Decision ‘08

Krugman Gives Ground - Sort Of

Though his pride apparently will not let him admit to mistakes (that’s the opinion of former NY Times Public Editor Daniel Okrent, who had this to say upon his departure: “Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults”), Krugman almost admits one in a followup to his widely criticized recent column:

This reaction seems to confuse three questions. One is what would have happened if the U.S. Supreme Court hadn’t intervened; the answer is that unless the judge overseeing the recount had revised his order (which is a possibility), George W. Bush would still have been declared the winner.

The second is what would have happened if there had been a full, statewide manual recount - as there should have been. The probable answer is that Al Gore would have won, by a tiny margin.

The third is what would have happened if the intentions of the voters hadn’t been frustrated by butterfly ballots, felon purges and more; the answer is that Mr. Gore would have won by a much larger margin.

Well, the third is pure speculation, the second option was never on the table (notice even Krugman says “should have been”; i.e., would not have been), and here are Krugman’s exact words from the original column:

In his recent book “Steal This Vote” - a very judicious work, despite its title - Andrew Gumbel, a U.S. correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent, provides the best overview I’ve seen of the 2000 Florida vote. And he documents the simple truth: “Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election.”

No nuance there, just a bold assertion that Krugman himself now shows to be false.

Krugman speculates as to why we wouldn’t believe his lie:

One answer is that many editorials and op-ed articles have claimed that no possible recount would have changed the outcome. Let’s be charitable and assume that those who write such things are victims of the echo chamber, and believe that what everyone they talk to says must be true.

The other answer is that many though not all reports of the results of the ballot reviews conveyed a false impression about what those reviews said. A few reports got the facts wrong, but for the most part they simply stressed the likelihood - in some cases presented as a certainty - that Mr. Bush would have won even if the U.S. Supreme Court hadn’t intervened. But even if a proper recount wasn’t in the cards given the political realities, that says nothing about what such a recount would have found.

I will buy a steak dinner for the first reader who can show me any editorial or blog post by anyone that says no possible recount would have changed the outcome. You certainly didn’t hear it here. Look at Krugman’s pathetic wording on his second point: “…Even if a proper recount wasn’t in the cards given the political realities”. That’s game, set, and match, proving that even Krugman doesn’t believe his original assertion that Al Gore won the 2000 election; he has just admitted that a full manual recount wasn’t in the cards. All else is speculation.

Give it up, Paul; you were busted and you know it. Of course, that takes more class than Krugman has; witness his parting shot: “a man the voters tried to reject ended up as president”.

Pathetic…

8 Responses to “Krugman Gives Ground - Sort Of”

1 Dennis Says:
August 22nd, 2005 at 1:44 pm
I sometimes wonder how much all this acrimony of the past four years would have played out if Gore didn’t win the popular vote. The irony was that before the election, most polls indicated Bush would win the popular vote narrowly, but he might lose the electoral college. If Bush’s election had been a clear but close victory, like 2004, I suspect we wouldn’t have so much bile in the public discourse. But you’ve got a good chunk of a political class that feels Bush only got the job on a technicality, so when you start by believing a usurper is sitting on the throne, you’re hardly in a position to make a sober study of his policies.

Similarly, I sometimes wonder if the emotional roller coaster of the 2000 and 2004 election nights isn’t contributing to the more unhinged views of politics. We all remember the craziness of 2000, but let’s not forget that at mid-day last November, it was looking like a Kerry win. It’s fascinating to go back now and look at the election day posts on places like Kos and The Corner; they start at polar opposites, criss-cross and wind up giddy or furiously bitter. Getting the rug pulled out from under you in two presidential elections in a row can’t be pleasant.
2 Mark Says:
August 22nd, 2005 at 2:08 pm
Dennis, you got that right…and you’re quite right, I remember well all the articles saying Bush just might win the popular vote but lose in the Electoral College. Hey, if the tables were turned, I’m sure I would be extremely bitter as well…but I would hope that, unlike Krugman, I would have been able to move on after five years…
3 Clint Says:
August 23rd, 2005 at 1:55 am
You’re missing the common theme here.

Sure, Bush took office — but Al Gore had the moral victory. If everything had been counted “perfectly”, Al Gore would have won — hence a moral superiority. (Even if you only get there by carefully enumerating the irregularities that favor the GOP and ignoring the irregularities that favor the Dems.)

Compare to the crowing over the narrowness of their defeat in the recent Ohio special election.
4 Oyster Says:
August 23rd, 2005 at 6:28 am
My brother is one of those Democrats who is still bitter over 2000. He lived in NYC for 20 years previously and conceded, finally, after much cajoling from me, that Guiliani did a lot of good for NY and finished with, “But I just hated him so much.”

THAT’S the mindset we’re looking at. How do you fight something that makes no sense?
5 Mark Says:
August 23rd, 2005 at 7:11 am
Oyster, nice story…sounds familiar…
6 Clint Says:
August 23rd, 2005 at 10:37 am
Oyster-

Interesting. Did your brother still live in the NY area during 9/11? My relatives who feel the same way about ‘00 turned 180-degrees on Mayor Guliani based entirely on his conduct during and right after the attack. But this wouldn’t have gotten the same sort of coverage if he’d moved out of the region.
7 Decision ‘08 » Blog Archive » Krugman Needs a Correction of His Correction Says:
August 26th, 2005 at 10:30 am
[…] In a rarity by any standards, Paul Krugman has admitted a mistake! Well, sort of…he has admitted he was wrong, then to correct himself, he issued the same wrong statement. We took the fact-challenged pundit to task on two occasions already regarding election 2000, but he keeps on digging: In my column last Friday, I cited an inaccurate number (given by the Conyers report) for turnout in Ohio’s Miami County last year: 98.5 percent. I should have checked the official state site, which reports a reasonable 72.2 percent. Also, the public editor says, rightly, that I should acknowledge initially misstating the results of the 2000 Florida election study by a media consortium led by The Miami Herald. Unlike a more definitive study by a larger consortium that included The New York Times, an analysis that showed Al Gore winning all statewide manual recounts, the earlier study showed him winning two out of three. Michelle Malkin, in reporting this, seems to buy into the Mickey Kaus assertion that Gore WOULD have won if the Supreme Court hadn’t stopped the recount, an analysis I reject because it relies on hypotheticals (not only regarding the Supreme Court decision, but regarding the ’smoking gun’ the the presiding judge PROBABLY would have allowed overvotes to be counted - that’s a lot of ifs). Donald Luskin gets it right: …[T]he truth is that the study Krugman is talking about involved four methods for statewide recounts, and Bush won in three of them. Here’s the way USA Today tells it (emphasis added): […]
8 Unlimited Music Downloads Says:
April 15th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Unlimited Music Downloads…

Finally someone rants about this. Why don’t you also come to my music…