Lying in Ponds

I received two suggestions for corrections to July columns. First, Donald Luskin suggested a correction to a Paul Krugman column which he had written about. I agreed that a correction is called for, and sent this note to Mr. Krugman and the Public Editor:

Mr. Krugman,

In your July 25 column, “Toyota, Moving Northward”, you quoted remarks by Gerry Fedchun without citing the source, but he had already strongly disavowed the same characterization of his comments in a July 15 letter to The Birmingham News, available online:

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I never used the word “illiterate,” nor would I. I have been in this industry a long time. The use of diagrams and illustrations is common. I was horrified that my remarks were reported as they were.

I have led four trade missions to the Southeastern United States. Several Canadian suppliers have set up plants there as a direct result of these trade missions. If I believed what the article implied, would I have done so? I think not.
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I believe that using Mr. Fedchun’s opinion as originally reported without acknowledging his subsequent comments was a clear factual error which requires an explicit correction. Thank you for your consideration.

I haven’t received anything except automated responses, so I’ll conclude that it was a 2-point error with no correction.

Second, Scott Davis suggested a correction to an Ann Coulter column which he had already written about. Again, I agreed and sent the following note to Ann Coulter:

Ms. Coulter,

In your July 13 column, “Mission Implausible”, you say that: “The only person who has demonstrably lied and possibly broken the law is Joseph Wilson.”

Someone (either Rove or the White House) must have lied, as the White House initially denied that Karl Rove was involved in the matter. Since the special counsel has been investigating the matter for over a year, it’s clearly possible that others may have possibly broken the law; we won’t know until the investigation is complete.

I believe that this is a factual error which requires an explicit correction. Thank you for your consideration.

I have not received a response, so I’ll conclude that it was a 1-point error with no correction. I’m giving it a 1-point error only because her language was somewhat squishy.

Appended to Paul Krugman’s column this morning were two corrections, one to his original column on the Florida 2000 controversy, and one to his follow-up column:

Corrections: In my column last Friday, I cited an inaccurate number (given by the Conyers report) for turnout in Ohio’s Miami County last year: 98.5 percent. I should have checked the official state site, which reports a reasonable 72.2 percent. Also, the public editor says, rightly, that I should acknowledge initially misstating the results of the 2000 Florida election study by a media consortium led by The Miami Herald. Unlike a more definitive study by a larger consortium that included The New York Times, an analysis that showed Al Gore winning all statewide manual recounts, the earlier study showed him winning two out of three.

The first one is very clear — he used a number from the Conyers report which supported his thesis but turned out to be very wrong and could have easily been checked. I’ll call that a 2-point error on our 3-point scale. The correction is complete and straightforward, so I’ll give that 2 points.

But I really don’t understand the second correction, and that reaction is widespread (Donald Luskin, Patterico). Michelle Malkin seems to have the most complete discussion. I’ll follow the issue and try to untangle it.

UPDATE: Tom Maguire has some ideas.

In the morning I’ll be off to lovely (and much cooler) Troy, NY on business for the rest of the week, so I probably won’t be able to evaluate columns until the weekend.

Today’s Richard Cohen column has a couple of explicit predictions about the future of Iraq, which we’ll add to our list, to monitor their ultimate success or failure:

1. “But the fact remains that Iraq is coming apart — the Kurds into their own state (with their own flag), the Sunnis into their own armed camps, and the dominant Shiites forming an Islamic republic that will in due course become our declared enemy.”
2. “America will leave Iraq — not in success but in failure.”

UPDATE (8/22/2006): A year later, it’s clearly too early to tell how these predictions will come out.

Beginning with July columns, I’m trying to document and quantify each pundit correction. I’ve added a section on the sidebar, just below the “Latest Columns” and above “Predictions”. Here’s the first one I’ve seen.

This past week Media Matters noted an error in a Jonah Goldberg column, and Mr. Goldberg quickly issued a correction on NRO’s The Corner. On a three-point scale where a 1-point error is a simple non-political mistake (spelling, names, dates, etc.) and a 3-point error is a major false claim, especially one which significantly undermines the writer’s point, I’ll give Mr. Goldberg’s error 2 points, and I’ll give him 1 point on the correction. It was complete and gracious, and was issued only 40 minutes after Media Matters contacted him. I would give him a full 2 points on the correction if it gets posted in his original or subsequent column. In The Corner, Mr. Goldberg said he would ask the syndicate (Tribune Media Services) to issue the correction, so I’ll check into that.

UPDATE (5:20 pm): Jonah Goldberg e-mails to say that the syndicate sent out a correction and a revised column to subscribers the same day. It appears though, that TownHall.com and others like Jewish World Review are not responding to the correction; they still have the original column posted. Since Mr. Goldberg has done all that he can to correct the error in good faith, I’ll make it a 2-point error and a 2-point correction.

After two years of watching Ann Coulter top the partisanship rankings, it’s difficult to believe that she’s fallen as low as sixth place after five of her last seven columns have centered on the Supreme Court, mostly criticizing John Roberts and other recent Republican choices. In her place at the top is Mark Steyn, who has written six very partisan columns since being added to the roster at the beginning of July. Is he really a contender for the partisanship title? I have no idea; we’ll just have to see. I’ll try to go back and evaluate columns from the first half of the year for Mr. Steyn and the other new columnists when I get a chance.

OK, I’m ready to begin working on the pundit challenges I described last month. I would like readers to add comments to this post pointing to a factual error found in any of the July columns by any of our twenty pundits. When I first brought up the idea, I suggested that we have a designated critic responsible for monitoring each pundit. After further thought, I decided that it was better to just throw it open for suggestions from anyone. My role is to choose the single best issue for a pundit and then pursue the possibility of a correction and monitor the result. The point is to attempt to discern substantive differences in the accuracy of the various pundits, their responsiveness to legitimate criticism, and their willingness to correct errors.

Here’s a new entry to our pundit prediction list, from Bob Herbert:

But dreams of empire die hard. American G.I.’s are dug into Iraq, and the bases have been built for a long stay. The war may be going badly, but the primary consideration is that there is still a tremendous amount of oil at stake, the second-largest reserves on the planet. And neocon fantasies aside, the global competition for the planet’s finite oil reserves intensifies by the hour.

Lyndon Johnson ignored the unsolicited advice of Senator George Aiken of Vermont - to declare victory in Vietnam in 1966. The war continued for nearly a decade. Many high-level government figures believe that U.S. troops will be in Iraq for a minimum of 5 more years, and perhaps 10.

That should be understood by the people who think that the formation of a permanent Iraqi government will lead to the withdrawal of American troops. There is no real withdrawal plan. The fighting and the dying will continue indefinitely.

Mr. Herbert’s prediction is a little soft, since he isn’t saying that we won’t withdraw any troops, but he’s clearly predicting a major continuing presence of troops in Iraq on permanent bases, and also a continuing “fighting and dying”, for at least five more years. We’ll put it on the list and see how the prediction pans out.

UPDATE (8/3/2006): One year later, Mr. Herbert’s prediction is “Right So Far“.