Yesterday, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) introduced an amendment that would bar the National Science Foundation (NSF) from “wasting federal research funding on political science.” Coburn argues that these political sciences issues “have little, if anything, to do with science.” From his amendment:

The largest award over the last 10 years under the political science program has been $5.4 million for the University of Michigan for the “American National Election Studies” grant. The grant is to “inform explanations of election outcomes.” The University of Michigan may have some interesting theories about recent elections, but Americans who have an interest in electoral politics can turn to CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, the print media, and a seemingly endless number of political commentators on the internet who pour [sic] over this data and provide a myriad of viewpoints to answer the same questions.

Coburn adds, “Theories on political behavior are best left to CNN, pollsters, pundits, historians, candidates, political parties, and the voters, rather than being funded out of taxpayers’ wallets.” His argument is like saying that schools should just have students watch Jim Cramer on CNBC instead of teaching economics.

Part of Coburn’s objections seem political, as Henry at Crooked Timber points out. As examples of the way the NSF has wasted its money, Coburn cites a study that found the United States is increasingly willing to torture terrorism suspects and research by Nobel-Prize winning economist Paul Krugman. Today on his blog, Krugman responded to Coburn:

I can’t quite remember when I last received NSF support, but it has to be at least 20 years ago — and it was, of course, for work on international trade, work that, you know, won me a Clark Medal and that other prize. So the standard seems to be that if anyone ever supported by the NSF expresses liberal political opinions decades later, that discredits the program.

But much worse is the way Coburn singles out support for the American National Election Studies as a boondoggle. As I said, I’m not a political scientist — but I’ve done enough data-surveying to know that the ANES is a treasure trove of information that can’t be found anywhere else — certainly not, as Coburn suggests, on CNN, Fox, and MSNBC. Of course, it’s obvious from what Coburn says that neither he nor anyone on his staff even bothered to look at what the ANES does.

Robert Lowry, a professor of political science at the University of Texas at Dallas, further explained the difference between the social science and the punditry: “I tell my undergraduate students, There’s a difference between arguing over pizza at 3 a.m. and doing actual hypothesis-testing. CNN has a lot of smart people, but at best it’s all a very short-term cycle. They chew over the results from last night’s election, and by the next week they’re on to something else.”

The Chronicle of Higher Education notes that in 1995, a House committee approved a bill that would have eliminated nearly all the social science programs from the NSF, and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) introduced a similar measure three years ago. The American Political Science Association is now asking people to contact senators to show support for their social science.

On Fox News last night, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) told Bill O’Reilly that she has “stalkers” at an unnamed cable news network, presumably referring to MSNBC. “It’s an interesting phenomena,” said Bachmann. “I think it happened with a competing cable network that took an interest in me and it’s only grown, so now it’s almost like I have personal stalkers, only they have TV shows.” In a statement to TVNewser, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann responded, saying that Bachmann should apologize to those who have actually been threatened by stalkers:

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann responds to TVNewser, “Having had an actual stalker myself, I think the Congresswoman needs to apologize to women (and men) whose lives are blighted and ruined by such terror and threat. Not even in the mildest of senses – of journalists whose aggressiveness might verge colloquially into ‘stalking’ – is she anywhere close to being such a victim.”

Watch Bachmann’s comments:

On his radio and TV shows recently, Glenn Beck has been positioning himself as an advocate for America’s mothers, who he says will be the “ones who will save the Republic.” “When are mothers going to stand up and demand the respect they deserve? Beck said on Fox this week. But as Media Matters noted on Tuesday, Beck has a long history of disrespecting women and moms with sexist commentary. Just today, he said that former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, a mother and grandmother , looks like a “turkey” because of “the neck skin on her.” Listen here:

On Sunday, Republican strategist Mary Matalin defended Beck’s public persona by saying that he was connecting with “maligned mothers.”

Last night on Fox News, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) complained about the process of moving bills forward for a vote. “I’m going to introduce a resolution here in the House that would require all committees to post within 24 hours the actions taken by their committee,” he declared.

Host Greta Van Susteren piled on. “Why in the world don’t we have that?” After Boehner spent much of the segment calling on the Democratic majority to “let people read these bills,” Van Susteren turned the tables and asked Boehner what the standard practice was when the Republicans were in power:

VAN SUSTEREN: All right, when your party was in leadership in the House and there were issues about transparency, any recollection how you handled it? Did you guys resist it at all? I realize that different times, but did you resist it at all?

BOEHNER: Well, it was a different time. I can tell you when I was Majority Leader, at the time, in almost all cases, I insisted that members have at least 24 hours to read a bill before it came to the floor. But that was — it’s a different time. I’ve made a commitment, and as have my Republican members, that if we take the majority back, we will have a requirement that no bill will come to the floor that hasn’t been out and available to the public and to the members for at least three days.

Watch it:

Boehner may have “insisted” that members have at least 24 hours to read a bill before a vote when he was (briefly) Majority Leader, but that guidance wasn’t always followed. At 9:21 P.M. on Sept. 26, 2006, the House Rules Committee reported the Military Commissions Act to the House, which then was voted on and passed at 4:45 P.M. the next day. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 also had about a day after it was reported out of committee and before it was voted on in the House.

When asked if the GOP leadership waved rules requiring at least 72 hours for members to read bills before voting on them, former Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-CA) said, “Absolutely — it is among the most commonly waived rules the House has.”

Indeed, during the GOP’s House reign, Republican leaders rushed major pieces of legislation through without giving 24 hours for members to read over the bills, let alone 72, including the Medicare Prescription Drug benefit, President Bush’s second tax cut for the wealthy in 2003, and the USA Patriot Act of 2001.

In fact, presumably much to Boehner’s delight, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently pledged to put health care reform legislation, and any amendment, online “for at least 72 hours before the House votes.”