Columnist Corrections Corrected [corrected again March 16]

Published: March 13, 2004

This page has been created to prove a point; not to in any way, shape, or form claim to be an official Robert Cox article. I mainly note that Cox has not followed the NYT rules for corrections. He repeatedly repeats the error in the correction.


"Mirror Site"- alles correspondance auf Deutsch bitte
kate@downtime.templeofhate.com
"another Site" - correspondenza in italiano per favore.


David Brooks column entitled "Clash of Titans" from March 6, 2004 incorrectly described the percentage of Democratic party candidates whose "family had an upper-deck berth on the Mayflower" and the percentage of Republican Party candidates who own "a ranch the size of Oklahoma". Over the past forty years, the percentage of Democratic Party nominees for President were descendents of the original Pilgrims who settled the Massachusetts colony is 0%. The percentage of Republican party nominees for President who have ever owned a ranch the size of Oklahoma is 0%.


A Paul Krugman column entitled "Social Security Scares" from March 5, 2005 stated the Social Security Administration's 2003 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports showed "a system in pretty good financial shape". The SSA Trustees Report describes the fundamentals of the financial status of Social Security as "highly problematic" and projects that trust funds will be exhausted in little more than two decades and will "not permit full payment of currently scheduled benefits." The Report states "Medicare's financial difficulties come sooner--and are more severe--than those confronting Social Security."

Look this is (relatively) serious, the Krugman article, available, like all his columns at http://www.pkarchive.org/, clearly explained that "pretty good financial shape" means that the Social Security shortfall can be covered with tax increases or benefit cuts which Krugman considers not terribly extreme. When Krugman wrote "the Bush tax cuts are a much bigger problem for the nation's fiscal future than the Social Security shortfall." he did not deny that there was a social security shortfall. For Krugman, being a smaller problem than the Bush tax cuts does not narrow things down much.

Krugman very clearly stresses the fact that the Medicare shortfall is much more serious than the social security shortfall "First, two words — "and Medicare" — make a huge difference. According to the Treasury study, only 16 percent of that $44 trillion shortfall comes from Social Security." and "Medicare, though often lumped in with Social Security, is a different program facing different problems." The column is perfectly consistent with Cox's quotations from the Trustees report.

Note the link in the mirror site is to an "abstract" of the column which was not written by Paul Krugman

Cox's "corrections" as well as his link strongly suggest that he has not read the column which he is "correcting". He might disagree with Krugman about what "pretty good shape" means, but he could not possibly have imagined that the observation that the Medicare trust fund is in much worse shape than the social security trust fund, which was very explicitly made in 8th line of the column, was a correction, if he had actually read the column which he criticizes. I'm all for freedom of speech but also note that it is sometimes freedom to make a fool of oneself.


• A William Safire column entitled "Found: A Smoking Gun" from February 11, 2004 incorrectly described the assertions about evidence concerning a possible link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq presented in an article, "U.S. Says Files Seek Qaeda Aid In Iraq Conflict", which ran in The New York Times the previous day. The article cited by Mr. Safire stated that the letter was not evidence of a link between al Qaeda and Ansar al-Islam. The same column also incorrectly described the affiliation of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Mr al-Zarqawi is the head of al-Tawhid, a citizen of Jordan, a Moslem, and a member of the al-Zarqawi family.

• A Paul Krugman column entitled "Our So-Called Boom" from December 30, 2003 concludes from recent economic data that "an unusually large number of people have given up looking for work." Employment data from the U.S. Department of Labor shows that the government's official measure of "discouraged workers", currently .32% has fluctuated between .15% and .45% over the past ten years. There is nothing unusual about the current rate of "discouraged workers".

It goes without saying that the only possible interpretation of the ordinary English phrase "people have given up looking for work" is that it is identical to the technical term "discouraged workers". Needless to say, the fact that the two phrases consist of different words would not lead any honest person to imagine that they might have different meanings, or even that Krugman might honestly believe that the definition of "discouraged workers" is overly restrictive.


• A William Safire column entitled "Missing Links Found" from November 23, 2003 incorrectly assessed the extent to which two articles in The Weekly Standard based on a leaked memo are a crock of shit. The Pentagon issued a public statement which declared that reports claiming that the new information proved there had been contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq "are inaccurate." OK OK the NYT style sheet would suggest phrasing "a container of fecal material" but hey give me a break.

• A Maureen Dowd column entitled "Bewitched, Bothered, Billy-Goated" from November 16, 2003 quoted Rep. George Nethercutt (R-WA) out of context regarding media coverage of Iraq. The quotation was taken from Mr. Nethercutt's remarks to a Seattle-Post Intelligencer reporter. The full text of his remarks follows: "So the story is better than we might be led to believe in the news. I'm just indicting the news people. But it's, it's, it's a bigger and better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day, which, which heaven forbid, is awful." The use of the partial quotation created the arguable impression that Mr. Nethercutt was indifferent to the death of American soldiers in Iraq and realised at the last moment that he had better not admit it.

• A Paul Krugman column entitled "This Can't Go On" from November 4, 2003 quoted Rep. George Nethercutt (R-WA) out of context regarding media coverage of Iraq. The quotation was taken from Mr. Nethercutt's remarks to a Seattle-Post Intelligencer reporter. The full text of his remarks follows: "So the story is better than we might be led to believe in the news. I'm just indicting the news people. But it's, it's, it's a bigger and better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day, which, which heaven forbid, is awful." The use of the partial quotation created the arguable impression that Mr. Nethercutt was indifferent to the death of American soldiers in Iraq and realised at the last moment that he had better not admit it.

• A Maureen Dowd column entitled "Osama's Offspring" from May 14th, 2003 quoted President Bush out of context regarding the threat posed by al-Qaeda terrorists. The quotation was taken from the president's May 5 remarks in Little Rock. The full text of his remarks follows: "That group of terrorists who attacked our country is slowly, but surely, being decimated. Right now, about half of all the top al-Qaeda operatives are either jailed or dead. In either case, they're not a problem anymore." The use of the partial quotation created the false impression that the president was dismissing the threat posed by al-Qaeda as a whole rather than its members who had been killed or apprehended. It also suggested that the president doesn't know what decimated means.


The Times does not welcome information about errors that call for correction in columns written by Times' Op-Ed columnists. Since The New York Times refuses to hold their columnists to any standard of accuracy, The National Debate has taken upon itself to offer this Supplemental Corrections Page for New York Times readers.

Unfortunately, the NYT has also threatened to sue Robert Cox at The National Debate for trade mark infringement in a disgraceful assault on freedom of communication. Much less importantly, Robert Cox neglected to follow NYT policy to never repeat the error in a correction. Medium importantly, Cox completely mischaracterised Paul Krugman's column "Social Security Scares" and did not link to the column as written by Krugman but rather to an abstract written by someone else.