Washington Post Still Dodging Core Issues in George Will Scandal
The latest from Washington Post ombudsman Andy Alexander is really pathetic. I’ll quote Ryan Avent’s recap:
George Will wrote a column suggesting that there was a broad scientific consensus in the 1970s regarding the threat of global cooling. This is simply not true. Moreover, this untruth is readily verifiable. And George Will attempted to sow doubts about global warming by citing a bogus analysis of research findings, from an organization that has publicly said that the analysis was bogus and that their research in fact says just the opposite of what George Will argued. And then of course there is the fact that there is a broad scientific consensus regarding the threat of global warming, supported by overwhelming evidence.
The Post continues to not even address the majority of these concerns. Instead, in the eyes of the Post the only issue here is that there’s a disagreement between Will and some other people about how to characterize research findings from the Arctic Climate Research Center. The Post thinks that the opportunity should have been taken to foster more constructive debate about this. But why would there be a “debate” about how to interpret scientific findings undertaken between, on the one hand, the scientists who did the research and on the other hand a political pundit who’s misrepresenting it? Then the Post simply has nothing to say about the fact that Will’s column falsely claimed—and not for the first time!—that there was a scientific consensus in the 1970s about a global cooling phenomenon. This myth, though widespread, is false. And though false, it’s widespread, because prominent media organizations like The Washington Post see misleading people about climate change as a valuable service that they’ll pay people money to do.
Meanwhile, The New Republic thinks liberals are too hard on the MSM and that we should be defending it from right-wing jackals rather than piling on to its corpse. Mark Thoma replies:
When the press does its job well, it deserves defenders, and when it does a lousy job, it deserves being taken to task. The complaint seems to be that the criticism is without foundation, and there’s some of that, but the fundamental problem is not, in my view, the people doing the criticizing, it’s the media companies themselves. The argument also seems to treat “media” as something other than Fox News. I agree that the term journalism conjures up another image, as it should, but presently Fox News isn’t clearly separate from other media outlets, far from it, and the commingling of all of these sources of information in the minds of the public is part of the problem. If journalists in the mainstream media want respect, they need to differentiate themselves from the “partisan outlets,” including calling foul loudly and in no uncertain terms when Fox or whomever crosses the line, and they also need to do a better job themselves of establishing and maintaining their credibility through solid reporting.
There’s been a lot of discussion recently of the narrow question of the declining economic feasibility of the newspaper business model. But there’s a broader crisis of legitimacy in the broader news media. And I think The New Republic is looking at this in precisely the wrong way. Decades ago, the press began to come under systematic attack from a conservative movement that wanted to transform it from something that’s primarily a vehicle for truth-telling into something that’s primarily a vehicle for transmitting right-wing propaganda. Media organizations could have chosen to stand firm against that. And those institutions and—more common—individual journalists who’ve done that of course deserve support. But most organizations chose to respond to the attacks by bending to the will of the right.
So George Will will lie to you about climate change, and when this is pointed out The Washington Post will throw its institutional weight behind a defense of lying and an attack on people being rude to Will. This kind of behavior doesn’t earn you a respite from the right’s attacks, but it does make it impossible for a progressive to, in good conscience, defend your organization.
60 Responses to “Washington Post Still Dodging Core Issues in George Will Scandal”
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February 28th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Matt, you must have a masochistic streak. I like that in a blogger.
February 28th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
That picture of George Will leads me to think he can make some really good popcorn.
February 28th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Exactly. The Post in particular is in a bad position to fight for a columnist who is pretty much at odds with the Post’s buying base – which is, after all, in D.C., a heavily Democratic area. So why is the Post doin g this?
Well, I’m not sure it is just bending to the will of the right. There is a cui bono question here. After all, the Kaplan Testing company is the Post’s main profit center. And, under George (tests are all I understand about Educaction) Bush, times were good for testing producers. The no child left behind act was a little golden goose.
