (justifiably so, in this writer’s opinion), blamed Bush (a little less justifiably), and trashed everybody but the “perps” (totally UN-justified).
Please share widely!
it is routine when a new administration takes office for US Attorneys, like other agency heads who serve at the president’s pleasure, to submit their resignations. That happened with Bush, Clinton, and probably every previous administration.
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What is not routine, and what is apparently unprecedented, is a large-scale purge of US Attorneys who were appointed by the incumbent administration, as all of these guys were, for reasons that, it turns out, are transparently political.
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From the WaPo:
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And from McClatchy:
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Sorry, but this is one right-wing talking point dog that just won’t hunt.
That this is the first time they have been fired under with the Patriot Act in effect, which means that Bush can appoint new attorneys without Congressional Approval. That’s a HUGE deal.
It is already hunting. viz:
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[Janet Reno] was not in charge from the beginning. Upon taking office, in an unexplained departure from the practice of recent Administrations, Miss Reno suddenly fired all 93 U.S. attorneys. She said the decision had been made in conjunction with the White House. Translation: The President ordered it. Just as the best place to hide a body is on a battlefield, the best way to be rid of one potentially troublesome attorney is to fire all of them. The U.S. attorney in Little Rock was replaced by a Clinton protege.
http://www.findartic…
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. . . the Tuesday broadcast network evening newscasts all failed to note the wholesale firings at the beginning of Bill Clinton’s first term, matching a missing element in a full story on Tuesday’s Good Morning America on ABC. . .
The March 13 front page Washington Post story, “Firings Had Genesis in White House: Ex-Counsel Miers First Suggested Dismissing Prosecutors 2 Years Ago, Documents Show.”
The March 13 front page New York Times article, “White House Said to Prompt Firing of Prosecutors,” which appears to no longer be online, at least not in its original form
http://newsbusters.o…
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Also, please see:
http://loser-blue.bl…
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I do not want one side aired, I want both. I happen to think (no, I don’t look under my bed before retiring!) that there is more to the Clinton firings than just routine. And, given the liberal congresspersons’ penchant for witch-hunting (have we REALLY never recovered from Salem?), just thought I’d ask.
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BTW, can you cite the number of US presidents who have actually fired, and not re-hired, ALL the US Attorneys? Verifiably, of course. Just asking.
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It is my experience, both on and off the battlefield, that where there’s smoke . . .
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A couple of quick questions – with answers!
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When did Bill Clinton take office? Jan 1993
When did Janet Reno take office? Mar 1993
Who preceded Janet Reno? William Pelham Barr
For whom did he work for? George Bush.
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All of those US Attorney’s were from the previous administration.
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BTW – You used an article from 1998 to say that this “hunting”?????
Your first article is by Robert Bork. No further comment required.
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Your second talks about how brave Brit Hume, Fox News’s attack-dog-in-chief, is upset about unfair coverage of the issue. Ditto.
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Your third is a blog called “loser blue.” Double ditto.
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No one really cares what a single individual “happens to think.” I mean, come on — Ken Starr looked really, really hard for improprieties in the Clintons’ Arkansas dealings, and he couldn’t find anything. Lucky for Starr the man enjoys a blow job now and again.
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I have far better things to do than try to find info on past presidents’ practices with respect to firing (or at least requesting resignations from) all US attorneys upon taking office. I would be surprised to find one that didn’t. Since you’re so interested, why don’t you do the research? And try to use a source that doesn’t have the word “Fox” or “Bork” in its title.
That you David join the bandwagon of posters here who regularly dismiss ideas in their entirety based on solely on the source. I was talking to someone recently who pointed out that one of my sources was a “jesus freak” (I didn’t realize it, then took his word on it) but that alone automatically disqualified anything the source may have said. I dont think its impossible for a religious person to have a valid thought, or one worth debating, and by the same token you may hear things from Brit Hume that are entirely correct. If you want the “other side” opinion on any given issue, Brit is probably not a bad place to start.
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Fox News isnt nearly as biased as you guys whip yourselves into a fervor believing. Watch it some time, Hume’s segment especially is actually quite good.
