Having posed the question directly here, and had a look around the blogosphere, the opinion pages and so on, I’ve come to the conclusion that there isn’t a single person[1] in Australia who believes that John Howard is telling the truth[2] in regard to the children overboard story. Given that large percentages believe that Elvis lives, and a non-zero number believe themselves to be Elvis (or similar), I think this is an impressive level of unanimity.
fn1. Obviously, the relevant set includes Howard himself
fn2. That is, in the time-honored phrase, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
John Quiggin 
Does anyone believe John Howard is telling the truth?
It is time to retell the story about the Duke of Wellington, who was approached by a man who said to him
“Mr Smith, I believe”
To which the DoW replied
“If you believe that, you’ll believe anything”.
This is an unusual posting. It is, I assume, intended to be humorous as there are people who believe John Howard is telling the truth. If a respondent registered personal disagreement with your claim then the implication could be that they are either gullible or excessively literal and unable to appreciate the joke.
Perhaps the return to favour of Labor in the opinion polls over recent days has reduced the stridency in the claims of Labor supporters and your “Rare Show of National Unity’ is an instance of a welcome burst of humour. Fairly grim humour, but more fun than some earlier postings. On this account alone, I hope Labor continues to improve in the polls.
‘fraid not, John. Hours of plugging away have elicited this assertion from Paul Bickford: “On the balance of probability, I’m prepared to believe Howard, due to his higher level of known credibility.”
I really don’t think there’s anything I can add to that.
I disqualified Paul on the basis of this comment
But, as Harry says, it’s all in (grim) fun.
That was just Paul’s rather lame attempt to avoid the issue. You can catch up with all the fun on the “Costello” post.
Polls and Margins of Error
As we await in delicious anticipation the forthcoming opinion polls it might pay for us to educate ourselves with a little statistics.
Kevin Drum has kindly laid out a small primer on polls, margin of error, probability and Percantage Lead.
By knowing the Margin of Error, you can determine the Probability that the quoted Percentage Lead is realistic.
Some other useful info is also:
Sample Size 1100 = Margin of error 3%
Sample Size 600 = Margin of error 4%
I challenge your assessment of my statement. As I (and no-one else besides the complainant) was witness to the conversation, I believe Howard due to his position and credibility, something not shared by the source of the allegations.
As the whole matter is based on this one interchange, I’ll stick my neck out and say I see no mistruth in his statement.
As I have also said previously, I am no Howard and especially liberal party fan- they are big taxing, big spending interventionists and supporters of inefficient industries, and have not been registered to vote since 1998 due to my disgust at the parlous state of Australian politics.
I suggest some review be made to previous statements made by Scrafton to the senate enquiry, which he now seeks to change.
His credibility is dissapearing faster than potential Google investors.
You’re right- it is all fun.
BTW- the Lodge (or Kirribilli House) doesn’t pay enough for me to ever consider the position; I think it takes a rare blend of masochism, blind ambition and poor self-esteem to seek such obloquy for a sort space of time, then descend into irrelevance and derision (as per Malcolm Fraser, Keating etc).
the Lodge (or Kirribilli House) doesn’t pay enough for me to ever consider the position.
Shame, You’re letting down your legions of fans.
Yes Rex, I know you love me, but you’re adoration is bound for dissapointment- I’m going to go back to doing really bad dub reggae.
(And racing vintage motorcycles- politics is so attractive compared to caning a ’57 BMW outfit around Lakeside).
If John Howard is telling the truth then a lot of ex public servants who have kept quiet all their lives and have every reason to continue to do so as they know they will be subjected to abuse and innuendo about their abilities etc have gone quite crazy.
Why would they suddenly risk their reputations and future contracts unless they believe something fundamental to society is at stake.
As PM John Howard should be asking the hard questions and seeking evidence to support his statements. To continue to tell the same story without qualification is either stupid – which Howard is not or deliberate suppression or a lie.
There is no message out of this except that those who believe John Howard was telling an honest story belong in the group known as “one born every minute”.
After all why would someone who is honest deliberately malign a group unable to answer those accusations and represent them in the worst light and continue to do so when the evidence was tenuous at best? If you are not sure of a series of events an honest person will say nothing and wait to see if there is evidence. But not John Howard.
Is there really anyone not suffering from delusion who would believe the worst of everyone else in order to believe a politician?
…then descend into irrelevance and derision (as per Malcolm Fraser, Keating etc).
And now poor John Howard.
When he retires and starts making a tool of himself, but I think he has more self pride.
I think Howard will do a Ming, and emerge from gracious retirement to make the odd non-political pronouncement about cricket. The hatred for Howard amazes me- a small l liberal who made good from the suburbs of Sydney, rather dull but able to achieve more than all the best that the ALP could do- free trade agreements with the USA and most of Asia, reform (minor) of welfare and workplace practices and a resurgence of the USA/Australia alliance- had he been from the NSW right he’d be a hero.
The value of the FTA with the USA is still to be decided – hardly something that can already be chalked up as a win to Australia.
It is also surprising that you draw Howards relations with Asia in a good light, I thought it was generally considered he was doing a shoddy job at this.
I suspect his retirement (like his demise) will have more in common with Nixon than Ming.
Perhaps it is most correct to say that, whilst some people still have faith that John Howard is telling the truth about children overboard, nobody believes on the basis of evidence and logic that he is telling the truth about it.
Kevin Drum is either wrong or I am going to demand a refund on my AGSM MBA course.
My notes have 900 for a margin of error of 5%.
since I am at present in the library I can’t tell you exactly the figure for 3% but I am sure it is around 2,100-2,300.
Have a look at eith Newspoll or Nelisen they put up their samples and margin of error.
I think the money quote (page 440) is:
I can’t see any way Howard can split hairs on this one. It just comes down to a “no he didn’t”, “yes I did” argument with Scrafton.
I think Scrafton wins.
I am now back at home.
The sample for a margin of error of 4% is 1401. for 3% it is 2491.
Aidan quoted: “Mr HOWARD—At no stage was I told by my department or was I told by any member of my staff or was I told by any minister or was I told by any official in any other department that the original advice tendered was wrong. I had no grounds to believe it was.”
Maybe he was being incredibly careful. Parse this: my Department; member of my staff; any Minister; any official in any other Department.
What’s missing? Any member of any other Minister’s staff… which is what Scrafton was at the time…
Good point, Nick.
A noteworthy aspect of the conservative commentary on this debate is the propensity to describe critics of Howard as ‘Howard-haters’. This trivialises the substantive arguments against Howard’s position, implying opponents are motivated purely by emotion and have no rational basis for their criticisms. It is a sly rhetorical manoeuvre.
A sly rhetorical manoeuvre?
A very limp one I’d say. ‘d be like me presuming I had scored a devastating hit by making fun of the PM’s baldness and deafness.
In fact, rather than sly, I think the operative phrase is “embarrisingly weak”