Feb 22nd, 2009 at 3:44 pm
A Suggested Correction for George Will
As you can see at this suggested correction for George Will’s witless climate change column, the reason the Post can’t offer a correction is that absent the errors there’s basically nothing left. But to reiterate my earlier point, everyone who writes for the Post has a problem now. The Post is standing foresquare behind the errors, which makes it very difficult for any writing that appears in the Post under any byline to have credibility or be taken seriously.
41 Responses to “A Suggested Correction for George Will”
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February 22nd, 2009 at 3:49 pm
The glory days of the Washington Post are, alas, long gone. I followed the Nixon Watergate stories breathlessly, but the Post has become much too comfortable with error and slipshod (stenographic) reporting. The recent series on Chandra Levy is an exception, not the rule. Coming back from the pit into which it has fallen will be difficult, though (I suppose) possible. But it will require a new publisher and quite a few new editors.
February 22nd, 2009 at 3:53 pm
I sort of doubt this is true. You need to come up with something more credible that this. Seriously. The world is not this simple or this conveniently set up. Will looks like a high brow intellectual compared to this.
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:00 pm
The Post is standing foresquare behind the errors
No, the post is standing foresquare against idiotic, dishonest, false accusations against Will.
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Leftwing Blogger Declares Washington Post To Have No Credibility. America Continues To Ignore Leftwing Blogger.
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Re ben
Mr. ben is full of crap. The Will column has been totally discredited by the authors of the studies he cites.
Re saracen
Right wing goatfucker declares that America continues to ignore Mr. Yglesias.
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:12 pm
What is it about global warming that makes right-wing nutjobs even crazier? Don’t they expect and welcome any kind of “end of the world”-type events?
The WaPo is just a mouthpiece for the Beltway conventional wisdom now, and there global warming is not proven yet.
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:13 pm
First, let me say that no one is standing “foresquare” behind anything. They might be standing “foursquare,” but that’s a different matter.
Second, Matt’s demonstrably right that the Will affair has created a problem for the WaPo brand. It’s not just Matt’s blog, or just TPM. It’s been discussed on every left or center-left blog I read. There are a lot of readers out there who have less respect for WaPo now.
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Leftwing Blogger Declares Washington Post To Have No Credibility. America Continues To Ignore Leftwing Blogger.
So it’s not true or what, saracen? If anything, this speaks poorly of the WaPo and America.
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:29 pm
SLC says:
The Will column has been totally discredited by the authors of the studies he cites.
Well, no.
The authors of the studies Will cites say things like “but our data which Will cites does not signify because you have to look at this period of time not that period of time because this data one month later more closely fits our hypothesis”.
What you get, and it is a valid criticism of global warming science, are scientists rather selectively interpreting some data and ignoring other data in much the same way that Will does.
And to much the same ends.
Given the complexity of the systems involved and the known unknowns this sort of creative editing may be necessary to construct a working theory but it does not of itself demolish the validity of the opponents’ skepticism.
One suspects that if Global Warming And What Must Be Done did not fit so well with longstanding Progressive policy wants then the Left might show a tad more skepticism when, for one example, one sees backers of nuclear power suddenly financing conservation interests.
If we have relearned ANYTHING over the last eight years it should be that our primary reaction to consensus should always be great skepticism.
Because at the end of the day the very strongest argument Goredom has to offer is “even if we are wrong about Global Warming this medicine will be good for us anyway”.
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Will wears a bow-tie, looks like a nerd, and speaks like an intellectual. Clearly he’s an expert on everything.
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:33 pm
I was on the fence about whether or not to keep my Post subscription, but the Post’s failure to run a retraction made my decision for me.
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:34 pm
The Will column has been totally discredited by the authors of the studies he cites.
Tee hee hee. You’re funny.
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Forgive me if this sounds like trolling, as you already have plenty of authentic trolls here. But if the WP called you tomorrow and asked you to write a column, would you really turn it down? That’s the problem- the WP still has plenty of prestige, and it will take a lot more than lying right-wingers on the op-ed page to dent it to the point where most people wouldn’t jump at the chance to write for the paper.
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:42 pm
What does this mean for bloggers who lie about what DC traffic officials say about ipods?
What does it mean for bloggers who encourage rail proponents to lie about ridershipo numbers?