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(You could be forgiven for turning off Hannity and Colmes, Greta, and OMG Heraldo! What are they thinking with that loon???)
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..there is a big difference between “couldn’t come up with sufficient evidence to indict” and “couldn’t find anything”.
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The Clintons were up to all sorts of shenanigans before and during their tenure at the whitehouse.
Obviously you’re not a careful reader of the liberal blog dailykos, where the head liberal, Kos, is not an advocate of “gun control”. You are out of fashion with that question–that’s so 70’s. Although it does prompt me to ask, why are you so concerned about gun control when 40 million people don’t have health care insurance? Your basic priorities seem to be out of whack. You care more about people enjoying a day at the gun range, then you do with society offering basic health care to all.
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You DOJ question is laughable…really, is this the best the right-wing can do to justify the political interference in the investigations of US attorney’s. Fine, I’ll answer your question…ALL Presidents have replaced most, if not all US Attorney’s, at the beginning of their terms. However it is virtually unheard of for a president to fire a US Attorney while in office I think 3 were fired–in mid term by a President–since 1970. So when 7 are fired in one day, it raises a flag and people start asking questions.
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Now let me ask you another question…if Sen Kennedy and Congress Joe Moakley called up Donald Stearns (then a Clinton appointed US Attorney) in 1998 and ask him if Republican politicians were going to be indicted before the November election, would you have no problem with that? If Clinton fired 7 of his US Attorney’s in one day and it turned out that Hillary suggested he do it because they weren’t supporting the political agenda of the Clinton’s, would you have any problem with that? If you want to defend the current DOJ scandal, you’d have to approve the hypothetical I just posed.
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As for your last question, I don’t know why the media didn’t scream for their heads. But why don’t you ask Shepard Smith and others at Fox News who did a lot of the screaming about the Federal Government’s poor response. I assume you asked the question to “expose” the liberal bias of the press-but it was Fox News that screamed the loudest. And let me ask you a question, why 4 years after 9/11 was the Bush administration so inept at responding to this disaster? And do you think Bush is just a lying when he keeps promising to rebuild New Orleans.
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Welcome to BMG. But really, you’re gonna have to work a lot harder to be entertaining
why are you so concerned about gun control when 40 million people don’t have health care insurance?
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Maybe he knows that bringing your gun to the hospital is the only way for unemployed people to get seen by a doctor?
That was actually pretty funny. When you’re not on your conception kick, you’re a good voice to have ’round here.
. . . don’t fix it . . .
As to the firing of US attorneys, I think I addressed that above. But I really WOULD like some research, and a response, on just how many US presidents have fired ALL US attorneys upon taking office. I seem to be having trouble finding such information as alleged. Citations would be relished.
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As to the gun control issue, I didn’t just raise it for illegitimate purposes; it is a current issue, with the finding in the DC Circuit. Which, I point out, hardly makes it 70’s . . . As none of this has to do with health care, I fail to see the purpose in your query. (Well, maybe not!)
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As to your hypothetical, I have a problem with ANY political shenanigans not above board. I am truly a political babe in the woods, which is why I chose a military career, and followed up with one in engineering, quality assurance, and corporate internal auditing. I despise hidden agendas, and make it a point to have none.
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Thanks for thinking this through. You get a bronze star, working on the sliver and gold will take time . . .
…I answered yours, but you did not answer mine. Your post above does not address the issues David or I brought up.
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But you do indirectly concede the basic point David and I mention. You say you have a problem with political shenanigans of any kind. Well, certainly the events that have emerged over the last few weeks qualify as political shenanigans by the Bush White House and the DOJ.
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Won’t you agree? (And I would like a simple yes or no to that simple question.) Or are you unaware of the political meddling in New Mexico, the changed stories within the White House and DOJ, the involvment of the political forces of the Bush administration in the non-partisan US Attorney’s work? You really picked a loser of an issue to try an illustrate some kind of liberal media bias.
Well, I DO live in the downstairs of a home we share with a married daughter and grandchildren, but I ran to the john, and looked in the mirror, and I still look the same as I did yesterday — and I have seen trolls. Some of them just put Republicans out of business in the Congress . . .
