McArdle is Always Wrong.™
I honestly don’t understand why everyone hasn’t figured this out.
July 25, 2010 3:00 pm
Posted in: Bring on the Brawndo!, C.R.E.A.M., Going Galt, Technically True but Collectively Nonsense
71 Comments
71 Responses
jwb - July 25, 2010 | 3:03 pm · Link
I wonder what would happen if Always Wrong® McArdle and Always Wrong® Kristol came out with opposite predictions.
Corner Stone - July 25, 2010 | 3:07 pm · Link
@jwb: Good God. It would lead to the Penguins of Madagascar Time Paradox.
We’d all end up covered in sno-cone flavored ice shavings.
Corner Stone - July 25, 2010 | 3:09 pm · Link
Any writer with a modicum of self-respect at The Atlantic should never link to her again.
Of course, since there is approximately one of those I guess it’s not really that big a deal.
Corner Stone - July 25, 2010 | 3:11 pm · Link
Speaking of “deal”, I caught a Deal or No Deal re-run last night and forgot how much I enjoyed that show when it first came out.
A little faux drama combined with the inability to do simple probabilities. Just delish.
BR - July 25, 2010 | 3:12 pm · Link
@jwb:
We’d have to go for the Third Way: school uniforms.
licensed to kill time - July 25, 2010 | 3:12 pm · Link
I always read her name as McGargle. Kind of a bubbly little soundtrack.
Tom Levenson - July 25, 2010 | 3:14 pm · Link
Thanks for the link. Much appreciated.
And I’m enjoying the fact that for once, I seem to have struck a nerve, chez McArdle—Susan of Texas reports that she tweets me as “some idiot,” which, as I note elsewhere has been a term of endearment around my home base of Boston since 2004. ;)
PeakVT - July 25, 2010 | 3:18 pm · Link
Nice post, Tom. For their sakes, I hope Fallows and TNC read it.
dmsilev - July 25, 2010 | 3:18 pm · Link
@jwb:
Mutual annihilation, one hopes.
It’s unlikely, though. Kristol is Always Wrong about foreign affairs, and doesn’t really babble all that much about domestic stuff. McArdle is Always Wrong about domestic policy, but she doesn’t really seem to care about foreign matters. It’s like they’ve signed a non-compete agreement to divide up the Always Wrong duties.
dms
BombIranForChrist - July 25, 2010 | 3:25 pm · Link
Man, I wish she would give financial advice. She would be the perfect contrary indicator.
c u n d gulag - July 25, 2010 | 3:27 pm · Link
You kind of have to admire her.
She’s ‘Bill Kristol wrong’ on everything. You could say that she’s Bill with tit’s (my apology’s, but tit’s is funnier than breasts in this case).
But she defends her stupidity in a way that I wish Democrats defended doing something courageous and right.
It take guts to display day after day that when you don’t know anything at all about the subject you’re writing about, you’re willing to make shit up to fill in what you don’t know – whether what you made up has anything to do with what you were talking about in the first place is material or immaterial, as long as it’s loud and strong when it’s wrong.*
Why does “The Atlantic” have her writing about economics, when she can’t even make correct change? I guess “The Atlantic’s” editors must be out to sea…
*That’s my best McArdle immitaion. Sorry…
malraux - July 25, 2010 | 3:27 pm · Link
@jwb: Luckily, one can be wrong in a multitude of ways.
Guster - July 25, 2010 | 3:28 pm · Link
Who is aimai, and why is she so friggin’ smart? Is she secretly also Hilzoy?
Pancake - July 25, 2010 | 3:30 pm · Link
However, McCardle was right. Elizabeth Warren is not going to get the new position, basically because many of the reasons Megan has enumerated are shared by Obama and his key financial team. Currently, the most likely Presidential pick will be Michael Barr.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle - July 25, 2010 | 3:38 pm · Link
@Corner Stone: No, two. Coates and Fallows.
Lev - July 25, 2010 | 3:39 pm · Link
@jwb: That’s like that question about whether God could create a rock He couldn’t lift. If one presupposes an omnipotent God, then He can lift anything. The question is just being clever with words.
Not that I’m proselytizing here, just making a point about assumptions. McArdle and Kristol agree on everything.
Corner Stone - July 25, 2010 | 3:41 pm · Link
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle: I’m sorry. I know a lot of people here really like and respect TNC.
But his recent half and half on Goldberg disqualify him, IMO.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle - July 25, 2010 | 3:42 pm · Link
@Tom Levenson: What it all comes down to for McArdle is that Elizabeth Warren is the equivalent of Bernie Sanders. A champion of the little guy. And McArdle can’t stand that. Which is funny because her dad used to be a civil servant, a position she constantly hates on.
