Bad Poker, Bad Politics

At The Corner, Jonah Goldberg posts what he must think is a witty insight (otherwise why would he post it?):

On this issue of whether or not the CBS 60 Minutes documents are forged, I cannot help drawing an analogy to poker. Anyone who has caught on to the new poker "craze" and watches Texas Hold'em tournaments on TV (or participates in tournaments themselves) is likely to come across the term "free-rolling". This term basically describes a situation where one player has nothing to lose, but much to gain. An example would be when two players, one of whom has committed all of his chips to the pot, have essentially identical hands, let's say they both have a pair of aces with their first two cards. The odds are overwhelmingly in favor of the two hands being a draw, and the two players splitting the pot evenly. However, when the "flop" (three cards, faced up) comes out, all three cards are spades. Now, the person who is holding the ace of spaces is free-rolling. If one of the next two cards is a spade, he wins the entire pot with a flush. Otherwise, he splits the pot. He cannot lose.

Conservatives are "free-rolling" right now with regards to the authenticity of these documents. There's still only a relatively small chance that we'll win the "pot", but it's still fun waiting to see those next two cards get turned over.

I guess the reader sort of understands what free-rolling means in theory. But the political position of the conservatives pimping the forgery meme is quite plainly not that of a poker player heads up with aces against aces, who is lucky enough to flop a four-flush. In such a scenario, the player can't lose. Conversely, in the case of the Bush National Guard memos, unless a miracle "forgery" card appears on the turn or the river, the other side (our side) takes down the pot---i.e., whatever is to be gained in electoral terms through this controversy.

Is there a direct analogy to a poker hand? I can think of one. Let's call the reporters digging into Bush's National Guard records "David Sklansky" (just for the sake of argument). Let's call the bloggers who are trying to prove that the memos are forged "Mike Ruberry" (just for the sake of argument). Sklansky is holding AA, and bets several times the big blind before the flop. Everyone folds to Ruberry, who is holding J8, and calls. The flop comes A 7 9, all offsuit. Sklansky has a set of aces. The odds of him laying down the hand are about as good as the odds of John McEnroe's talk show getting renewed for another season.

Sklansky checks, Ruberry bets, Sklansky raises to put Ruberry all-in. Ruberry calls without hesitating and the cards are turned over. As Jonah's reader noticed, Ruberry can still win the pot, provided that a T falls and the board doesn't pair. But his odds are terrible (about 5 1/2 to 1) and his call was embarrassingly bad. Without a miracle on fourth or fifth street, Ruberry loses everything he had in front of him. And for the record, the chances of the memos turning out to be forgeries are, at this point, rather long even compared to the chances of hitting that gut shot.

It is revelatory, I think, that so many right-wing bloggers just assumed that the memos were forged and tried to work backwards. Doing so is quite a bit like Ruberry calling bet after bet with bad pot odds and nothing but a draw to an inside straight.