Of course, there is more than a simple economic inducement. There is the media’s bizarre idea that they write for the approval of two audiences – one, the dumb subscriber, and the other, the marvelous elite, the policy and market makers. They are in a “dialogue” with these people. The idiotic ideology of fairness (as if the truth were ever fair) gives them cover for this.
I’m waiting for a new newspaper to finally spring up in D.C. with the motto: life isn’t fair: why should your newspaper be?
February 28th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Science writer Chris Mooney, who, unlike Mr. Will, is actually knowledgeable about the subject matter, has sent the following email to Post editor Fred Hiatt, challenging his paper to publish a rebuttal from the former.
Dear Mr. Hiatt, [Introductory Comments]…I believe what I’ve called the “Republican War on Science” continues, and the George Will saga represents a stunning example. In my opinion, the Post editorial/oped page makes a terrible mistake by not correcting his manifest errors; but leave that aside–you’ve said people should instead “debate him.” Would you publish an oped by me exposing Will’s egregious errors, misrepresentations, and distortions of the science of global warming, and thus further debate?
He got a response from Mr. Hiatt stating that he might consider publishing such a rebuttal if Mr. Mooney would submit such a writeup. Note the use of the word might.
http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/2009/02/my_email_to_fred_hiatt_of_the.php
February 28th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Because a global warming denialist has been caught lying, the denialist trolls will now show up and accuse Matt of lying. This is classic politics of projection. They don’t expect to actually win the debate, and demonstrate that Matt is lying about Will’s column; rather, their purpose is merely to have that debate, and in doing so, take some of the sting out of the charge that Will lied by confusing the issue.
This is pretty much par for the course for global warming denialists. For example, because the entirety of their evidence and arguments comes from people with massive conflicts of interests, or who are just flat-out being paid to lie by organizations like the Competitive Enterprise Institute and their kindred spirits, they accuse legitimate climate researchers of being compromised because they often receive research funding from universities and government agencies. Once again, this charge is wholly implausible, and they don’t hope to win such a debate. Their goal is to be able to point to the fact that they made such a charge in order to make the accurate, truthful charge about their own movement appear less compelling.
They do these things because, let’s face it; when you’re a global warming denialist, what else are you going to argue? Temperature charts? Ice pack loss? Habitat change? Hell, no!
February 28th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
You all don’t understand, Will is a global warming sceptic and that means he can whatever he likes about that stuff. It’s sort of like the “with all due respect” thing in Talladega Nights
February 28th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
A golf clap for Ubbabukknamupnamummup.
1) Will misrepresented newspaper and newsmagazine sensationalism (Newsweek and NY Times) as a scientific concern.
2) Will used a headline as source material for his facts. When confronted by the distortion and offered an explanation of the scientific issues Will simply re-pointed to the headline. Science relies on the whole truth, and cherry-picking is anathema.
3) Will’s an insufferable little shit and a sophist.
February 28th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
The day after Reagan and Gorbachev signed the Reykjavik Accords, George Will wrote the following line:
“Yesterday will be remembered at the day America lost the Cold War.”
George Will is constitutionally incapable of understanding events without filtering them through his political ideology, which is usually wrong.
February 28th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
So George Will will lie to you about climate change, and when this is pointed out The Washington Post will throw its institutional weight behind a defense of lying and an attack on people being rude to Will.
He didn’t lie; he cherry-picked facts in an intellectually dishonest way and he got called on it. Andy Alexander vacillated but eventually admitted as much (”it should have triggered a call for clarification to the center”) and apologized for the poor editorial job done by the Post. It’s a dead horse.
February 28th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Avent is a fool for denying what even a three-year old can see. There were lots of people in 1970’s who claimed that the earth cas cooling. Those people were wrong, clearly. But for Avent to deny it is simply claptrap from a moron.
No; global cooling was very much a fringe position in the 1970s that was over-represented in news magazines and papers. It was never remotely close to a consensus position – even at the height of the global cooling movement there were far more peer-reviewed papers on global warming being published.
February 28th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
The defining characteristic of a lie is the willful intent to deceive.
