Are you kidding me, part II
Oct. 14th, 2011 10:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsThomas Ricks quotes a major in the military who asks:
Being wildly off the mark is the best way to stay employed as a pundit. As this Hamilton College study from 2007 shows, being a terrible prognisticator was actually beneficial to your career if you were a conservative. On the other hand, if you were a liberal and your predictions turned out to be true, your career nonetheless languished, your advice was routinely ignored, and the Overton Window continued to be pulled further and further toward the right.
Predictions on economic and social issues that were most often wrong came from: Cal Thomas, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), Senator Joe Lieberman, Sam Donaldson of ABC, and George Will.
Tell me, have any of these people lost their jobs recently?
Nobody who was wrong about the "gays in the military" issue will ever see an iota of accountability for their shrill prognostications. If anything, they'll be feted by the right for standing up for... something or other.
At what point in time should journalists, bloggers, etc ... hold those who made wildly inaccurate predications on the lifting of the ban accountable? All the retired generals and officers (LTG Mixon, Merrill A. McPeak and Col. Dave Bedey for example) who predicted that soldiers would leave the military by the thousands, or John McCain and other politicians describing how it would affect us as a fighting force? At some point I feel that the public should be reminded of their predictions so the next time they make predictions that are way off the mark, fewer people will give them credence.Ricks and the major about to discover something very important:
Being wildly off the mark is the best way to stay employed as a pundit. As this Hamilton College study from 2007 shows, being a terrible prognisticator was actually beneficial to your career if you were a conservative. On the other hand, if you were a liberal and your predictions turned out to be true, your career nonetheless languished, your advice was routinely ignored, and the Overton Window continued to be pulled further and further toward the right.
Predictions on economic and social issues that were most often wrong came from: Cal Thomas, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), Senator Joe Lieberman, Sam Donaldson of ABC, and George Will.
Tell me, have any of these people lost their jobs recently?
Nobody who was wrong about the "gays in the military" issue will ever see an iota of accountability for their shrill prognostications. If anything, they'll be feted by the right for standing up for... something or other.
