Pundit Boxscore for Friday 20 June 2003

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS: I think it's self-evident that opinion columnists, just as news reporters, should post a correction in their column when they've made a clear error in a previous column. In a probably futile attempt to encourage self-correction, I'm thinking about creating an ongoing feature here that could be called the Lying in Ponds Department of Corrections. It would be a table listing each of the significant errors made by our roster of pundits, and the status of the corresponding corrections (e.g. "Full Correction", "Feeble Attempt", "Missing in Action"). If anyone besides me likes the idea, feel free to send in nominations for the list. To keep things simple, let's only consider errors made in columns published this year.

COULTER TAKES THE LEAD!: You would think that a Robert Scheer column comtemplating a Bush impeachment would be sufficiently partisan to keep him in first place, even after a very partisan column this week from Ann Coulter. But there were enough procedural positive Republican references (merely quoting at length both the president and John Dean, very un-Scheer-like) to drop him behind Ms. Coulter by a fraction of a point. Mr. Scheer's column is as partisan as ever, but it shows how difficult it is to maintain a partisanship score that high -- any hint of non-screed writing (quoting political opponenets before bashing them) will significantly moderate the score.