That George Will was careful in putting together his willfully deceptive piece – arranging his statements in a manner that the lies in his piece were conveyed via implication – only serves to demonstrate his knowledge of the deception, his realization that he would be forced to defend himself from charges of lying, and therefore his intent to deceive.
February 28th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
The Post should just say Will is a columnist and he’s responsible of his own opinions.
February 28th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Al is making a good point. I agree that we should really interpret Will as saying, look, the media sensationalizes. Look at the ridiculous amount of newspace that was taken up sensationizing Arab terrorists carrying suitcases with nuclear bombs onto U.S. soil – a scenario that was so remote as to be ridiculous, and yet it was broadcast across the news landscape, leading to the vile and sick global war on terrorism. Similarly, Will and Al are sickened by the sensationalizing of global cooling.
Will’s real point, and Al’s, is that sensationalism leads us astray. Soberly pointing out that global warming poses a bigger threat in destroying the world’s glaciers than in raising the level of the Ocean, Will is trying to point us to the fact that this would, for instance, cause a population crash in China and India like the epidemic that wiped out the New World Indian population. Sobriety, not sensationalism, and action are needed. I think I can infer, from Will’s column, using the same inferential method he used when surveying the evidence for global warming, that he supports the kind of state sponsored command and control measures that would meet the challenge: the immediate state takeover of the auto industry; an increase in R and D spending on environmental technology with no limits; perhaps a special office to take control of and put in place environmental technology in all power plants. That’s what Will is really about; that is what, I think we can infer, Al is all about. Of course, one could nitpick. Perhaps Will would deny that he is for the state control of the auto industry, but how much credence can we put in such a denial when he is clearly shocked about the misleading idea of global cooling? I think we can infer what he really thinks, using his own brilliant method.
February 28th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
I don’t know if columns shoud be exempt from the kind of fact-checking that goes into news columsn. Matt’s outrage aside, you can imagine a world in which someone would say “Right, but that’s a column, not a news story.” But the Post hasn’t taken that position, as I understand it.
I’m more sympathetic to the claim that the MSM, Hiatt in particular, are de facto conservative symps. Which raises a very interesting question. If the MSM is bending over backwards to help the conservative viewpoint, doesn’t the demise of the MSM spell bad news for the conservative viewpoint? I’m not sure I buy it, but it’s an interesting possibility.
February 28th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Re joe from lowell
Because a global warming denialist has been caught lying, the denialist trolls will now show up and accuse Matt of lying.
And right on time, we have fuckface Al showing up with a lie about the non-existent global cooling consensus in the 1970s. Of course, there was no such consensus at that time. To the contrary, it was very much a fringe claim.
There was a genuine controversy at the time concerning nuclear winter in which Carl Sagan and others opined that an all out nuclear war might eject enough dirt into the stratosphere to block sunlight from reaching the surface and cause a global cooling. This notion received considerable confirmation when the theory that the dinosaurs went extinct due to an asteroid collision, which indeed caused such an ejection, was confirmed by the discovery of the iridium layer at the KT boundary and the further discovery of the impact site off the Yucatan Peninsula.
February 28th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Are Republicans Nazis?
Well, they’re strongly nationalist, like Nazis.
They harken back to an idealized past, like Nazis.
They’re militaristic, like Nazis.
They encourage strong alliances between business and the state, like Nazis.
They’re hostile to independent labor unions, like Nazis.
I offer these observations to make a point: that under Al’s logic, I did not just write that Republicans are like Nazis. I merely presented carefully-selected facts in a manner intended to allow the reader to draw that implication.
February 28th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
No, he isn’t. I can safely say that without even reading the rest of your post.
February 28th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Al, you wrote: “And Will claimed it was a “consensus position”… where? Oh, right, he didn’t.”
George wrote: “In the 1970s, ‘a major cooling of the planet’ was ‘widely considered inevitable’”.
If someone believes something is “widely considered” to be true, that means they think it is the consensus.
He also wrote “the world’s climatologists are agreed” and that meterologists are “almost unanimous” in believing in global cooling.