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Please define words you intend to use that are over three letters in length. Start with ‘troll” . . .
…Would you prefer “blithering idiot”?
My Dear raj,
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With an IQ of about four times yours, I am hardly a blithering idiot. Perhaps an opinionated genius . . .
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And I really don’t care much about Michigan’s schweigan. I don’t really even care much about YOUR schweigen. I don’t recall schweigans being part of this discussion, even.
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If you’re out of meds, I understand Walgreen’s is open (most locations) 24 hours . . . can you find a sober driver to take you there, is the question . . .
Raj, please do not post personal attacks or they will be deleted and your user account will be cancelled. Thanks.
someone who posts something merely to provoke a fight (aka a “flame war”) rather than to participate in a productive debate. The term came into common use in the USENET community over twenty years ago.
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While you are not as bad as some, it is not entirely an inaccurate description of your post and comments.
To the “agree” query, no, I do not agree. And why is everyone ducking the request for info on who fired whom, whether at the outset, or at the mid-term?
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Also, I do NOT concede that the firings are necessarily “political shenanigans.” Let’s get a little research done here, before we start pasting labels on Brit, and even Hannity (Greta and that dufus who thinks himself a conservative commentator just because he had a failed reality show are fair game!)
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But howcum ya didn’t diss Coulter? She’s been pretty vocal on this . . .
Your first question…
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This was answered by David. Bush did the same thing. Others may or may not of – no one has found any additional data.
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You then implied that the Clinton firings were not the same as Bush’s first round of firings and that the “dog was hunting” on that question.
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I answered (you have not responded) with the fact that a cursory check of the facts reveal that Bork’s phrasing in that article was misleading at best.
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Now we have
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Who is ducking what? Clinton fired all and Bush fired nearly all and now 8 more that he appointed.
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I think what you are finding are some inconvenient answers to your irresolute questions.
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The kicker is all of your questions on this topic have nothing to do with the issue at hand.
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BTW: I’m done pinning the tail on the donkey for you.
Since you obviously have the facts, how about sharing the numbers? Having none, are you obfuscating?
Regarding
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I hear minor criticism regarding “flawed” statistical sampling methodology by John Lott and Gary Kleck, but even if that were true (doubtful), the overwhelming evidence is that liberalized gun laws reduce crime.
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apparently, you are unaware of the fact that there has been a substantial amount of criticism Lott’s work. Most of my information comes via Tim Lambert’s work at his Deltoid web site here (scroll down to the “Lott” category on the left-hand side of the window) and his earlier blog here. There is a substantial degree of uncertainty as to whether Lott actually conducted the survey that he claims to have conducted on which his work is based (he refuses to provide the raw data), and, in any event, Lott’s rather bizarre behavior–including but not limited to his use of a sock-puppet to tout his own work–only undermines his credibility.
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The fact that you might have not heard of the criticism may be due to either the fact that you weren’t interested in going to look for it, or that there isn’t any money to be made in widely publicizing it (encouraging gun sales makes money, discouraging gun sales doesn’t), or maybe a combination of the two.
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Two, regarding Clinton’s firing of US Attorneys when he came into office, it is not unusual for a new administration to request the resignations of all political employees when it comes into office–and US Attorneys are political appointees. If Clinton accepted the resignations of all of them–and I don’t know whether or not he did–that would not be unusual. What is unusual is for an administration to fire its own political employees two years into a second term. Hence the difference in treatment of the two incidents.
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Three, regarding the different treatment by the national media of Blanco and Nagin, on the one hand, and Brownie, on the other, perhaps the reason is that Brownie is (or, at least, was) a national figure, and the other two are not. Moreover, the issue at the national level isn’t how state and local officials handled one particular catastrophe, but the obvious difference in competence between Brownie and Jamie Lee Witt, the head of FEMA in the Clinton administration.
I acknowledged criticism of Lott and Kleck; I asked for evidence of flaws, not evidence of criticism. Your argument is circular, neh (big Japanese word meaning ‘is it not so?’)? And you did not address my point, which is essentially, MORE guns, LESS crime. Disprove that irrefutable fact, and you can have my .44 Magnums . . .
