How Much Does Sarah Palin Know About Monetary Policy?

There's always a danger in underestimating one's political rivals. Successive generations of Democrats ridiculed the intelligence of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, only be defeated by them time and again. So I don't want to make the mistake of thinking Sarah Palin is dumb. Still, there's a real "the lady doth protest too much" quality to this Wall Street Journal op-ed:

"The former Alaskan Governor showed sound political and economic instincts by inveighing forcefully against the Federal Reserve's latest round of quantitative easing. According to the prepared text of remarks that she released to National Review online, Mrs. Palin also exhibited a more sophisticated knowledge of monetary policy than any major Republican this side of Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan."

Wait. Really?

The Journal adds: "Misguided monetary policy can ruin an Administration as thoroughly as higher taxes and destructive regulation, and the new GOP majority in the House and especially the next GOP President need to be alert to the dangers. Mrs. Palin is way ahead of her potential Presidential competitors on this policy point, and she shows a talent for putting a technical subject in language that average Americans can understand."

To be fair, I'm not certain that deep knowledge of particular subjects matters in a potential president so much as their ability to get a good team around them, and to process and synthesize new information effectively. And it's possible that Palin has been deeply, deeply disserved by her "I read all the papers" reputation.

But the Journal is trying to sell Palin as one of the smartest Republicans around. It's a picture at odds with, well, just about everything on the public record about Palin. Somebody's lying.

Speaking of Jack Shafer and Bogus Trend Stories

Slate's Jack Shafer is letting his readers write the "bogus trend stories" this week: Interesting paragraph as he describes what makes a BTS:

"My partners in bogus trend-spotting have been Slate readers, who quickly picked up on how to identify them. Hardly a day goes by now that a reader doesn't e-mail me a bogus trend story discovery, often delineating the piece's essential bogosity in a couple of paragraphs in his correspondence. One marker of a bogus trend story is an abundance of such weasel words as some, few, often, seems, likely, and more, all of which allow a writer to simultaneously state a strong assertion and couch it. Another is an article with no data, just a string of anecdotes to support his thesis of a new or growing trend. The reliable marker of bogosity is a dodgy phrase like 'reliable numbers are hard to come by' in a news story."

Emphasis added. But with that emphasis added, let's return to Slate's story today about immigrant women faking domestic abuse to earn residency in the United States:

"But the law has a potential flaw, too: A small fraction of the time, it may also provide incentive for immigrant husbands and wives to fake domestic abuse."

And:

No one knows how widespread the fraud might be, though it's probably a small portion of all the spouses who apply for immigration relief saying they've been abused. In 2009, 8,534 people tried to gain permanent residency through VAWA's abuse provision, and 73 percent succeeded. Government databases don't track how many of the 2,000 or so denials were turned down on suspicions of fraud, as opposed to another reason such as lack of evidence.

Slate's fake domestic abuse story, in other words, has all the hallmarks of a BTS. I'm nominating it to Shafer. Will he run it?

Barack Obama Actually a Secret Muslim

This is flowing at Memeorandum.com, which means lots of people are talking about it:

"AS a schoolboy in Jakarta, Barack Obama attended Muslim prayer sessions with his classmates against the wishes of his mother.

The US President's former grade three teacher said that Mr Obama - who was known as 'Barry' when he attended the Menteng One school in Jakarta - studied the Koran and went to classes on Islam, despite the objections of Ann Dunham, a Catholic."

Wait for it...

Mr Obama moved to Indonesia with his mother and Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, when he was 6, and lived there for four years.

I have no idea if this stuff is true, but maybe tracking down what people were doing when they were 6 years old is a horrendous way to do our politics.

Slate's Bogus Trend Story About Fake Domestic Abuse

Slate's well-known for publishing articles that challenge conventional wisdom, sometimes embarrassingly so. I'm not sure if that spirit is behind today's piece that suggests immigrant women are faking spousal abuse in order to qualify for residency in the United States. The problem is that the story is rife with ambiguities that -- if it were published by any other outlet -- would earn it a place on Jack Shafer's "bogus trend" stories list.

How widespread is the fake-abuse problem?

"But the law has a potential flaw, too: A small fraction of the time, it may also provide incentive for immigrant husbands and wives to fake domestic abuse."

And:

No one knows how widespread the fraud might be, though it's probably a small portion of all the spouses who apply for immigration relief saying they've been abused. In 2009, 8,534 people tried to gain permanent residency through VAWA's abuse provision, and 73 percent succeeded. Government databases don't track how many of the 2,000 or so denials were turned down on suspicions of fraud, as opposed to another reason such as lack of evidence.

Nobody would defend false charges of domestic abuse. The problem here is that Frances McInnis uses a single source to provide the anecdotal foundation for her story, but fails to offer any evidence that the fraud is actually a problem and even admits that the government's current practices may be filtering out such fraud -- but then goes on to call for more measures against the fraud.

Still, some immigration and women's rights activists agree that measures should be in place to guard against immigrants looking to exploit the law's permissiveness. "Credibility must be established," says Leni Marin, a senior vice president at the Family Violence Prevention Fund, a nonprofit focused on ending domestic and sexual violence. "By no means do we endorse fraud," she said, adding that both the lawyer representing the case and immigration authorities should make sure that any claims of abuse are legitimate.

So we have a problem that's maybe not a real problem, requiring actions that might already be taken. This is weak, weak stuff. And to what end?

The Times Wants Pelosi Replaced

Today's editorial:

"If Ms. Pelosi had been a more persuasive communicator, she could have batted away the ludicrous caricature of her painted by Republicans across the country as some kind of fur-hatted commissar jamming her diktats down the public’s throat. Both Ms. Pelosi and Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, are inside players who seem to visibly shrink on camera when defending their policies, rarely connecting with the skeptical independent voters who raged so loudly on Tuesday."

It's possible they thought that selling Democratic achievements to the voters was the president's job. But Pelosi has been minority leader before -- and in that role, led the party to a majority. In any event, the Times doesn't tell us who would be a good replacement.

DADT Survives

(Sigh):

"The drive in Congress to repeal the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy appears all but lost for the foreseeable future, with action unlikely this year and even less likely once Republicans take charge of the House in January.

President Barack Obama has repeatedly said he wants to overturn the policy, which bans gays from serving openly in the armed forces. Advocates on both sides believed the issue had a chance of coming up in this month's post-election session of Congress. Now that looks unlikely."

Tell me again what Obama has done for gays? Besides make them wait?

Voter Fraud

Adam Serwer:

"In the modern era, there's never been a proven case of someone stealing an election through the deliberate casting of fraudulent ballots, although in the conservative media it's a given that it happens all the time. That's because conservatives think Democratic victories are inherently illegitimate, if not by the letter of the law at least in the sense that liberals and Democrats aren't genuinely American. But the selective nature of voter fraud claims is another hint at the self-conscious nature of this scam. Voter fraud only 'occurs' when Republicans lose, and even then only as an explanation for why a Republican lost."