What does it mean if CAP stands foursquare behind a blogger who does such things?
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Good job, Matt. You’ve even got the dumbest of right wing trolls defending the Washington Motherfucking Post.
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:52 pm
GW is fine, and I enjoy his column (even if I often disagree). The whole issue of climate change should not be a left/right issue, but has become one because the resolution (assuming climate change) has been framed as one requiring a big increase in government intervention in the economy. Change the framing and remove the politics.
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:55 pm
The Post is standing foresquare behind the errors, which makes it very difficult for any writing that appears in the Post under any byline to have credibility or be taken seriously.
That is a massive overstatement. How about we continue to evaluate things that are written everywhere on, you know, the merits of what is actually written. The Post fucked up with the Will column: Will did not actually lie, but he interpreted research in a very narrow, cherry-picking way. There should have been, if not a retraction, at least an acknowledgement of how the actual researchers disagreed with Will’s conclusions.
But how does that taint every single thing ever published in the Post from now on? No news column should ever be read un-critically simply because it’s running in an esteemed paper; and likewise excellent arguments can occassionally be found in questionable media. But everything should be read critically.
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:59 pm
WaPo loses credibility for me the moment they decide it’s a good idea to allow Will to opine on its pages about climate change in the first place. This is particularly true when his opinion is skeptical of view held by the vast majority of the scientific community and overwhelmingly true when the evidence he cites is anything less than impeccable.
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Will’s column was only nominally about AGW. It’s a proxy to tarnish Democratic rhetoric about the horrors of the economic meltdown which Republican policies engendered. If you focus on Will regarding the science, you miss the point.
Nowhere does Will address the actual science behind AGW. Much better for him to address issues like rhetoric and attitude. He can’t talk about the science since he’d be out of his depth and, if he took the typical right-wing stance, directly refutable. So, in his sophistry, he cherry-picks and quote mines. For example, Arctic ice extent in winter. A complete non-issue. 2007 summer ice extent, for example, is a much better indicator. Or the continuing increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, both in absolute numbers and even in the rate of increase. By talking about what Will and the right-wingers want to talk about, you let them define the discourse.
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Love the new anti-DC press Matt. Assume he is going after Garance and Greg here, not Cohen.
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:04 pm
In reply to SP, whose question is legit: You’re right, of course, that one incident like this doesn’t destroy a newspaper. It dents the brand, but it’s a small dent.
But there have been a lot of similar dents lately. I’m coming to view the WaPo as a distinctly, overtly center-right publication. Which is fine, if that’s the way they want to be viewed.
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:16 pm
First off. There were numerous falsehoods in Will’s piece. Not just the ACRC one that got most of the attention.
But let us not forget that the Washington Post now has Kristol writing for them again. The NY Times were forced to issue a number of retractions and corrections relating to falsehoods in his columns and they justifiably let him go, but the Post was more than willing to scoop up that serial liar as well.
The Post is most definitely risking their credibility by standing behind columnists who time and time again have been shown to play very loose with verifiable facts.
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:22 pm
That is a massive overstatement. How about we continue to evaluate things that are written everywhere on, you know, the merits of what is actually written.
Sorry, but that’s far too sensible. What this is really all about is the longstanding and deep-seated hatred Matt Yglesias and his droids have for George Will personally. They are outraged that the Washington Post continues to publish his columns at all. Hence, attacking Will himself or is not enough. They have to do their best, however little that is, to try and damage the reputation of the Post itself.
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:25 pm
First off. There were numerous falsehoods in Will’s piece.
No there weren’t. The worst you can say about the column is that Will cited evidence selectively in support of his view that the global warming threat is exaggerated.
Of course, selective citation of evidence is completely unknown on the other side of the issue.
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:28 pm
No one has yet succeeded in even once proving that George Will has ever written anything at all. Until I see a vault copy notarized legal and videotaped record of George Will actually writing any of the things he is accused of righting, I stand by my assumption that Al Gore is fat and has a big house and flies on planes.
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:28 pm
writing
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Oh, by the way, the Washington Post is led in its editorial division by a cheap bunch of hack liars, and among its lightest offenses is giving space for the idiot pseudo-intellectual George Will in which to lie more.