Cain - July 25, 2010 | 3:44 pm · Link
@Tom Levenson:
You have a nice blog there. I like your other posts too.
cain
jwb - July 25, 2010 | 3:44 pm · Link
@Lev: I was thinking more along the lines of the old paradox of the irresistible cannon ball meeting the immovable post.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle - July 25, 2010 | 3:47 pm · Link
@Corner Stone: Would you last long at a job if you disparaged a co-worker, even if he deserved it? I have to believe that’s what’s behind it. Just MHO.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ - July 25, 2010 | 3:49 pm · Link
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
You know who else had a dad in the civil service and grew up hating on it…
Lev - July 25, 2010 | 3:51 pm · Link
Sounds like Tom is trying to say that McArdle is the Pat Harrison to Breitbart’s Theodore Bilbo.
Or if Harrison is too obscure, how about his fellow mild-toned segregationist Richard Russell?
amorphous - July 25, 2010 | 3:57 pm · Link
@c u n d gulag: Did no one teach you apostrophe’s?
demimondian - July 25, 2010 | 3:58 pm · Link
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I know, I know! George W. Bush was the son of a former director of the CIA!
Corner Stone - July 25, 2010 | 4:03 pm · Link
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle: I understand what you’re saying. But I will disagree with you a little.
If TNC says, “Hey, he’s a great friend, etc.”
Well, ok then. TNC and anyone can choose who they like or dislike, so on and so forth.
But to affirmatively state that you believe Goldberg is someone, “you have a lot of respect for as a reporter” is going beyond the pale. That’s not a defense so much as it is a loan of credibility. IMO, TNC didn’t have to do that to make his point(s).
So, I have to say it’s a big problem.
Bella Q - July 25, 2010 | 4:04 pm · Link
@amorphous: I assumed those apostrophe’s were used satirically, or sardonically or perhaps even ironically. It’s one of those damned adverbs that either starts with an “s” or has an “onic” in it. :-)
rootless_e - July 25, 2010 | 4:08 pm · Link
What about Peter Daou? He seems to be as right as often as Mcgarble.
For example: if this means anything at all, it’s utterly wrong
jeffreyw - July 25, 2010 | 4:09 pm · Link
Megan is a time traveler
robertdsc-PowerBook & 27 titles - July 25, 2010 | 4:15 pm · Link
@jeffreyw:
LOL.
Belvoir - July 25, 2010 | 4:31 pm · Link
@Tom Levenson: Really well done Tom, that was a great read. I appreciate any well-written critique of that awful glibtard, and I needed a cig after that one.
wilfred - July 25, 2010 | 4:32 pm · Link
Chesterton once said that journalism was saying Lord so and so is dead to people who never knew that he was alive.
Blogs are a bit like that, sometimes. I don’t even know who Megan McArdle is or anything about what she thinks. Now I read that she’s an asshole. Ok.
Tom levenson - July 25, 2010 | 4:33 pm · Link
@Cain: Thanks!
RSA - July 25, 2010 | 4:40 pm · Link
Excellent post, Tom. Lots of fun to read, as well as being on target.
Mike in NC - July 25, 2010 | 4:41 pm · Link
Bookmark this—-
http://firemeganmcardle.blogspot.com
Bill Murray - July 25, 2010 | 4:44 pm · Link
@Guster: one of her parents won a Nobel Prize, I think. That can’t hurt in the smarts department
jeffreyw - July 25, 2010 | 4:45 pm · Link
Thread needs more tomato sammiches.
Basic
Deluxe
grumpy realist - July 25, 2010 | 4:46 pm · Link
Given the merriment that ensued when McArdle tried to divide one large number by a slightly smaller number and was off by a several orders of magnitude, I fail to see why anyone should place any credence in that woman at all.
She’s not an intellectual in search for truth. She’s a hack who cherry-picks data to support whatever miserable glibertarian-theory-of-the-day she’s professing. And then continues screaming: “I’m right!” when the fallacies of her mathematics/data/authority quoting are pointed out.
Violet - July 25, 2010 | 4:58 pm · Link
@BombIranForChrist:
I thought Jim Cramer already had that position locked up.
McMegan is wrong so often it should embarrass The Atlantic. Not holding my breath.
dmsilev - July 25, 2010 | 5:00 pm · Link
@Bill Murray: One of my high school classmates was the son of a Nobel prize winner. He was living proof that intelligence wasn’t hereditary.
dms
KG - July 25, 2010 | 5:07 pm · Link
For me, the standard bearer of Always Wrongism is Hugh Hewitt. Not sure the guy has made an accurate prediction in all the time I’ve known him. Though it could just be a byproduct of being a Cleveland sports fan.
Eric U. - July 25, 2010 | 5:07 pm · Link
@grumpy realist:is one order of magnitude “several?” Granted, $250 is a lot more than $25.
