That brings us to this week's big question: Is it okay for Nate Silver to wager money on the accuracy of his own predictions? Or is that a journalistic sin that jeopardizes his reputation for integrity? I submit that this case study gets at tricky questions that the political press would do well to confront.

A bit of background for the uninitiated.

America is filled with people who think its okay to lie, bullshit, or otherwise misrepresent the truth in order to advance the electoral prospects of a politician or the cause of a governing coalition. Let's call them shills. Other people aren't necessarily aware that they're misrepresenting the truth, but their work is so shaped by what would advance the causes of a candidate or governing coalition that it's often indistinguishable from the shills. We'll call them hacks. In a better world, journalists would be sworn enemies of shills and hacks, and the best are. Unfortunately, the press, especially the political press, has more than its share of shills and hacks.

There are shills and hacks in the polling business too. You'd think that all pollsters would have an incentive to be as accurate as possible. But telling partisans what they want to hear, or telling undecided voters what partisans want them to hear, can be lucrative -- it is widely believed in politics that if enough people say something will happen, there is a better chance of it happening.

And that may be correct.

What does this have to do with Nate Silver?

"He has been predicting that President Obama has about a 75 percent probability, give or take a few points, of winning re-election on Tuesday. He uses an algorithm -- some call it a secret sauce -- that combines the numbers in public opinion polls and produces a result that he then turns into a prediction," New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan explains. "That has endeared him to liberals and Democrats, just as it has infuriated conservatives and Republicans."

Basically, there are people trying to claim that Nate Silver is a hack or a shill -- some of them because they really believe it, and others because they themselves are hack or shills. Ain't politics grand?

Conservative cable news host Joe Scarborough is the latest Silver critic. "Anybody that thinks that this race is anything but a tossup right now is such an ideologue, they should be kept away from typewriters, computers, laptops and microphones for the next 10 days, because they're jokes," he said. Silver's defenders point out that his model suggests Obama is a favorite to win in the electoral college, which is perfectly consistent with the popular vote being a tossup.

What interests me is how Silver responded:

.@joenbc: If you think it's a toss-up, let's bet. If Obama wins, you donate $1,000 to the American Red Cross. If Romney wins, I do. Deal? -- Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight) November 1, 2012

In short, put your money where your mouth is.