Okay, he did NOT write “this is the consensus position” but you see there are more than one way to say something with the English language. I can say George Will is non-honest, a liar, a prevaricator, a deceiver, and disingenuous, for instance.
February 28th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
And Will claimed it was a “consensus position”… where?
In the fourth paragraph of the piece.
In fact, he cites all those articles to show that they were wrong – not to show that there was a consensus.
No. He cites them to give the false impression that there was a misguided consensus in the 1970s that global cooling was inevitable. He does this to imply that the current consensus may also be wrong. This is problematic because the actual consensus position in the 1970s was in favor of global warming. One suspects that Will knows this.
February 28th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Crap.
OK, fine. I shouldn’t have written “like” in that statement.
Under Al’s logic, I did not just write that Republicans are Nazis. Under Al’s logic, it would be the left-wing’s tremendous pile of straw, as usual to accuse me of saying Republicans are Nazis in that statement.
February 28th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
You Matt are the liar as is Ryan Avent.
You both parroted or invented a series of “lies” which you charged to Will.
As I predicted at the time it has been shown that Will’s quotes were accurate.
Those who objected to their work being “misquoted” by Will have been reduced to saying:
“Yes, Will accurately quoted our figures for January but you must ignore those because the figures from February fit more neatly with our theory. Throw January down the memory hole!”
The ONLY slightly sustainable charge is the complaint that Will said “are at” rather than “near or slightly below” in discussing sea ice levels.
This is a distinction without a difference because by the study’s own authors’ (actually compilers’) proviso:
WILL’S “ARE AT” FALLS WITHIN THE MARGIN OF ERROR.
That is why the compilers said “near or slightly below”; they are not 100% accurate in the figures but for the sake of their prejudice only allow for error on the down side.
So now rather than defend your assertions that Will “lied” you fall back on charging that he “suggested” or “implied” when he did no such thing.
You approvingly quote Avent’s
George Will wrote a column suggesting that there was a broad scientific consensus in the 1970s regarding the threat of global cooling. This is simply not true. Moreover, this untruth is readily verifiable.
THAT IS A LIE AND DELIBERATE MISREPRESENTATION OF WHAT WILL WROTE.
Will quotes his sources, chiefly the New York Times, which published that there was a broad scientific agreement on 70’s global cooling at the time.
You may argue that the Times was wrong then but the fact remains that Will accurately quoted his named sources.
You do not.
Nor does Revin.
Who is the more dishonest?
The most shameful aspect of Revin’s defense is that having charged Will with a series of lies and then been challenged on those charges REVIN FAILS TO DEFEND HIS LIES.
He says he will leave his broad defense to those he feels have been “misquoted”.
What a fucking idiot. And fraud.
And what a fucking tool you are to persist in charges you cannot sustain.
As to the recurrent “There is broad scientific consensus on man made global warming” that may well be true.
So fucking what?
History including recent history is filled with “broad scientific agreement” that went down in flames.
And, what is more to the point, that “broad scientific agreement” most certainly does not translate into “broad scientific agreement” on what should be done by whom and when except in the most general way.
The reason for that is that there is no “broad scientific agreement” on what are really political not scientific questions.
As to your charge that Will colors his take on global warming with his own political prejudices you are absolutely correct I think.
But again he is no worse than you in that department and what is more actually cites his sources which, whether they like his interpretation and use of them or not, are accurately quoted.
Again, that is vastly more than you do.
Facts can be a real bitch now can’t they?
Oh, and please remind us all again about that broad consensus, you know the one that you joined in and promoted, over the wisdom of invading Iraq.
Thanks.
February 28th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Your point and mine do not exclude each other. Obviously Will thought those quotes were wrong–but he also claimed they were “widely” held and that people who study climate were “almost unanimous” in believing them.
February 28th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Indeed, PAT, the quotes in the piece are chosen because they (wrongly) overstate the level of support for the global cooling theory within the field at the time – referring to what was “widely believed,” for example.
February 28th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
There are plenty of apologists out there who would love to spend all day debating how to parse this or that sentence in this or that source.
But the point, as Matt stresses, is that the sources Will is quoting don’t agree with his interpretation of their own work.