The story I read about McArdle’s father didn’t paint a very favorable picture of him. In fact, you could say it implied strongly that he used his civil servant position in a corrupt manner.
Mark S. - July 25, 2010 | 5:09 pm · Link
I suck at song parodies so maybe someone could do better here, but here’s my stab at the MacGruber theme song:
McArdle!
She blogs for the Atlantic and she doesn’t know anything
McArdle!
She thinks Atlas Shrugged is a real philosophy
McArdle!
She can’t do long division
McArdle!
Cain - July 25, 2010 | 5:24 pm · Link
@dmsilev:
It probably wasan’t any picnic for your classmate. Having had the experience of being the son of a high class scientist/professor and not even reaching anywhere close his stature is quite shall we say regrettable.
cain
Mike G - July 25, 2010 | 5:28 pm · Link
“Harriet Meiers is superbly qualified to be on the Supreme Court…Wha? Why are you frantically waving at me? I’m reading from the talking points you sent out yesterday.
We’re throwing her overboard now? I wish you guys would do a better job of keeping me informed when you change the propaganda orders. Sheesh.”
arguingwithsignposts - July 25, 2010 | 5:34 pm · Link
I would like for McArdle to point to her own research publications before she starts shitting on the methodology of others who have put in the considerable time to produce such research.
Roger Moore - July 25, 2010 | 5:42 pm · Link
@dmsilev:
Are you sure, because I’ve met a Nobel Prize winner or two who have convinced me that you don’t have to be a genius to win the prize. That’s not to say that they were idiots, but it’s sometimes enough to be in the right place at the right time and have a talent for self promotion, or even to have the alternative choices be such jackasses that nobody wants to give them the prize.
Bill Murray - July 25, 2010 | 5:45 pm · Link
Sadly, this lie is travelling the world while the truth is still putting on its pants
http://agonyin8fits.blogspot.c.....igger.html
KG - July 25, 2010 | 5:50 pm · Link
@Mike G: it’s kind of funny, the guy is absolutely a party hack; I learned that shortly after meeting him. But I am just amazed, continually, by how far off his predictions can be.
DKF - July 25, 2010 | 6:35 pm · Link
I would love to see Megan offer her criticisms to Elizabeth Warren in person. Warren would absolutely chew her up and spit out the bones. In the nicest, sweetest, most charming way, of course. Full disclosure: I have a mad crush on Elizabeth Warren.
eco2geek - July 25, 2010 | 6:39 pm · Link
@Guster: aimai is the granddaughter of journalist I.F. Stone. Nobody really knows for sure why she’s so damn smart, although there are rumors. She comments here from time to time, so watch your manners.
(I like reading her posts too.)
grumpy realist - July 25, 2010 | 6:40 pm · Link
Eric U.: You’re right. I remembered it as being a 25/2500 sort of difference.
Even so, McArdle should have easily caught the discrepancy had she done a cross-check of the orders of magnitudes. It’s not like there were units of c and h and e and 2 pi to confuse things.
RSA - July 25, 2010 | 6:41 pm · Link
@arguingwithsignposts:
This is my biggest complaint about pundits who take on experts, and you see it on an enormous range of topics: global climate change, the “link” between vaccines and autism, school education policies, etc. (I’ll leave out economics, because I don’t understand how a field can function when equally respected people can hold irreconcilable views for their entire careers.) It’s easy to poke holes in an op-ed here and there, but if you want to challenge peer-reviewed research, there’s a clear avenue for that—more peer-reviewed research.
Napoleon - July 25, 2010 | 6:55 pm · Link
@KG:
Wasn’t he the first director of the Nixon library and when the US Gov took it over got rid of him because his position was as a pure propagandist in favor of how honest Nixon was?
jcricket - July 25, 2010 | 6:57 pm · Link
Why is McMegan always wrong? She’s a Libertarian. QED.
She just tries harder than other Libertarians to attempt to prove their point, proving the point that Libertarians are always full of shit.
Basically the only Libertarians that aren’t full of shit are the ones that basically say, “yeah, fuck the consequences you’re probably right about, I do believe in getting rid of all that legal stuff.”
Origuy - July 25, 2010 | 6:58 pm · Link
@eco2geek: Oh, great. Now we’re going to have the troll who uses I. F. Stone as his/her pseudonym. Or is he/she still banned?
Wannabe Speechwriter - July 25, 2010 | 7:08 pm · Link
With due respect to TNC and Fallows, they do have to work with McArdle (and Goldberg for that matter). I think asking them to attack McArdle is a bit like asking Paul Krugman to go after David Brooks. Even when Kristol had his year-long experiment with the NY Times, Krugman never publicly went after Kristol (though he did love to say “my former colleague” when talking about Kristol after they let him go, always putting it in a sarcastic tone basically letting his bosses know how he felt). If memory serves me correct, most of the Atlantic staff went after McMegan for her nonsensical take on obesity.
