Lying in Ponds

Here’s a David Brooks correction ($) to his March 19 column ($):

Correction

Last Sunday, I wrote that Plato used the word “eros” to signify the appetitive part of the soul. This isn’t the first time I’ve been led astray by the power of eros. The correct word is “epithymia.”

Since it was a simple language issue, it will be a 1-point error and a 1-point correction.

In her March 8 column ($), Maureen Dowd issued this correction of her February 18 column ($):

Correction

My column of Feb. 18 said that Scooter Libby testified that “superiors” had authorized him to leak classified information about Valerie Plame. Rather, Mr. Libby testified that “superiors” had authorized him to leak classified information from an intelligence report to rebut critics and justify the Iraq war, not information about Valerie Plame.

It seems pretty straightforward; I’ll call it a 2-point error and a 2-point correction.

New York Times columnist Frank Rich gave a lecture over at UNC-Chapel Hill last night. I wanted to go but didn’t have the time. Here are a few of his remarks, as reported by Nicole Norfleet in The Daily Tar Heel:

The marriage of show business, the government and the news media has led to a “mediathon” - the business of ruthless competition and flagrantly exaggerated stories, Rich said.

There used to be different values of journalism, he said.

“You get the facts. You try to sort out what’s real or not … It’s all about making judgments on what’s real, what’s fake.”

He said news now is all about drama. Even the Gulf War had its own theme music and logo.

“They were all sort of run like American Idol,” Rich said.

But then came Hurricane Katrina, opening up people’s eyes to the reality of the illusion used by the government, he said.

“At a certain point reality burst through,” Rich said.

He compared the natural disaster to the curtain being pulled, revealing the Wizard of Oz as a man with a megaphone.

In Friday’s column ($), Paul Krugman issued a correction to his January 30 column ($) on Jack Abramoff:

Correction

On Jan. 30 I cited an article in The American Prospect that reported that Indian tribes who hired Jack Abramoff had reduced their contributions to Democrats by 9 percent. Dwight Morris, who prepared the study on which the article was based, says on The American Prospect’s blog that “there is no statistically valid way to calculate this number given the way the data were compiled.” The American Prospect was sloppy, and so was I for not checking its methodology.

However, Mr. Morris goes on to say this is a minor point because other calculations show “an undeniably Republican shift in giving.”

Pre-Abramoff, the tribes gave slightly more money to Democrats than to Republicans; post-Abramoff, they gave 70 percent to Republicans, versus only 30 percent to Democrats. In other words, there’s nothing bipartisan about the Abramoff scandal.

Don Luskin has been following the issue. I’ll call it a two-point error and a one-point correction. The Tapped post by Mr. Morris both supports and undercuts Mr. Krugman’s view that “any normal sense of the word “directed,” Mr. Abramoff directed funds away from Democrats, not toward them.” Mr. Morris’ data shows that the fraction of contributions from the Indian tribes given to the Republicans sharply increased while Mr. Abramoff represented them, but also that the rate of giving to Democrats increased. So Democrats gained in absolute terms, while Republicans gained both absolutely and relative to Democrats. This follows the pattern of previous Krugman corrections — he strives to simplify complex issues by citing others’ work and data to support an interpretation which is maximally hostile to the other side (”the Abramoff affair is a purely Republican scandal”).

Last year I noted the election of “The Pirate Captain” as student body president here at North Carolina State University. Now it seems that there is a mutiny brewing, with some student senators attempting to impeach him. I mention it only because I find it interesting, not because it has anything to do with punditry or because I know anything about it.