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I have read from at least fifty liberal media sources that “it is not unusual for a new administration to request the resignations of all political employees when it comes into office.” I can’t seem to find this to be true. What about the klown who grand-jury-shopped until he got indictments against Rove? The overlooked oddity, perhaps?
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As to your third comment, perhaps Blanco and Nagin are not ‘national figures’ to YOU, but they are to me. The year before, Florida was hit by FOUR major storms, and each time, Jeb Bush, that dratted Republican brother of that dratted president, rolled up his sleeves and proceeded to clean up the mess, BEFORE whining for the Feds to come help . . . Leadership is the art of getting out in front and leading the charge into the fray. It was sadly lacking in Chocolate Town, but not in FLorida . . . as to the Federal money for the levee repairs for years preceeding the storm? It mostly went into upstate and Ponchartrain projects, you know, where the fat cat Democrats live, not to the po’ folks’ areas.
…Regarding Lott, I had expecting that posting links that referring to specific parts of a web site that are directly related particular issue would have been sufficient. A curious person might have gone to the linked to web site to investigate the issue. I guess ideologues such as you appear to be are not currious. I’m not going to take the time to reproduce what was produced at Deltoid.
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Regarding FL and the storms, aside from the fact that there was no serious flooding in the FL storms (most of FL is still above mean sea level) I’ll just note the following. None of the four storms that hit FL were category 5, and they all took separate paths. Many of the FL residents are retirees, and retirees vote. And the governor of FL is named Bush (and, no, he didn’t roll up his sleeves or do anything).
The good Tim is rather biased. His conclusions are, in a word, so statistically flawed that I make no sense of them. Probably, if you are not statistically impaired, neither do you.
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Perhaps you can explain his reasoning to me; bear in mind that I TAUGHT Statistical Inference for a few years awhile back, and am rather good at finding the flaws in hypotheses that have a flawed null. BTW, I found none in Professor Lott’s work, perhaps you and Lambert can point out the ones you found, and justify them.
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My quarrel with Nagin and his Governess has little to do with sea level, it has rather to do with their INACTION before, during, and after the storm hit. It also has quite a bit to do with the actions of Nagin and his police force following the storm. I believe I pointed out most of this in my original posting. I would value a response addressing the good Mayor’s behavior, not your bias.
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I believe that’s TWO issues. Please address both in your response. THANKS!
The Chump
i’m interested to know where you got your information regarding gun control. It has always been my understanding that in countries with tighter gun control, gun deaths are decreased, and isn’t that a good thing? I would argue that hand guns should be completely banned. You don’t need a handgun to go hunting. I admit i don’t have a statistic, but it is reasonable to expect that most gun related crime is with hand guns. If you want to keep your hunting rifle, thats fine, i guess we can compromise this is a democracy after all.
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I want to challenge the idea that owning a hand gun is guaranteed by the constitution. Although I hate to do it, I will use a reference from Michael Moore. (Yes even a liberal like myself thinks he is completely obnoxious) If the right to bear arms is guaranteed by the constitution should we not all be allowed to have our own personal nuclear bombs?
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Ok, now I know that Moore is crazy and that the point is kind of ridiculous, but you get it. I recognize that the constitution provides for the right to bear arms but over two centuries of technological advancement changes things. This is why the U.S. is so durable, it can change with the times. I think we all would agree that it would be bad if everyone on the block had a nuclear weapon, so laws are in place to stop that from happening—-limiting the type of “arms” someone can own. I strongly believe that this limitation should be extended to handguns.
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It is a lot easier to commit a crime with a hand gun than a musket. Technology changes, so must our laws.
Luke, thanks for a thoughtful response. First of all, I agree with you that Moore is an obnoxious ass. Having said that, I think his positions raise questions that conservatives generally believe are settled issues in the OPPOSITE direction from what he takes, and so generally do not respond to his dumb-assed-ness.
