Blogoland

I know this is giving the froth-mouths a lot to slobber about, but can we actually, maybe do, like, a little research before we hurl accusations about this line penned by Paul Krugman?

Two different news media consortiums reviewed Florida's ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore.

Despite the rantings of National Review, InstaPundit, and a host of others, Krugman is right, but is lacking context. The National Organziation for Research at the University of Chicago sponsored one of the studies Krugman certainly was citing. What did they find? That if the entire state had been manually recounted, using various liberal and conservative standards, Gore would have won. With a scant 115 in one case and an even slimmer 60 in another. But still he would have won. Looking at the narrower issue of the disputed counties under review by the US Supreme Court, Bush still would have won, by 225 to 493 votes.

So rant all you want. It's a split decision. So is Krugman guilty of providing a lack of context? Sure. More instructive, I think, is the looniness spawned by what he wrote.

Go ahead. Check it out yourself. But don't rely on the right-wing nutosphere to give you the real story.