Matt Stoller

Matt Stoller has gotten some criticism for calling John McCain a "crazy cancer-ridden dishonest madman".   Most of the criticism focuses on the "cancer-ridden" claim, which is both insulting to cancer victims and contradicted by all available evidence.   I'm also curious how Stoller can claim in a single post that "[McCain] did let the media peek at his records", followed by  "McCain wouldn't let reporters look at his records".

But leave that aside for now.  If Stoller wants to produce any evidence, he's welcome to do so. 

Instead, because I think this is a charge that will be made repeatedly in coming months, let's address a second claim Stoller makes.

McCain is 72 years old and he was a POW, a member of a group with high rates of illness due to ill-treatment on the part of their captors.  

Stoller provided no citation for his claim - and I cannot imagine what the link could be between being a former POW and getting cancer (he does not offer suggestions) - so I checked.  According to a Institute of Medicine study of WWII and Korean War POW's, he's wrong.

In summary, excepting psychiatric illness, this report shows little evidence of wide spread ill health among former prisoners of war compared with their non-POW veteran counterparts.

While there are some medical conditions associated with POW's, they are largely things like joint pain and issues related to the physical duress.   These are quality-of-life, and not mortality, issues.   Otherwise, there is "little evidence of wide spread ill health among former" POW's. 

The Institute of Medicine study did except psychiatric illnesses - which, I assume consists of PTSD, readjustment to civilian life and the like - which would seem in one degree or another to most veterans of war.  I checked on that, as well.  According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, which did research specifically on the subject of "the relative cognitive status of US Navy Vietnam-era POWs"...

The few statistically significant differences between repatriated POWs and controls showed better intellectual functioning in the POWs.

 UPDATE

Matt Stoller says he does have evidence.  However, his only citation is a former POW who says "Most of us who survived that experience are now in our late 60's and 70's. Sadly, we have died and are dying off at a greater rate than our non-POW contemporaries."   So, bald assertion is backed up by bald assertion of anecdotal evidence, but contradicted by medical research.   Regardless, the differences appear to be relatively minimal.

Make up your own mind.

Barack Obama took the Democratic Party by storm at its national convention four years ago, but one high-profile blogger was unimpressed. Here is what Matt Stoller, now of Open Left, wrote at The Blogging Of The President on Monday of the 2004 convention:

Barack Obama came in a gave a little speech to the bloggers at the Blogger breakfast. To be honest, I don't get the big deal. I've seen him speak a few times. He seems very charismatic, but I have yet to cross that bridge with him where I feel like he's saying anything really interesting or useful. He's a lot like [John] Edwards -- charismatic and demographically useful for the Democrats. But is there there there?

For that insightful bit of truth-telling, which National Journal's Technology Daily broke from the convention while I was its managing editor, Stoller was unceremoniously dumped by the Democratic National Convention Committee from his volunteer slot as the convention's "blog community coordinator."

Maybe that's why Obama passed over Hillary Clinton as his running mate without even vetting her as a potential vice president. Like Stoller and millions of Americans not smitten like the media, Clinton was unimpressed with Obama until he bested her in the Democratic race.

"I think that I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House," she said during the primary. "I know Senator [John] McCain has a lifetime of experienc [to bring] to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002."
 

The other day, I wondered why more tech-savvy lefties were not more outspoken against Michael Capuano's objectively dumb proposals for Internet use in the House. Matt Stoller has now spoken out pretty strongly against Capuano. He has followed up with a response to some internal criticism that's popped up on Open Left.

Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) was perfectly right in sounding the alarm about this. Even though the Capuano rules are technically a loosening of existing standards, they would create some very bad precedents, including a narrow focus on existing services like YouTube and an inherent distrust of advertising-supported Web startups.

For a minute, I was a little worried that we were seeing the tech-savvy Anti-Stupid Coalition balkanize into red and blue camps. What is the Anti-Stupid Coalition? It's a group of tech-savvy activists in both parties who will set aside party labels when one of our own does something objectively stupid with technology or government transparency. Republican online operatives like myself have been unafraid to speak out when the party isn't doing all it can to harness the medium. It's good to see that not every techno-progressive is circling the wagons around Capuano, as I initially feared.

But what strikes me about Stoller's rant against bureaucratic stupidity is that it could so easily have been uttered by a conservative "leave me alone" type:

Congratulations to Patrick, who gave a stellar performance on C-SPAN's Washington Journal this morning at 7:30 EST, which is 4:30 PST, which is really, really early.  Also, happy Father's Day to Patrick and Jon and all you great dads out there.

I know that some of you either didn't hear about the show in time to get up at that ungodly hour and watch or TiVo it, so I will present, for your viewing pleasure, some highlights.