And Matt’s broader point is even more important. There’s no reason for us to defend journalistic institutions unless they have a baseline commitment to the truth. Not to what “some might say,” or what “might well be argued.” But to a vision of the world that reflects the balance of our knowledge as dispassionately — but also as accurately — as possible.
If the WaPo isn’t going to aim for that goal, screw ‘em. There are other kinds of journalism I can spend my time reading.
February 28th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Here is a sample of some of the climate literature that appeared during the 1970s:
New York Times May 21, 1975 Scientists Ask Why World Climate Is Changing; Major Cooling May Be Ahead.
Newsweek April 28, 1975 The Cooling World
Science News March 1, 1975 Climate Change: Chilling Possibilities
Time June 24, 1974 Another Ice Age?
New York Times August 8, 1974 Climate Changes Endanger World’s Food Output
New York Times January 19, 1975 Climate Changes Called Ominous
Fortune February 1974 Ominous Changes in the World’s Weather
International Wildlife July-August 1975 In the Grip of a New Ice Age?
U.S. News & World Report May 31, 1976 Worrisome CIA Report; Even U.S. Farms May be Hit by Cooling Trend
The idea that the climate was cooling was in fact widely believed and discussed during the 1970s. Whether with benefit of hindsight this could (or could not) be termed a “consensus” is arguable. If Matt wants to make the argument that is didn’t then fine – he should present factual evidence from the 1970s, the time period in question, to make that argument. Otherwise, he should just STFU, admit he knows almost nothing about technical subjects (beyond what his political heroes tell him) and move on to another one of his favorite bugaboos.
February 28th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Al,
You will never convince the true believers that what Will wrote is what Will wrote.
They will insist that he implied or suggested and those are equivalent to Will’s declaration of belief so when they say “he said” well you are being petty for calling them on their error.
And Ted, you are correct in the broad point but simply reinforce Will’s rectitude with your insistence that we know the “truth”.
The problem with the the global warming hypothesis is that it makes no verifiable predictions. It cherry picks climate data and shoehorns that selected data into a preconceived story.
In that way it is like Roman Catholicism.
All the “global warming scientists” need do is to make a verifiable prediction or two based upon their “theory”.
Until they do that then the “science” is closer to voodoo than to, as one examople, the General Theory of Relativity.
February 28th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
suggestio falsi & suppressio veri
February 28th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
kafka –
That climate literature
Is not scientific literature. News media sensationalized global cooling. The majority of scientists did not.
Because global warming is now widely reported does not mean that it is supported by as few scientists as was global cooling.
February 28th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I agree with Northern Pike (13) and Martin (16), that “the Post should just say Will is a columnist and he’s responsible of his own opinions”.
I made a defense of Hiatt (but not of Will) before on this count, and am feeling somewhat agitated that they haven’t made the case yet.
Of course, they haven’t really made any kind of case thus far, so we’ll see.
February 28th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
I hardly ever read anything from the Washington Post because they want me to register on their site and I think that is a pain in the ass. I just read occasional stories on CNN and blogs. I do worry about foreign policy coverage, but the real problem there is that people are less skeptical of wars than bank bailouts. The Washington Post doesn’t really solve that.
February 28th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
George Will wrote a column suggesting that there was a broad scientific consensus in the 1970s regarding the threat of global cooling.
Note the backpedalling of Will’s critics from the assertion that Will “claimed” there was a scientific consensus to the weaker assertion that he merely “suggested” there was a scientific consensus.
But that assertion is a lie, too. Will did not even “suggest” that there was a scientific consensus. If he suggested anything on the matter of global cooling, it was only that the media in the 1970s suggested that there was a scientific consensus.
February 28th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
The problem, Point, is that while Will may be responsible for his Opinions, he says things as claims of FACT that are in reality falsehoods.
Some falsehoods hide behind quotes. For example:
Review of the scientific literature has shown that more climate research in the 1970’s projected global warming than global cooling, so the statement is quite false. Fact checking, as opposed to just quote checking, would have revealed that the statement is false, and a competent and honest newspaper would not print it as it stands.
