To attribute or not to attribute – Jon Stewart vs Dick Cheney March 27, 2009
Posted by Paul Duignan in : Accountability, Attribution, Evaluation debates, Outcomes theory, Outcomes theory & politics, Outcomes theory & the news , trackbackIn a recent episode of Jon Stewart’s Daily Show he deconstructs a high-profile interview with Dick Cheney, the previous Vice President of the United States, undertaken by another interviewer. While this is a comedy show, being an overly analytical sort of person, I can’t watch it without analyzing what is going on it in from the point of view of outcomes theory! At a technical level, the key issue Stewart is focusing on in creating his laughs is what in outcomes theory is called – demonstrable attribution. Demonstrable attribution is being able to demonstrate that an improvement which occurs following an intervention has been caused by a particular intervention (see here for more outcomes theory information on this). In summary, Stewart claims that Dick Cheney is applying a double standard around demonstrable attribution.
Jon Stewart focuses on two ‘outcomes’ for the U.S. over the period of the Bush Presidency – first, no terrorist attacks directly on U.S. soil since September 11; and, second, the implosion of the U.S. economy. In the first instance, Dick Cheney says that the reason that there have not been any attacks (the ‘intervention’ so to speak) is that the ‘President made good decisions’. In order to set up the juxtaposition around demonstrable attribution in regard to the two cases, Jon Stewart takes this statement at face value and says that he will give the Vice-President credit for it, saying that the Vice President obviously ‘believes that executive action matters’.
However, when the Vice-President turns to the state of the economy, Jon Stewart leads in to the clip he shows with: ‘if your explanation of how you kept us safe was competent execution, what’s your explanation for what happened with everything else?’ He then shows the Vice-President basically saying ‘stuff happens’ and offering all sorts of excuses for why the failure to achieve an economic outcome (the prevention of the melt-down) is not demonstrably attributable to the Bush Presidency.
This is a good example of how a great deal of political discussion, in a technical sense, is focused on the issue of demonstrable attribution. Of course, as in this case, anyone who is being held to account for successes and failures will claim that the successes are attributable to them and the failures are not – because there where other factors which intervened. Just listening to such claims by those who are being held to account is usually a waste of time because it is entirely predictable what they will say.
Having spent many years listening to such claims in the media, I now don’t really bother listening to them any more. One way forward on this issue, if anyone wants to move it in another direction, is for investigative reporting of various types which actually look at what is demonstrably attributable in particular instances. There is a paucity of this. The media seems to often see its job as simply repeating claims and counter-claim from various stakeholders without any attempt to work out what it is reasonable to claim and not claim – such an approach is much easier that doing the hard work of attempting to figure out what is, and what is not, demonstrably attributable. This leads onto a concept I advanced in a previous blog, of having something which could be labeled an ‘Attribution Commission’. It’s job would be to provide independent advice on those cases in which it is likely that attribution will be able to be demonstrated and those cases in which it is not.
In the instance of Jon Stewart’s comments on Dick Cheney’s interview, Jon Stewart is claiming that if attribution is demonstrable in one case (preventing terrorist attacks) it logically follows that it is demonstrable in other cases (the economic melt-down). One of the important points outcomes theory is trying to communicate is that Jon Stewart’s claim does not necessarily follow. The difficultly of demonstrating attribution varies depending on the particular case. Presumably, if you asked him, the Vice-President was claiming that because of the issue, in the case of the terrorist threat, it was possible to demonstrate attribution, but in the case of the economic melt-down there were so many other factors that it wasn’t. This is not an inherently illogical claim (that you can demonstrate attribution in one case but not in the other – which was being implied by Jon Stewart), but one which you would have to look at from a technical point of view. Obviously the Vice-President because of his interest in the consequences for accountability, is not someone who you would rely on to establish if this is, or is not the case, in this instance.
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