科學家預言奧巴馬即將身陷醜聞

President Obama's administration is set to be rocked by scandal - at least, according to one political scientist's mathematical formula。

A newly-released report by scholar Brendan Nyhan predicts the reputation of the 44th US president will soon be marred by controversy。

Where Are the Obama Scandals? calls the odds of scandal 'high and rising' after two years in office, based on his interpretation of data from presidential scandals between 1977 and 2008.

科學家預言奧巴馬即將身陷醜聞

Nyhan, a scholar at the University of Michigan, released the report to website Center for Politics on Thursday。

Serving as a guest columnist, he presented detailed graphs illustrating the likelihood of a scandal to unfold before the 2012 presidential election - rising between 95 and 100 per cent by June of next year。

The report reads: 'Obama has been extremely fortunate: My research on presidential scandals shows that few presidents avoid scandal for as long as he has.'

He tested his hypotheses on scandal coverage data from Washington Post news reports and chronologies of presidential events covered by the New York Times。

'In the 1977-2008 period,' he wrote, 'the longest that a president has gone without having a scandal featured in a front-page Washington Post article is 34 months - the period between when President Bush took office in January 2001 and the Valerie Plame scandal in October 2003.'

Nyhan claims his research is supported by the lack of support among Republicans for the Obama administration, and predicts he will follow 'a similar trajectory to Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton (who both suffered significant first-term scandals).'奧巴馬政府即將爆發醜聞，至少一位政治學者的數學公式是這麼推斷的。

學者布倫丹•尼漢在新發布的研究報告中預測，美國第44屆總統的名聲將很快陷入爭議。

這一題爲《奧巴馬的醜聞在哪裏？》的研究報告認爲任職兩年的奧巴馬爆發醜聞的機率“很高而且不斷上升”。該報告基於他對1977年至2008年間總統醜聞資料的解讀。

尼漢是密歇根大學的一位學者，他週四將報告發布在“政治中心”網站上。

作爲一位特邀專欄作家，他用詳細的圖解描述了在2012年總統大選前爆發醜聞的概率，這一概率在明年6月將升至95%到100%。

報告中說：“奧巴馬一直都十分幸運：本人對總統醜聞的研究顯示，很少有總統像他那樣這麼久都沒有醜聞。”

他用《華盛頓郵報》新聞報道的醜聞資料和《紐約時報》的總統大事年表來檢驗自己的假想。

他寫道：“在1977年到2008年這段時間，一位在職總統未有任何醜聞刊登在《華盛頓郵報》頭版文章上的最長時間是34個月，也就是小布什總統2001年1月就職後到2003年10月爆發普拉姆醜聞爲止。”

尼漢稱，奧巴馬政府缺乏共和黨陣營的支持，這爲他的研究進一步提供了依據。他還預言奧巴馬將走上“羅納德•里根和比爾•克林頓的老路(這兩位都在第一任期爆發重大丑聞)”。