And if TNC and Fallows denounce McMegan, then what? Nothing changes. Let’s say The Atlantic lets her go, she’s still going to find a place to work. Remember, she came to the Atlantic from The Economist. She’ll be hired by the WSJ or WaPo op-ed page. She’ll become a Senior Fellow at Cato (or Brookings). TNR will hire her to be their “in-house critic.” And we haven’t even got into the Reason gravy train. In fact, firing her would actually raise her street cred on the right. Suddenly, she’s the victim of Big Liberal Media. Hell, with that she can be a sub for Glenn Beck.
The problem is at the end of the day, there will always be a job for Megan, no matter how factual inaccurate her pieces are. And if an Act of God took her from this world, The Village would just invent a new McMegan (she was an English major and then got an MBA. Her start was here love of good ol’ Ayn Rand, so if she can be called an expert on Economics, anyone can). With all do respect, asking for her colleagues to call her out is a bit like demanding Obama go emo every time there’s a crisis. We need to move beyond debunkings, denouncements and mocking those who are consistently wrong. We need these people just to be ignored, not even discussed. How we get people who are in power to do this, well, I’ll be honest, I don’t know…
Mark S. - July 25, 2010 | 7:08 pm · Link
@Origuy:
I’m pretty sure he’s still banned; I haven’t seen him since.
Is Brick Oven still banned? I have seen him a few times recently, but it really seemed like someone was spoofing him.
arguingwithsignposts - July 25, 2010 | 7:13 pm · Link
@Mark S.:
Last I heard, BoB was over at Wonkette driving the commentariat there insane.
@Wannabe Speechwriter: Very good point. McArglebargle can only fail upwards. I still can’t believe “Marketplace” has her on as a commenter on NPR.
Corner Stone - July 25, 2010 | 7:15 pm · Link
@Bill Murray:
And the info at the link you provide there is EXACTLY why I don’t give any of The Atlantic circle jerkers any leeway when they approve of dishonest hackery.
QuaintIrene - July 25, 2010 | 7:31 pm · Link
Hey, same thing with Dick Morris. He’s another ‘wrong 99.9 percent of the time.” Yet he keeps getting trotted out as some kind of savvy political sybil, and not just on Fox News.
Bill Murray - July 25, 2010 | 8:08 pm · Link
@Mark S.: isn’t he in this thread at #14? I’m pretty sure that sobriquet is related to Stone
Hob - July 25, 2010 | 8:41 pm · Link
@Eric U.: Yeah, except that McCardle’s explanation was “the calculator doesn’t go to billions so I entered 750 million by mistake”, which, if true, would have given her an answer of $2.50 – two orders of magnitude off. So the fuckup she claimed she made was not even fucked up correctly.
Mark S. - July 25, 2010 | 9:34 pm · Link
@Bill Murray:
I don’t know if it’s the same guy. Pancake usually trolls threads about Israel; his name is a hi-lar-i-ous joke about Rachel Corrie.
PeakVT - July 25, 2010 | 10:21 pm · Link
@arguingwithsignposts: Marketplace is an APM production, not NPR.
thomas Levenson - July 25, 2010 | 10:54 pm · Link
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle: the notion that the little guy might need advocates is itself cognitively dissonant for glibertarians…which is another way of saying you are onto something.
thomas Levenson - July 25, 2010 | 10:55 pm · Link
@Belvoir: thanks to you too.
thomas Levenson - July 25, 2010 | 11:02 pm · Link
@Wannabe Speechwriter:
I think you are right—but what I think is important is reducing her influence beyond wherever she perches. I would love to see Marketplace and wherever think twice and thrice before booking her; I’d like Felix Salmon to realize he just can’t cite her and so on. She can have a very lucrative life w/in the winger echo chamber and it would gall me, but it would do much less damage to the body politic than she can as long as other folks, outside that bubble, continue to take her more seriously than she deserves.
Bill Murray - July 26, 2010 | 12:22 am · Link
@Mark S.: I believe that is Pancake Rachel Corrie. Within the last couple of weeks this Pancake said it was based on a “Soviet spy” [despite the quotes that is a paraphrase, the quotes are mine indicating skepticism of Stone being a true spy]. Pancake supposedly was a code name for IF Stone, of course, FDR, Churchill and a host of others were given code names. And of course the word used was blin, not pancake as an English word would rather have stood out
Andy - July 26, 2010 | 5:51 am · Link
I canceled my economist subscription because any magazine that employs her is not worth reading.
Every time they phone to try to get me to renew I tell them exactly why I canceled.
Douche Baggins - July 26, 2010 | 1:28 pm · Link
@jeffreyw: Those are some fine sammiches.