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.

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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

[JeanPaulSatire]

What's the big deal?

Ziegler just thought he was Cheney, that Silver was Leahy, and that they were on the Senate floor.

[caremore]

proud of my smart sweetheart nate......­...that f**ker is peeing his pants!!!!!!

[cherlybear]

Ziegler is misinformed about Nate Silver's website!

[suekzoo]

Ziegler is generally misinformed about mostly everything.

[Deesel]

All of the gushing about Nate Silver seems a bit misplaced to me. He could have really taken Ziegler to task about how inaccurate his questions were but instead eroded Zieglers patience with (mainly) irrelevant questions about financing and Zogby's stance on the poll. Unless the transcript he posted was edited (which he said it wasn't) this was a wasted opportunity.

[Gidster]

Agreed, but you would think that a professional politico would have more patience, or at least be able to control an interview.

High school debate classes teach that.

[ArthurTwoShedsJackson]

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

Well done, Nate.

[sisterdebmac]

Holy wowzers! Someone quoted One On One. No way! Arthur, I think I'm in love with you. ;-)

[martinchill]

lol - all the way with a red-hot poker...

[WRPrintz]

Next time, I expect to see a quote from the Piranha brothers.

"Nate Silver was known for nailing peoples heads to a table"....­.

[sasson]

Let's not kid ourselves. While the right has quite a few idiotic zealots, so does the left.

[krocklin]

Yeah but just one idiot doesn't justify 100 more.

[oldmilitant]

You need to stop kidding YOURSELF. Show me ONE link to an article of a legitimate Progressive behaving like this.

Just one.

[rmetz74]

True.

Nate Silver, however, is not one of them. What he is is the person who had the most accurate polling data throughout the election, which is why Zogby hates him so much.

[BonoVox]

Zogby was predicting a Kerry win right up until the election. What a buzz-kill that night was.

[sarimn00]

Ah, don't feel bad, Nate. When a Republican gets angry like that, it just means you did something right.

[mapleaforever]

Ah, healthy and civil debate lives on. Gotta love independent pollsters.

[biskitdaddy]

Repukelican zipper head.

[jbink]

Fabulous. This (sadly) sounds like nearly every conversation I've had with a right-winger over the last 6 months. Much name-calling and table-turning, but zero substance.

[Cyano]

Or any random 5 minutes listening to the reich radio clones. Today's 20 seconds of listening to Limbaugh whine about Hagel's critique yielded this nugget:

"Compromise is a failure of leadership­." Ha, when Limbaugh says "leadership," he means dictatorship.

[MeeMee201]

Good job Nate!!!!!!!

[exit116]

What a jerk off! The questions weren't even that tough. Advice to Ziegler, find a therapist.

[invisible]

Is it bad that I am willing to pay good money to choke out John Ziegler ?

[cdub1991]

Well done Nate!

[INALdem]

Nate Silver is a God among men in the political pollster world. All other pollsters should bow to him!

Keep it up Nate!!