Whether Will is correctly quoting someone who misrepresented the scientific literature of the day or is misquoting and distorting the quote is neither here nor there with respect to fact checking.
Some are like
This is, of course, false. Many experts were saying that the decline in Northern Hemisphere sea ice was symptomatic of global warming. I read lots of those quotes … the recently departed JohnnyRook at the Daily Kos, coiner of the term “Climaticide”, brought those quotes to people’s attention all during the amazing melt-off of the Arctic Ice Cap a year and a half ago …
Now, that falsehood was the lead-in to the “According to the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center,”, which so many focus on. And a newspaper engaged in competent fact checking could easily have called two or three experts and asked whether “many experts” were saying any such thing about GLOBAL sea ice, would have been corrected, and would not have printed the falsehood. Or they could even, as the bloggers did, have use “the Google”.
If the Post wants to simply cover themselves with a disclaimer, they have to say more than that Will’s Opinions are his own. They have to also disclaim any claims of fact that Will might make.
February 28th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
all right, Will’s stated point in quoting sources from the 70s is to show that there was consensus on global cooling, and that was wrong, just as he thinks the current consensus on global warming is wrong. Al, you keep saying that he isn’t saying there is consensus, he’s quoting sources that do to show that they were wrong. Sort of–he’s not saying the sources were wrong, he’s saying the consensus that the sources reported on was wrong, and that’s the problem: the sources WERE wrong and there was no consensus, but if that’s what he was saying, he sort of has no point. He’s quoting those sources, not to say that the articles misrepresented the state of science, but to say that they accurately represented the state of science, and that the scientific consensus was wrong (rather than the articles themselves being wrong about the scientific consensus). He also says that global warming and its effects, about which there is now consensus, will go down in history similarly to global cooling.
The salient point that you and he ignore is that there currently IS a scientific consensus on global warming, whereas in the 70s there was no such consensus, just some popularising articles that misrepresented the state of the field. If you can’t see the difference, that explains why you can’t see that Will was lying. But he was.
February 28th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
This is a fair point Bruce:
“If the Post wants to simply cover themselves with a disclaimer, they have to say more than that Will’s Opinions are his own. They have to also disclaim any claims of fact that Will might make.”
But I would still say that the Opinion column is already self-evidently* different from the news section of the paper, so any explicit disclaimer seems odd. But if that’s what it takes…
*(or so I had thought)
February 28th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
That is, Will wasn’t saying the sources were wrong along the lines of “hey, these articles claimed there was a consensus but really there wasn’t,” because if he were, his point wouldn’t make any sense, b/c there really is a consensus about global warming today. He was saying that the articles accurately described a scientific consensus, and that that consensus is wrong, just like the current one will be. It is pretty clear.
jt talks about lots of consensuses that have been wrong—well, Will’s piece was meant to dishonestly feed into that myth by saying, “look, here is a past scientific consensus that was wrong.” Which was a lie—it has nothing to do with accurately quoting his sources or saying that they got it wrong (which he didnt say–he said that the consensus they reported on was wrong: big difference), it has to do with knowing those reports weren’t accurate and comparing them to reports today about the scientific consensus on global warming, which are accurate, ie there IS a scientific consensus. And then saying that scientific consensus A (which never existed) was wrong, just as scientific consensus B (which does exist) will be wrong.
The way the trolls on this blog are describing Will’s column, it has absolutely no point. You can thank me for the lesson in rememdial reading comprehension anytime.
February 28th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Al isn’t interested in having a debate in good faith. He’s more interested in annoying liberals. He doesn’t have anything to say, so don’t treat him like he does.
February 28th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
I wish Matt expended this much energy over the last half-decade in debunking actual bogus news stories about, say, th Clinton’s. Oh yeah, he enjoys those. Contributes sometimes.
Seriously, I’m all for slamming Will, but the focus here seems rather odd, and very convenient.
February 28th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
the focus here seems rather odd, and very convenient.
