Nate Silver Cursed Out By Right-Winger

Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight interviewed John Ziegler, who commissioned a Zogby poll purporting to prove that Obama voters are uninformed. Things started off testy:

NS: What was the right answer to that [Palin] question?

JZ: The technically accurate question [sic] is that none of the four people said that, but we counted it as correct if they said Sarah Palin.

NS: Why would you commission a survey question with no correct response?

JZ: The purpose of the question, you pinhead, was we wanted to determine the Tina Fey Effect.

And it only got worse, ending with Ziegler telling Silver to "go fuck yourself."

NS: Would you consider yourself well-informed?

JZ: I'd consider myself extremely well-informed.

NS: Who are the two senators from South Dakota

JZ: Thune and, uh, Johnson.

Story continues below

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NS: Very good. South Carolina?

JZ: Go fuck yourself. I'm done with this interview if you're going to ask me stupid questions like that. Obviously I know who Lindsay Graham is.

NS: Well, since you're running a website calling people misinformed, I'd like to see if -- there are certain things you've said that I would consider misinformed.

JZ: Misinformed? You're a piece of work! You are never going to have the guts to post a representative transcript on your website! I thought you actually ran a legitimate website!

NS: Thank you, have a good day.

JZ: Go fuck yourself.

Comments

[butlerman]

I thought I was pretty well tapped in but I must confess I had never heard of this Ziegler fellow before. I hope I never do again. Let me get this straight. He commissions a study from Zogby, requests Nate Silver to interview him and print the transcript on his web site(which he does) Nate asks him realistic, pragmatic journalistic questions in a fair and balanced manner absent from what I read anyway of any vitriol or acrimony and this guy spends half the interview insulting the man he asked to speak to him. Kudos to Nate for not losing his cool and for keeping his word and printing the transcript. If Ziegler thought that this was going to be good for him he really is dumb. Nate showed him for the bellicose infantile echo sound board he is. Unless he has a really good editor he might want to keep this out of his movie or any promotion he might be planning for it.

[MarkInEugene]

I think the F-Bomb says it all. That's exactly what he was saying to America with his poll. He was angry, disappointed and vengeful from the election results probably. This is what's wrong in America; operatives getting pissed off, saying and doing destructive things and clouding the judgment of the people.

The other day my 86 year old neighbor was convinced that Obama would not accept putting his hand on the Bible during his inauguration. Turns out he was listening to Rush Limbaugh one day who said Obama would be inaugurated with his hand on the Koran. I explained to him that Obama was a Christian and that Rush was lying.

Limbaugh, Coulter, Hannity, O'Reilly and Ziegler are all so pissed off today that they're more irrational and spreading bigger nastier lies than ever. They're making so much money that it doesn't look like their propaganda is going to end anytime soon.

[AurigaRa]

love you Nate!

[Hemkit]

Wow. Mr. Z e i g l e r kisses his kids with that mouth?

[BCubedReg]

O.K. I just read the whole transcript at 538.com and this is definitely a push poll by a very anti-Obama individual. Kudos to Nate Silver for remaining calm and poised throughout the interview. It is obvious that nothing from J. Zeigler is of any value.

[TheNoBullExpress]

God, do I love this blog. Every day I learn, to my total disgust, what mental cases are imbedded with the Republican Party.

Ms. Huffington, if anyone deserved the Medal of Freedom, it is you.

[frankcaprafan]

Hilarious! He interviewed him as an anthropologist would a neanderthal.

[SueW0]

Hey! The Geico Caveman might be reading ya know!

[BeasleysMom]

Yet another example of an uncivilized, obnoxious conservative who disregards the facts. How in the world did the the gops get to this place? Let's hope they find out and try to return to intelligent, civil leadership. The country would be better for it.

[Shabba]

No. Let's hope they don't find out so that they can run another incompetent campaign in 2010 and 2012.

[SueW0]

I don't know why you would want another campaign like this year's. It makes us look bad as a country and doesn't give us real alternatives.

[ramal]

Obviously Mr. Ziegler was never taught by his parents or his primar school teachers that cursing is evidence of both a poor vocabulary and limited intelligence.

[Hopalongpoppyseed]

Sometimes you just can't beat a good old Saxon word.

[imusintheevening]

Personally, I like using the word for emphasis, but as a retort in a debate it is an admission of defeat.

[ElPerro]

Hey, if it's good enough for Cheney....


just sayin'

[izmeister]

Ziegler was thrown off his radio call-in show (another scurrilous, downward-spiraling Clear Channel affiliate) here in Louisville KY after bragging on air about his having had sex with a local TV news anchor and then joyfully trashing her for her having breast implants. What boorish, juvenile, unclean behavior.

He hasn't the self awareness to realize that those weren't the only fake things in his seemingly-unhappy life.

[Polyh3dron]

Facts and figures = Liberally biased

[thelegacymaker]

I thought being a right winger = holier than thou....so why was he cursing??? Anyone? Anyone?

[ArthurTwoShedsJackson]

Nate proves this quote correct:

"Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances."
-- Thomas Jefferson

and I'll bump this also-applicable quote I posted earlier :-)

"What we have just seen is one man psych another man right into peeing his pants."
--Robby Benson in "One on One" (1977)

[osusana]

The Jefferson quote could have been written with Barack Obama in mind - he has been masterful throughout, has he not?

[ArthurTwoShedsJackson]

This interview does indeed shed fascinating light on the minds of neocons like this Ziegler piece of work. With no provocation, he calls Nate Silver a pinhead and he mentally falls off a cliff from there.

Another poster noted research which concluded among other things that conservatives have a much stronger fear reaction than others. That sounds like the 'fight or flight' response that originates in our brain stem, the most ancient part of our brain, often referred to as the "reptilian brain." Reptiles have no upper brain functionality, they can't feel empathy of any kind; right after a female reptile lays her eggs she abandons them.

It must be very tiresome to have to live in such a constant state of mental duress. As vulgar, boorish, biased, factually ignorant and infantile Ziegler behaves in this interview, at the end of the day I pity the guy. It's just like how Ebenezer Scrooge's nephew doesn't hate his uncle despite being always mistreated by him, instead he pities him. Seriously, can you imagine living your life through the cracked, distorted lens of a neocon's brain stem?!