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This is a shortcoming on the part of the conservative side of the equation. Moore should be dissected and shown for what he is, which would pretty well remove him from the sphere of influence that surrounds your side of the discussion. I see this as a good thing, not necessarily because I am a conservative, but rather because it removes obfuscation from YOUR side.
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Second, your question regarding the 2AM is a very good one, and one I often encounter in these discussions. Owning a handgun is owning a weapon that could legitimately be used in a militia. I can hit bulls-eyes in 25-yd. pistol targets at 75 yards, and while not everyone can, I would be more effective with my handguns than most people would with a rifle.
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Owning a nuclear weapon, on the other hand, would be like being OK with falsely screaming “FIRE!!!” in a crowded theatre — to what possible use could you put that freedom of speech? To what possible use could you put that weapon, that would benefit a militia — or for that matter, your right to keep and bear arms for ANY reason? This is why the reverse-and-remand Miller decision was correct, in not understanding that a sawed-off shotgun could be considered a weapon of benefit to a militia!
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THe constitution guaranteed the right to “keep and bear arms.” Logical decisions by federal courts have pretty consistently agreed that this was intended by the founding fathers to cover the type of weapons normally available to the people contemporarily. Both handguns, including large-capacity semi-automatics, and long guns, including large-capacity semi-automatics, are contemporarily available to the people.
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Illogical decisions, on the other hand, have tended away from the idea that the operative clause is not modified by the inoperative precedent clauses. One of the great conundrums in the liberal argument against a “stand-alone” operative clause is that the constitution generally, and the Bill of Rights particularly, tend to distungish between the PEOPLE, as the common populace, and the STATE, as the government. When either means the government, or, say, a government-regulated militia, the constitution says “STATE.” When it instead means me and you, as individuals, it says “THE PEOPLE!”
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If I could figure out how to award you a ‘5’ for this question, I would! Sooner or later, I’llfigure out the vagaries . . .
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Thake care and God Bless!
The Chump
Even groveling through the links you provided, I really did not see anything looking like “overwhelming” or even mildly convincing evidence of liberalized gun laws reducing crime.
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It would not suprise me to find that cities with the highest crime rates also have stricter gun control laws because, right or wrong, citizens of such cities are strongly in favor of them. I don’t think that means that the gun laws cause the violence.
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The big problem with gun control in this country is that it cannot truly be effective unless it is implemented at the Federal level. As long as someone can buy a gun in one state and drive to another, it will be impossible to absolutely to prevent guns falling into the hands of those who will not use them responsibly.
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In truth, there may already be too many guns in circulation in this country to really get the problem under control.
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One idea would be to require better tracking of gun ownership on a national level and to hold gun owners financially responsible for any harm caused by their weapons. This would be a huge incentive for people to properly secure their weapons and would make it less likely for people to be willing to illegally sell guns to others who are likely to commit crimes with them.
I believe I intimated, or perhaps stated, that the links provided were points of departure. Reading the original John R. Lott authored “Lott Report” from beginning to end, is an eye-opener. As I have previously agreed, there is criticism of Dr. Lott’s statistical methodology in the popular press. Most of it is not well-backed, and Dr. Lott’s US county-by-county evidence is pretty much overwhelming, in any event.
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His conclusion was that where the law allows homeowners to possess and use handguns, there is less crime. Well, duh! If you had criminal intent, would YOU want to break into MY home, knowing that I had a loaded firearm under my pillow, and that as an old fart, I am a light sleeper?
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Only if you were adventurous . . .
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But I digress. The REAL problem with gun control in this country is that it exists anywhere! The following FOUR statements are pretty well accepted and documented:
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1. Where there are more guns in the civilian populace, there is a lower crime rate than where there are fewer guns in the hands of the civilian populace.
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2. Where the “right-to-carry” did not previously exist, and is subsequently approved by the state, crime decreases, and stays lower.
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3. Where gun laws are more restrictive, crime rates are higher. This particularly extends to both violent crime and burglary.
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4. Without exception, the REAL experience (not necessarily the government-reported experience, as we can see through examination of even empirical data!) of those countries which have confiscated most or all weapons (Canada, The UK, and Australia come immediately to mind) is that violent AND non-violent armed crime has drastically increased.