Not really. This isn’t really about global warming. It’s about Matt’s long-standing and deep-seated hostility to George Will as a human being. Matt hates the man. So do most of Will’s other critics in the liberal blogosphere. This is just their latest excuse to go after him. But not to worry. Will’s column will be seen by many more people than Matt’s feeble efforts to undermine it.
February 28th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Bruce: if you think about it, I think you might agree that there could be virtue in an editorial page that was not policed too carefully by the editors, even on questions of fact or even of “FACT.” The proper counterweight for Will would not be Hiatt, it would be a different editorial saying “WTF?”
February 28th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
We have enough of that kind of forum, Martin. I understand the difference between news and editorial. But we need publications where even the editorials are edited for factual accuracy. Otherwise all you get, at the end of the day, is sound and fury, and a lot of false equivalences.
February 28th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Martin, February 28th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Yes, if George F. Will wants to establish his own blog and publish his own words and his own claims of fact, true or false, there is a place for that. The place for that is not on the pages of a newspaper that claims to fact check the work.
A newspaper that requires that claims of fact go through actual fact checking would by virtue of that be more likely to have public opinion editorials “debating” in ways that are actually debating … arguing the debatable points, which facts are the relevant ones, which contrary arguments are weak, etc.
What is the value to the reader of, “here, we fact checked this, of course not hard enough to find multiple falsehoods, good luck.”
Indeed, its fine with me if they print George F. Will’s column as he wrote it, under the heading, “we have fact checked the claims made in the following opinion editorial, and have found the following claims to be false:” followed by five or six factual claims that do not check out. By reputation it would not be fine with Will, but I’ve never met the man, so that’s just hearsay.
February 28th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
Politics of projection.
George Will is caught lying, accuse his critics of lying.
George Will is caught misrepresenting the state of climate science in the 70s, accuse his critics of misrepresenting the state of climate research in the 70s.
The way this works is that the wingnuts don’t actually think they’re going to win this argument. They’re just trying to muddy the water. By throwing out enough “No, YOU are…” arguments, they hope to create the impression that the refutations that have so harmed their own side’s credibility are actually flying in all directions. The goal here is not to prove any charges made against George Will’s critics, but merely to make the charges against Will seem less compelling.
It’s what you do when you don’t actually have a case to argue, and realize your opponent’s case is your doom. It’s a rear-guard action, by a retreating army, not intended to gain anything at all, just stave off annihilation for a little while longer.
February 28th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Hi all,
There are lots of reasons to dislike George Will. Talking about the ‘consensus’ in the 70s regarding global cooling is not one of them.
I was there. (Pump up my old cred here in preparation for the blast…) I learned about ‘global cooling’ while marching as a VVAW, campaigning for George McGovern. It was a big deal. George Will may be wrong about climate change–I don’t know. He is certainly wrong about many things. But not on this. I just spent 15 minutes on Scirrus.com and found the list of scientific publications below that had references to global cooling in their abstract at least.
This is like the kerfuffle about the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warming Period. Why give the right a stick to beat us with?
Cause and effects of global cooling Nature 1975
Guest editorial: The end of the present interglacial Quaternary Research 1972
Possible climatic impact of tropical deforestation Nature 1975
The natural breakdown of the present interglacial and its possible intervention by human activities Quaternary Research 1972
Background of a geophysical model of the initiation of the next glaciation Quaternary Research 1974
Insolation regime of interglacials Quaternary Research 1972
Physical Sciences: Atmospheric Total Ozone Increase during the 1960s Nature 1971
Climatic effects of increased industrial activity upon the world’s established agro-ecosystems Agro Ecosystems 1974
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February 28th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
Al–
Not to sound mean or anything, but I think you need a basic reading comprehension course. Yes, George Will thinks the “global cooling scare” was bogus. But he also thinks belief in it was widespread. Those two positions are not one-or-the-other. That is, thinking that global cooling is bogus doesn’t mean you can’t think it was widespread, too.
Here is the point of Will’s column:
Real calamities take our minds off hypothetical ones. Besides, according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade, or one-third of the span since the global cooling scare.
