Rocky Mountain News: Not Just Wrong, But All Wrong

[marmar]

Campos: Not just wrong, but all wrong

Paul Campos
email | bio
January 16, 2007

Twenty years ago, in its pre-season baseball issue, Sports Illustrated predicted the Cleveland Indians would finish with the best record in the major leagues. Cleveland went on to finish with the worst record. Statistical guru Bill James pointed out that this represented an example of what might be called Maximum Possible Error.
When it comes to the Iraq war, some of our most prominent pundits have achieved similar results. Perhaps the most spectacular example is provided by William Kristol.

Since the start of the war, Kristol has claimed that "there's almost no evidence" Iraqi Shiites wouldn't be able to get along with Sunnis; that it was a mistake to worry that Iraq "would fracture into feuding clans and unleash a bloodbath"; that the January 2005 Iraqi elections represented "a genuine turning point," comparable to the fall of the Berlin Wall; that the situation in Iraq wouldn't get worse in 2006, and thus opposition to the war would prove to be an electoral disaster for Democrats; and that the Iraqi response to the bombing of the Samarra mosque this past February was "evidence of Iraq's underlying stability in the face of attempts to undermine it."

This is just a sample of the many things Kristol has said about Iraq that turned out to be not merely wrong, but the exact opposite of the truth. They represent nothing less than the Maximum Possible Error on all these matters.

And what has been the result of this astonishing performance? Have Kristol's employers fired him for gross incompetence? Has he been exiled from the national media for having been completely wrong, over and over again, about the most important issue facing America today?

Far from it! Kristol has just been hired by Time, America's leading news weekly, to write a column. This is the journalistic equivalent of handing the former captain of the Exxon Valdez a case of whiskey and the command of a fully loaded supertanker. ....(more)

The rest of the column is at: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion_columnists/article/0,2777,DRMN_23972_5281585,00.html

[rockymountaindem]

1. If the Rocky says it, you know it's getting bad for the Neocons

The RMN has a pretty conservative reputation.

[MemphisTiger]

2. It's the new "anonymously" authored emails

going around of late. The neocons love it.

[wilt the stilt]

3. Kristol proves that you can go to an Ivy league

school and be a complete idiot. He is also like a whole bunch of people(Jonah Goldberg comes to mind) who would be complete zeroes if it wasn't for their parents

[Tempest]

4. At the pundits' table, the losing bet still takes the pot

http://www.radaronline.com/features/2007/01/betting_on_iraq_1.php


The article gives examples of how those who were wrong about the Iraq war have been rewarded with greater exposure, and those who were right are being ignored.

[DinahMoeHum]

5. ROFL !!! Gotta love that last line. . .

"If chutzpah was a crime, these guys would be serving life sentences."

:rofl: