One thing they teach you in high school and colleges—especially in elite high schools and colleges—is to be able to write smoothly about nothing at all, to be able to spin a five-paragraph essay on any topic at a moments notice.
This sort of surface facility can mask an underlying confusion.
I thought of this when reading a note by Steve Benen:
Dick Morris wrote an entire column based on the belief that the health care industry lost 30,000 jobs in August. The report he relied on actually said the health care industry gained 30,000 jobs in August. Morris’ case isn’t just lazy and unserious; it’s backwards.
Morris argues that the only logical conclusion to draw is that the Affordable Care Act is a disaster because the industry isn’t adding 30,000 jobs a month. But it is. It says right there in the black-and-white text: “Health care employment rose by 30,000 in August.” The very report Morris uses as evidence to prove his point is the same report that makes his own column look like a ridiculous lie.
I assume Morris was making a mistake and not actually lying. He must feel a lot of pressure to come up with a new attack every single week (or however often his column runs).
To return to my original point, though, catch this sentence that begins the second paragraph of Morris’s column:
Buried within the data is a micro-statistic symptomatic of what is happening in all sectors of the economy.
“Symptomatic,” huh? That’s how over-educated people talk. (I’m sorry to report that Morris is a graduate of Columbia University.) Again, I can only assume Morris made a simple mistake (followed up by mistake #2, which was not to check his number before sending off the column). But I’d also put much of the blame on a culture in which facility with words is valued over accuracy with numbers.
P.S. I’m picking on Morris here, but liberals can be innumerate too! Here are examples from Samantha Power, David Runciman, and Gary Wills.