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I challenge anyone to statistically disprove any of these four statements. I really don’t care for references to obtuse websites proclaiming some nut point or other, what I need is HARD evidence that I am wrong.
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And I offer my .44 Magnums once again, as the bet!
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Thanks, and God Bless!
The Chump
What you need is HARD evidence that you are right, since you are the one making the claims, otherwise we are fully justified in treating them like so much BS.
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No one should be expected to disprove claims that are not documented and substantiated.
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Generally speaking, whenever I get such a request from a liberal source, I tend to view it with object suspicion. The reason is that unbiased information will likely only be available from more conservative sources, and I have yet to find a liberal who accepts information from such sources without immediately raising issue with the source.
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(I believe, if you read carefully through the comments above, you will find one commentor — NOT ME! — taking issue with another for that very problem – the comentee dissed the source and dismissed the data without review!)
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Having said that, and with that caveat, herewith some light reading on the subject that will help you put the right to keep and bear arms in perspective:
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http://www.cato.org/…
From the Cato Institute, this somewhat lengthy article from Jeff Snyder provides an impressive analysis of the issues surrounding the entire issue. It does not provide statistics, just examines the issue with more light than heat.
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http://www.guncite.c…
The original Lott-Mustard Report. The accompanyiing datasets are available here:
http://www.johnlott….
From the Lott-Mustard Report:
“Using cross-sectional time-series data for US counties from 1977 to 1992, we find that allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes, without increasing accidental deaths. If those states without right-to-carry concealed gun provisions had adopted them in 1992, county- and state-level data indicate that approximately 1,500 murders would have been avoided yearly. Similarly, we predict that rapes would have declined by over 4,000, robbery by over 11,000 and aggravated assaults by over 60,000.”
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With the liberalization of right-to-carry, more up-to-date statistics show vast improvement over even these numbers. (Comment:MINE)
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http://www.hoboes.co…
John Lindenburg’s informative and unbiased article draws logical conclusions. The article also ensorses Lott’s book, which I have read, and which is an impressive eye-opener regarding liberal bias against guns and the right-to-carry.
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Finally, the Violence Policy Center issued an incredibly flawed “study,” purporting to show the utter failure of right-to-carry in Texas. (If usch a law could fail, Texas would be where it WOULD fail!). This article rebuts soundly the VPC’s total bias.
http://www.mcsm.org/…
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And in the interest of being fair and balanced, here is a liberal treatise on the subject. It is pursuasive and well-written, but it illustrates what I believe is a knee-jerk and biased reaction to the issue.
http://www.saf.org/L…
Here is another source on the liberal side of this discussion. When Tim Lambert (mentioned somewhere above) released his somewhat superficial and rather biased critique of Dr. Lott’s work, the liberal establishment accepted it without review and critique. Had his work been more dispassionate and less conclusive, his credibility within the conservative community would be better. As it is, his credibility suffers because (1) he jumps to conclusions; and (2) he “fluffs up” his statistical criticism (such as it is!) with running commentary having nothing to do with statistics! In short, he manages to unhinge his own critique, which is here:
http://timlambert.or…
…You initially asserted that
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I hear minor criticism regarding “flawed” statistical sampling methodology by John Lott and Gary Kleck…
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I cited you to a web site that whose criticism of Lott’s work that I would consider hardly minor. Aside from the fact that Lambert (Deltoid’s propietor) is a computer science instructor, and appears to have a considerable grasp on the mathematics of statistics, he also has a number of citations to other sites that have been critical of Lott’s work, including an article that appeared in a Yale Law School publication. I doubt very seriously that many people would consider the totality of the criticism “minor.” And that’s even aside from Lott’s rather bizarre behavior, like adopting the “sockpuppet,” and his inability to provide evidence that he conducted the survey on which his work was based.
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Now you raise the idea that Lambert’s work is to be discounted because he’s biased. Aside from the fact that that’s a different issue than the one that was originally raised and that I initially addressed, are you seriously trying to imply that Lott is to be believed because he isn’t? That’s absurd. There’s more money to be earned by doing what Lott is doing than by what the pro-gun-control people are doing. Lott would have the gun industry to support him. Who is going to pay the pro-gun-control people?
