Who not to trust in political prognostication

Barry Greenstein, October, 2007:

I'm sure it will be less than 6 months before Congress realizes that they
need to pass legislation contrary to the UIEGA. If it hasn't already happened,
it will happen in a few weeks.

Yeah, right.

I was reminded of this by reading today's post from Shamus, in which he quotes Phil Hellmuth in a recent Card Player magazine interview:

Online poker is going to be licensed and regulated very soon. There are things happening right now that the rest of the poker world doesn’t realize. I think it’s going to happen at the federal level, and frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened by December.

My guess is that he'll end up looking just as deluded as Greenstein did.

Or maybe I will. One never knows. But in the matter of online poker licensing, as with predictions of the Rapture, skeptics have a far better track record than believers.