Hilzoy bumrushes the Post

Sgwhite is right--Hilzoy's take on Will's factual manipulations deserves it's own post. Rarely do you see a blogger pwn someone with the very documents provided as evidence of exoneration. Reading this post was a thrill--like watching a mugger get pistol-whipped with his own gun. Here's a quote, but it doesn't do the piece justice:

If Will actually read these two articles, it's hard to see how he's not being deliberately deceptive by citing them as he did. If, as I suspect, he just got them from some set of climate change denialist talking points and didn't bother to actually check them out for himself, he's being irresponsible. All those people who supposedly fact-checked Will's article as part of the Post's "multi-layer editing process" -- "people [George Will] personally employs, as well as two editors at the Washington Post Writers Group, which syndicates Will; our op-ed page editor; and two copy editors" -- should be fired, either for not doing their job or for doing it utterly incompetently. These are hard times for newspapers; I wouldn't have thought they could afford more than one layer of an editing process that produces no discernible improvement in quality.

And Andy Alexander? He should read the cites George Will gives him before he sends them out, under his own name, in support of his paper's decision to publish Will's piece, if he doesn't want to be embarrassed like this again.

This is the sort of thing that makes me happy we have blogs.