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Moreover, your suggestion that the your cited page at Lambert’s site shows him to be unhinged is patently absurd. He was describing, chapter and verse, a number of statistical errors in Lott’s book. How is it “unhinged”?
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but even if that were true (doubtful), the overwhelming evidence is that liberalized gun laws reduce crime.
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Oh, really? Where?
First of all, I will speak to a little of what Lambert wrote.
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Second, Something you probably do NOT know is that the Gut Herr Doktorprofessor Lott doesn’t even OWN a gun! (Or didn’t, last time I checked!) He just doesn’t have a dog in the fight. Lambert, with his anti-gun bias on his sleeve, obviously does.
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Lambert opens his discussion about Professor Lott by accusing him of unethical conduct He then inflammatorily discusses Lott being embroiled in controversial affairs. He accuses Lott of fabricating the report. He then references a flawed statistical report from Ayres, who disaggregated data coded for aggregation, appears to have regressed it using some process I cannot fathom, and touted the results as disproving Dr. Lott’s study. Conclusion: If you start with an apple, no matter how many times you cut it up and put it back together, you will NOT have an orange.
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Fatally for his work, Ayres (and Lambert, who should KNOW better!) doesn’t leave a methodology trail I can follow. It would seem that many statisticians have the same problem. A fundamental engineering principle is to leave your trail plain, and show your work, in case you are hit by a truck on the way to work and someone else has to finish what you’ve started!
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This is the worst kind of statistical smoke and mirrors. While there are those in the field who would allow it, using that process, I can come to just about any kind of conclusion I want. This is a favorite trick of, for instance, pollsters around election time, because you can make ANY close race into an apparent lopsided one for your candidate. (Perhaps this explains the 2000 and 2004 elections better than anything!)
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Here is another example of Tim Lambert’s smoke and mirrors. He writes, regarding the Dade County experience:
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“Lott reckons that the carry law caused a reduction of 8% in murders, 5% in rapes, 7% in aggravated assaults and 2% in robberies. For Dade county that translates to 1,500 fewer aggravated assaults, 450 fewer robberies, 65 fewer rapes and 30 fewer murders each year. From Cramer and Kopel’s paper on CCW (TN Law Review v 62p733) one learns that “the police kept track of every known incident involving [Dade] county’s more than 21,000 handgun permitees over a six-year period.” and there were 12 defensive gun uses by CCW holders against persons known to the police over the six year period. That’s two per year.
It does not seem highly plausible that those two uses prevented 2,000 crimes.”
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Again, Lambert, reaching for his own predetermined conclusion, compares apples and oranges. The decrease in Dade County crime came from the criminals’ fear of encountering one of the 21,000 with a defensive weapon, not from CCW holders waving guns around!
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Tom Tancredo criticized Lambert for the statement regarding the 12 uses cited above, saying: “Sure it’s plausible. First of all, there is some unknown number of DGUs by permitees that were never reported to authorities. It’s possible that 90% may be unreported, since there’s no real need to tell the police that you drew a gun, and the criminal ran away.”
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(Truth be known, Tom, there were probably a heck of a lot more than that. I have three DGU’s in twenty years, and the only reason even ONE of them was reported is that I busted a carjacker, disarmed him and held him for the police. I know at least 12 people who have had unreported DGU’s some of them multiple!)
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I could go on, but I’m just too busy! Conclusion: Lambert is so obviously biased against private gun ownership and CCW that he will NEVER be able to bring any balance to the issue. He ranks right up there with Greta and Heraldo.
BTW, here are a few things you should read before citing somebody like Tim Lambert as an expert on anything American:
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http://rwdb.blogspot…
http://timblair.net/…
http://www.fumento.c…
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Finally, this one, while containing a “Lott” of tongue-in-cheek humor, pretty well sums up what people think about this rabid anti-American from New Zealand that you seemingly just love to quote:
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http://doubletap.cs….
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Lump the guy in with Michael Moore and George Soros. They all have the same credibility — to wit, nonexistent.