Fred Hiatt personally writes such fraudulent drivel about foreign policy that it’s almost amusing that people are writing to him about George Will’s propagandistic smearing when Hiatt couldn’t determine some reasonably verified report from neo-hawk nonsense PR if you gave him Colin Powell’s special Iraqi magic aluminum tubes to look through.
February 22nd, 2009 at 6:18 pm
This is why they’re called deniers, folks.
“No, no! Nothing Will wrote has been discredited! And certainly, nobody thinks the Washington Post’s credibility has gone downhill. Absolutely not. None of those things is happening.
Pfft. The line on that chart doesn’t go up as the century goes on. No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t. IT DOESN’T! LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA I CAN’T HEEEEEEEAARRRR YOU!”
Hilarious.
February 22nd, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Until I see a birth certificate – a REAL birth certificate, thank you very much – then I refuse to accept that El Cid’s comments actually exist.
Nope. No they don’t. You’re lying. Stop lying. LA LA LA LA…
February 22nd, 2009 at 7:53 pm
You’ve even got the dumbest of right wing trolls defending the Washington [...] Post.
I was wondering if this was some kind of troll-jitsu.
February 22nd, 2009 at 8:03 pm
George Will: “Some scientists were wrong about something in the ’70s, so we should never listen to scientists again”.
Numbskull apologists for George Will: “Nothing wrong with that!”
Hard to believe so many people think the conservative movement is intellectually bankrupt.
February 22nd, 2009 at 8:05 pm
In other words, he lied.
Which people with integrity would call “lying”.
February 22nd, 2009 at 8:15 pm
George Will: “According to the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.”
The University of Illinois’s ACRC: “We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km”
Nothing wrong here!!!!
George Will: Global temperatures haven’t risen since 1998, so there is no such thing as global warming!
The Real World: 1998 was one of the very hottest years on record, so that isn’t saying much.
No need for correction there!!!!!
February 22nd, 2009 at 8:31 pm
The Real World: 1998 was one of the very hottest years on record, so that isn’t saying much.
Actually 1998 was only the hottest in one collection of data. 2005 was warmer in the one that had a better sampling of Arctic temps. (The Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the planet. Under-sample The Arctic and you won’t get an accurate measure.) And single years are not the way such things are measured. They’re measured in a running mean which is still rising.
February 22nd, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Perhaps Jennifer Palmieri can insert something in Will’s column.
That would clear it right up.
February 23rd, 2009 at 1:56 am
Matt’s picking up speed on his way down a slippery slope leading to a brick wall. The WaPo’s failure to correct (translation: disown) outrageous assertions by George Will, a syndicated opinion columnist, “makes it very difficult for any writing that appears in the Post under any byline to have credibility or be taken seriously.”
Come on. We’re not to take Tom Ricks, George Pincus and Steven Pearlstein seriously because of lame defensiveness by the editorial department?
Does Matt discount everything reported by The Wall Street Journal, which routinely publishes egregious editorials and columns? How about CNN, which gives Lou Dobbs and other loons a platform? MSNBC, because Joe Scarborough trumps Rachel Maddow? The New York Times, because it ran Bill Kristol’s swill for a year? The AP, because it gave John McCain too many free passes during the campaign?
How many news organizations would pass Matt’s litmus test? None. So what’s going to be the factual basis of his posts from here on? Primary research? Don’t think so.
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:42 am
No one has made the obvious point:
If Will were to issue a correction about this op-ed he’d also have to issue corrections for most of his archives…
February 23rd, 2009 at 11:36 pm
I haven’t read all the comments on this subject, though I’ve read a lot of the prominent bloggers’ posts about it. So I might be repeating a point.
Is it possible that decent writers at the Washington Post are taking you as important as their editors? The editors seem to defend anything. But if you and Paul Krugman et al aren’t tearing them down, that’s good. If you’re supporting them, that’s good. Members of the academy are supporting them. They just happen to have their column/blogs hosted by the Washington Post.
March 16th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
sry i just know how to write my name in arabic
) anyway however my english not that good but i think i get the point. thanks
March 16th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
sry i just know how to write my name in arabic
) anyway however my english not that good but i think i get the point. thanks
April 9th, 2009 at 5:57 am
The style of writing is quite familiar to me. Did you write guest posts for other bloggers?