I knew them when…

My good friends (okay, they may not want to admit to that) and NCSU Political Science colleagues, Bill Boettcher and Mike Cobb, had their research featured on the front page of DailyKos.com today.  I am impressed.  Daily Kos apparently gets over 600,000 daily hits.  I think it is safe to say that their research (on tolerance of casualties in Iraq) will therefore reach a far greater audience and have potentially far greater impact than publication in the very best political science journals could ever bring about.  It's a brave new world out there.  On occasion, a political scientist makes into an Op-Ed in a major paper, but this clearly shows that the blogosphere is now becoming an avenue for political scientists to have a real impact on policy debates. 

Boettcher and Cobb argue that tolerance for casualties in Iraq largely depends upon what Americans see as the goal.  If our goal is simply preventing civil war, as it increasingly seems to be, tolerance for additional American casualties is much reduced.  They also have some pretty cool new data on attitudes towards Iraq– I'll talk about that when their findings are public.