Lying in Ponds

I think we can safely render verdicts on a a couple of pundit predictions from earlier this year:

1. A year ago Ann Coulter boldly predicted that a Democratic Congress would “instantly set to work enacting a national gay marriage law, impeachment hearings, slavery reparations and a series of new federal felonies for abortion clinic protesters.” But rather than working furiously to implement a “crazy” agenda, this Congress has instead been criticized as a Do-Nothing Congress. For that, we’ll give Ms. Coulter a “VERY WRONG”.
2. The resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in August came in spite of many predictions that it would never happen. Joe Conason’s prediction in Salon was unequivocal: “No matter how discredited he is — and no matter how much damage he continues to inflict on the Justice Department — this attorney general will not resign.” So we’ll give Mr. Conason a “VERY WRONG” as well.

Brendan Nyhan has pointed out a couple of other Gonzales predictions that were based on the premise that he was “irreplaceable” (Josh Marshall) or “indispensable” (Sidney Blumenthal) to protect President Bush from scandal:

Just a few weeks ago, big liberals were saying that Alberto Gonzales was “irreplaceable” and “indispensable” and promising near-apocalyptic horrors if he were fired, impeached, or decided to resign. So why has the President “grudgingly” accepted his resignation?
. . .
So who gets confirmed? And do the “horrors” come out? Marshall doesn’t acknowledge his previous claim that Bush needs Gonzales in a post on the resignation this morning.

Making an occasional bad prediction is not a terrible thing (I’m a meteorologist, after all!), but pundits very rarely question the premises upon which their faulty predictions were based, or even acknowledge their mistakes at all. Will Ms. Coulter write a column where she admits that Congressional Democrats are not the radicals that she imagined? Mr. Conason followed the Gonzales prediction by speculating (not quite a prediction) that President Bush would nominate Ted Olson to replace him: “If Bush wanted to heal the politicization that has nearly ruined the Justice Department, he would drop Olson and nominate someone else — but then he would be an utterly different kind of president than he is.” Since Mr. Bush instead nominated Michael Mukasey, will Mr. Conason now conclude that Mr. Bush really is an utterly different kind of president?