Hey, I don’t write ’em, I just find ’em.
Are George W. Bush lovers certifiable?
A collective “I told you so” will ripple through the world of Bush-bashers once news of Christopher Lohse’s study gets out.
Lohse, a social work master’s student at Southern Connecticut State University, says he has proven what many progressives have probably suspected for years: a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush.
Lohse says his study is no joke. The thesis draws on a survey of 69 psychiatric outpatients in three Connecticut locations during the 2004 presidential election. Lohse’s study, backed by SCSU Psychology professor Jaak Rakfeldt and statistician Misty Ginacola, found a correlation between the severity of a person’s psychosis and their preferences for president: The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush.
Okay, how psychotic do you have to be to WORK for GWB?
J/P=?
I think you mean sycophantic not psychotic. I guess you could be both.
Man, that was HARD to read! Every 3 sentences my eyes rolled so hard I couldn’t see the screen any more because I was looking at my brain.
This is misapplication of statistics that approaches felony status. You can’t infer anything about the general population from 69 psych patients.
I agree with #3. It’s almost as bad as taking 2 or 3 lies and turning them into an excuse to invade another country.
The findings seem to be consistent with my observations.
They say visiting Disney World shows a good cross section of America. I would suggest visiting Waco, Tx (or Whacko as we like to call it) and you will find a good cross section of pro Bush psychotics.
So finally… An explanation for what’s been going on. So about 30% of the US is psychotic. That sounds about right to me. Psychotics need a leader, because their minds can’t lead, they can only follow.
I like that the guy behind Bush has that smirk on his face.
Wouldn’t you, standing right behind two “world leaders” making asses of themselves…
He musty be trying very hard not to hold-up two fingers behind both of their heads. 🙂
Cmon John, Quit lying, You don’t just find them, you scour every crackpot paper just to justify your feelings. You don’t care if the guy is a nut or not. Now, THAT’S psychotic.
#9: John? What does he have to do with this post?
There’s an easy way to test this. Has anyone seen Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman trying to register people at wards?
This study’s result is unlikely since we know that criminals vote Democrat, and so much that the party openly tries to register them.
Even a high school science student knows that correlation does not imply causation. Otherwise we could claim that liberalism causes small dick sizes.
Well Dave, most newbie people reading DU for the first time assume that John Dvorak is the voice behind posts like the one you put up here and I’m sure you guys as moderators are well aware of that common misunderstanding. Since Dvorak’s name is the title of this site it’s not unreasonable to assume he tacitly encourages the constant bias and spin you moderators post online. I read a lot of the articles you guys post, we still nominally live in a free country with free speech laws. But serving up the baseless crap that most Bush supporters are psychotic (and being that Bush been elected twice makes the case, if the article was true, that would mean that half of America is psychotic) is the sort of mean spirited crap that is polarizing this country. I remember an incident where John Stewart went on CNN’s Crossfire and begged both hosts (mostly directed at Tucker Carlson) to stop polarizing the country. You guys could do better then serving this kind of drivel, can’t you?
ZeOverMind , Right at the top of this article it says “Hey, I don’t write ‘em, I just find ‘em.”
Obviously Dave doesn’t think the substance is credible, but he posted it anyway… probably for comic relief.
Chill.
Yes, but the reactions elicited from right wing reactionaries is priceless.
I’m no statistician, but I’ve taken a couple classes in the subject, and as far as I am aware, a single study of 69 people in a *very* narrow demographic is hardly representative of the nation. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that there is a positive correllation between psychiatric outpatients’ levels psychosis and their support of Bush. That is all.
Andy Bromage’s line “The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush” is sensations hogwash that caters to the near-universal desire to say “everyone that disagrees with me is a moron.” I’m no Bush fan, but to oversimplify matters with inflamatory blanket statements is a invite contention.
In his defense, he says the trend is due to psychosis patients preferring an authoritarian leader, not that people support Bush because they are psychotic. The bottom line is that this study is ONLY representative of psychiatric outpatients. Of course, headlines reflecting that fact aren’t very interesting, nor do they cater to the people that hate Bush as blindly as the people that love him.
#16, True, but as #15 put it, it sure is funny to see all those right wingnuts get their knickers in a knot.
I guess it’s a funny post, which is what’s most important here.
But what’s really worrying? Should we worry that some psychotics like Mr. Bush (for whatever reason) or that the guy standing next to him, Mr. Putin, acts somewhat like a psychotic (whether or not psychotics like him or not (which is anyone’s guess))?
#13 – I second that.
Citing an article in the New Haven Advocate, which cites a “study” done by a STUDENT at the Southern Connecticut State University is really scraping the bottom of the barrel for “news”. Please don’t start citing the Weekly World News next. I know D.U. can do better than this nonsense. (Please?)
