Whatever. I won’t believe it until I see him writing on his hand.

They’re claiming that they were trying to embarrass/expose her:

Four men charged with trying to tamper with a senator’s phones — including a conservative activist known for targeting ACORN — hoped to record embarrassing hidden camera footage to document allegations her staff was ignoring calls critical of her stance on health care reform, an attorney for one of the four said Thursday.

The theory, I guess, was to disable the office phones and then catch the staff joyously crying out, “Ha ha, those dumbass constituents won’t be able to call us now!” There are two major problems with this. The first is that it’s a really dumb plan. Their hidden camera would be more likely to expose staffers saying “shit, how are we going to order pizza now?” Of course, nobody will ever suspect the guys who just came in and fiddled with the phones, nor the guy recording footage of them on his cell phone. It just seems like kind of a high-risk plan to try to social-engineer your way into an office on the off-chance that staffers will say something you can spin against them.

The second problem, of course, is that Democrats don’t need help embarrassing themselves.

We look forward to the blogging recovery that will inevitably result from our steadfast refusal to do any non-essential writing.

Damn. I was pulling for Rick Sanchez.

The game was the 82nd loss for the White Sox, thus clinching a losing season, further evidence that the Age of Obama is now over.

/insert flashing siren here

In related news, Obama turned down an offer of seconds at lunch on Friday afternoon, stating that he was full. Is Obama trying to do too much? Tune in tonight for thoughts on whether the President has overextended and endangered his agenda.

Indeed, there are people this ridiculous!

October 1, 2008:

12:59 <yevrah> most recent ppp, q, cnn show obama in the lead, susa m+1, rasmussen tied, strategic m+3
12:59 <Aerion> and seriously, strategic vision can eat it

October 9, 2008:

01:51 <Aerion> Chambliss 47, Martin 44
01:51 <yevrah_> so awesome
01:51 <Aerion> but wait, there's more!!
01:51 <Aerion> the trend is absurd!
01:51 <Aerion> i mean, strategic vision kind of sucks
01:51 <Aerion> but 57-28 ... to 47-44!?

November 3, 2008:

15:42 <PollBot> ** StrategicVision: PA, WA, WI (10/31-11/2)
15:43 <Aerion> ok, but fuck strategic vision
15:43 <nepharis> heh

I had always assumed it was just gross incompetence that led them to be generally wrong all the time, and that their secrecy was just paranoia or something. Or perhaps just a necessary side effect of the fact that they’re not impartial, but that they’re actually political strategists. (As I recall, most outfits labeled them with an (R) and considered their polls to be internals.) But I don’t think I suspected that they might (note: might) have just been wholesale making  shit up, as Nate Silver almost-sort-of-accuses.

When I read Nate’s post this morning, I was naturally a little skeptical. It’s a little surprising to me that the trailing digit of polling data actually should be random. I’d have guessed a little more bias towards 9, considering pollsters tend to like to poll close races with top lines like 48-47. It’s hard to argue with the pretty graph showing all pollsters’ results, though.

But you know what? Forget the math. There’s two big things that stick out for me as serious red flags.

The first red flag: Strategic Vision’s response to the AAPOR complaint that originally prompted Nate’s investigation. Says CEO David Johnson:

We will be taking legal action.  We have spoken with our attorneys and have gotten them the documentation and should know exactly the venue and specific charges that we will be filing against AAPOR specifically and individual members of AAPOR personally.

Such quick escalation to legal threats makes you look a lot worse than you already did. Especially when you levy said threats them against thoroughly nonthreatening organizations like AAPOR, whose primary weapon is mildly irritated letters. Belligerence betrays malfeasance. Almost always.

The second (much less important) red flag: Really? strategicvision.biz? Unless you’re selling your polling services on infomercials on the Game Show Network, that’s probably not an appropriate domain. Here’s ten bucks, go buy yourself a dot com.

(The title of this post is in reference to this belligerent blast from the past. Also, I had forgotten about the random Total Recall clip in that segment, so that’s kind of an added bonus.)