John Ziegler, who probably has about 10 talk radio show firings left in his career, is I guess trying to make it now as a "filmmaker." This being a film on how stupid Barack Obama supporters are, he decided to sponsor a "poll" asking them a series of questions which had, er, idiosyncratic answers, and appeared designed to push negative information out about Obama.
And more from FiveThirtyEight.com:
I had the chance this afternoon to speak with John Ziegler, a documentary filmmaker and former radio talk show host who built the website HowObamaGotElected.com and is promoting a forthcoming documentary of the same name.
Ziegler was responsible for commissioning a Zogby International survey of Barack Obama supporters, which took the form of a multiple choice political knowledge test, stating a "fact" to the respondent and asking them which of the four major candidates (Obama, McCain, Biden, Palin) the statement applied to. Because I believe that many of the statements on the survey are questionable or false but are misleadingly presented as factual to the respondent, I characterized the survey as a "push poll" in an article posted early this morning.
Ziegler had contacted me by e-mail, asking if I'd like to interview him; the interview itself was conducted by telephone. Ziegler asked, among other conditions, that I post a full transcript of the interview, which I have. The transcript below is intended to be representative as possible from my shorthand transcript, with the exception of two or three rapid-fire ad-hominem exchanges being edited out. The transcript, however, is not safe for work.
A few of the more interesting exchanges here:
NS: What did Zogby charge you -- what did you pay for this survey?
JZ: I'm not going to tell you that, I'm not a fucking idiot.
NS: Did he charge you at his usual rates or did he ask you for extra?
JZ: You'll have to ask them. I'm not going to respond how much money I paid for this. It was substantial but I’m not going to say anything more than that.
(snip)
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.
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.
You really have to read the whole thing.
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