Being that John D. advocates accountability, I find it near impossible that he would allow the assisting moderators to post content he felt downgraded his site, so he is ultimately responsible. The bias of some of the moderators is starting to become a bit obvious lately…
Authoritarian… that’s why people take the Bible literally rather than taking the time to study and interpret it. If you allow that it needs some interpretation to understand ancient writings in the context of today’s world, suddenly you’re without the answers you need to get along with life and you have one more thing to think about. So an authoritarian figure gets the deeply religious vote – even when he does things that, on the face of it, seem to be like bearing false witness…
The same people aren’t up on the latest news, of course, because they don’t have time for that, either. And then they’re also interested in getting their news from whatever editorial source (Rush Limbaugh comes to mind) spews stuff to which they can nod their heads without worrying about the underlying facts.
It’s all about people who don’t question what they hear.
#19: Zuke, you clearly have no idea what the purpose of this site is or the parameters we editors are given. I’m not going to tell you but, rather leave it as an exercise to the student to figure it out.
#18: Excellent analysis. You get a gold star!
#9, 13, 19 — I love to get credit for Uncle Dave’s post. Of course I only get credit because some people do not seem to notice the name UNCLE DAVE at the top.
As for BIAS, I’m not seeing it. Find us a study showing that Stalinists love Kerry (as someone suggested) and we’d gladly run it too. The fact is this is a group of skeptics who do not feel the need to kiss political butt.
We are also not fans of Hillary, McCain, Bill Clinton, Karl Marx, Hitler or anyone else for that matter. I think there are a few preferred TV shows and there may be some bias there. Also at least one blogger is an out-and-out atheist making him the most religious of the group. Also none of the editors think the earth was created 6000 years ago, so there is bias there too. In this case the bias is pro-science, pro modernity, pro logic and pro common sense. Is that bad?
#21 – The editors parameters are obvious: stir things up so DU can send higher hit counts to it’s advertisers.
This is not true. The orientation is to educating the masses, period. If I wanted to do nothing more than crank up numbers I’d do a porn site.
#23: And as for advertisers, if John is making anything more than pocket change from this site, he got some ‘plainin’ to do to us editors! >:-o
#14 – I’m am chilling – you should see me when I’m on a full blown rant. I know Dave doesn’t write the articles he posts, but he sure seems to gravitate to bashing Republicans and Bush in general. My point is this article is obviously trashy and really has no technical or scientific merit – it’s simply designed to troll for a reaction.
Now I’m not baiting for “equal time.” As far as I’m concerned the site does a fairly good job of letting people who disagree with that thread post comments that may disagree with the editor’s opinion.
So what’s my point? I think Dave can do better then scraping the bottom of the web for crud and actually posting something stimulating to read rather then trolling for rants and raves. And I know I don’t have to read the articles posted and often I usually bypass the crud, but being the cerebral fellow that I am I like to challenge people to find the best of what they can find then to sink to the lowest common denominator.
John, you couldn’t do a porn site because we (most of us?) couldn’t get here from work. 😉
#26: Sometimes the most interesting aspect of an article is not what the article seems to be about. In this case, cogitate on why the article was published given, as others pointed out, such crappy methodologies were used in its creation. Perhaps start with rereading the first paragraph of the excerpt.
I could tell you more, but I’ve already said too much…
I am surprised that anyone in Conn. voted for Bush… Heck man,,, that is pure liberal country and is by no means a viable sample of anything but Kennedy Fans. get a life guys.
Dave
Psychos prefer Bush?
Now that is funny.
And the more psychotic you are the more likely you are to support him?
Funnier still.
#26 – Again, I agree.
Mr. Dvorak, I see the poster’s name under each title and realize you don’t personally dig up each and every one of these ‘gems’. What I meant is that you, who so often advocates accountability from people/companies/politicians for their actions, I cannot believe that you would abdicate responsibility for articles that are posted on your blog site.
What I meant by ‘bias’ to those who deny it so adamantly, is that if you did a scorecard of the # of inflammatory articles posted disparaging Republicans vs. the # doing the same to Democrats, you would see the clear bias. Now, if this is because there is a Republican president in office and it would be like treatment if/when a Democrat becomes president again, then OK I can understand that. Easy cannon fodder. But if it’s because you believe Republicans are idiots versus the intellectually superior Democrats, then at least be open and honest about that opinion. Most blogs are.
Yes Uncle Dave, I obviously don’t understand the purpose of this site. But I did enjoy it more back in the day when it was only John posting and it was primarily early technology news, of which I think Dvorak is an astute expert on. I love his PC Mag columns and his appearances on TWiT are always great listening. Heck, I was one of the few who used to tune into Silicon Spin on TechTV and actually watch the entire show! I’m glad it’s been reborn as Cranky Geeks.
Anyways, yes I know that if I don’t like it, I can just click the little “X” in the upper right-hand corner…