KRUGMAN'S BIZARRE NON-CORRECTION CORRECTION [John Podhoretz]
Paul Krugman today has published what may be the most peculiar correction ever run in any newspaper at the bottom of his column. "I should acknowledge initially misstating the results of the 2000 Florida election study by a media consortium led by The Miami Herald," he writes of a column published last week. "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."
How is this a correction? Krugman is just repeating what he said last week, to wit: "Two out of three hypothetical statewide counts would have given the election to Mr. Gore."
Is Krugman joking? The phrasing of his "correction" was either disingenuous -- a refusal to acknowledge an error even while was supposedly acknowledging it -- or weirdly stupid, or badly edited.
The point, though, is that for the second straight week, he has mischaracterized the media recounts. Tell you what. I'll even do Krugman a favor, and use the results not from the first media recount led by the Miami Herald --which only counted undervotes -- but the second. The second recount, published on May 17, 2001, counted both undervotes and overvotes. According to the Miami Herald story that included the 110,000 "overvotes" on May 17, 2001: "Bush would have prevailed under the two most restrictive [standards]. His biggest margin would have been 407 votes under the standard most commonly accepted by states that use punch-card ballots. It requires that two corners of a ballot's chad must be detached in order for the vote to count. Gore would have won under the two most permissive standards. His biggest margin would have been 332 votes if dimpled chads, which bulge out but are still attached at all four corners, were considered valid votes."
So according to a media recount dealing with a practical impossibility -- which is that "overvotes" would EVER have been counted, since the Florida Supreme Court ruled that out entirely in its decision on the matter -- Bush won two and Gore won two. Gore did not win two of three.
As of now, Krugman has lost two of two. What will he say on Tuesday?
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