So obviously he wants people to think there was a “global cooling scare” (HIS OWN words, not someone else’s) in the 1970s. And he wants people to recognize that scare as false, and compare it to the global warming scare, which he hopes they will believe is false as well.
Concerning the phrase “global cooling scare”: is something a scare (or a panic or a crisis) if only a tiny handful of people believe in it? Of course not. There are people out there who are afraid of aliens from outer space kidnapping them, but that doesn’t mean we are in the middle of an alien kidnapping scare.
If all you have left is semantic games. . . isn’t it time to rethink your position? Even assuming for the sake of argument that what you wrote there is true.
February 28th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Reading Comprehension 101:
Suppose I cite another writer. For instance:
What am I saying? Obviously I am saying that many people who follow basketball think Michael Jordan is the best player ever. The NBA’s own website says so. That’s usually why you cite another source: to back yourself up.
Now, suppose I don’t agree with the source I cited and I quoted it to knock it down. What would I do then? Well, clearly I would write after that something like “However, people who think that most sports fans consider him the best basketball player ever don’t take into account this poll or that survey” etc.
What does this have to do with George Will? Well, if he didn’t think there was a widespread belief about something, wouldn’t he say so? For instance:
Obviously there is no such knocking down of the quoted source in George Will’s column.
March 1st, 2009 at 12:55 pm
This is so phony and so transparent. Seriously Matt, you really need to tell your masters at ThinkProgress not to use your website in some ridiculous campaign to discredit one of the most credible (and respected) writers in America today.
What about the “consensus” today that global warming is caused by human beings? Shouldn’t ThinkProgress do an investigation every time that’s uttered by Al Gore, or some other hack scientist that doesn’t work on climatology?
You are better than this…If they keep using you for their own crazy propaganda, you really should go and write for someone that’s more respectful of your independence…and understands that this hurts your brand.
Don’t get me wrong, you can believe this nonsense…but to devote paragraph after paragraph to it really demonstrates that another memo has obviously come your way.
March 1st, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Do you believe that if scientists said in the 1970s that the planet was cooling, and they were wrong, then that means we should no longer listen to scientists ever, about anything? Because that’s what the highly credible George Will wrote in this column.
March 1st, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Thank you for staying on this one. Too often these outrages flare for a day and then are left to pass, and this one is obviously emblematic of a larger concern.
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:27 am
P.A.T.,
I don’t think that Will said that “we should no longer listen to scientists ever, about anything.” What he pointed out was that there was a significant number of scientists (he used the word consensus which may or may not be accurate) that believed that we were heading into a period of global cooling. His point was that they were wrong…and as such we should approach these very complicated issues (global warming) with a degree of skepticism before we go off and wreck our way of life to chase after white whales.
That’s not how I see ThinkProgress and a host of others on this issue.
The FACT is that we’re getting all kinds of conflicting data on this phenomenon that complicates both views (that it’s caused by humans, that it’s not caused by humans). Why the hell are we going to ask people to spend all kinds of money on something that’s not only unproven…but may, very well, end up doing NOTHING…given how insignificant these efforts are?
Frankly, both sides are being enormously disingenuous on this issue for their own personal (and in some cases financial) pursuits.
That’s ultimately the problem that I see with this debate…and with many others. It’s all a bunch of bullshit that eventually leads to bullshit policy…that screws everyone over.
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:31 am
Along those lines I’d say this.
If you want to further tank the economy with these stupid measures like cap and trade or carbon taxes…be my guest.
Just be man enough to admit that in pursuit of your holy objective to save the planet, you accept the honest consequences of your actions because you felt that those consequences were outweighed by the benefits (tackling global warming).
Then take that honest, serious analysis to the American people and let them decide.
Oh wait…That’s far too difficult and unpredictable. Best to ram it down people’s throats and pretend that when it fucks up that it’s all someone else’s fault. That’s what the Europeans did with Kyoto…they blamed its complete and utter failure in Europe squarely on us.
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With best wishes 8), Telly.