Bill Kristol Makes Yet Another Error in the New York Times

Posted by Amanda, Think Progress at 11:00 AM on August 18, 2008.

Today in the New York print edition of the New York Times, columnist Bill Kristol attacks allegations that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) may not have been in the “cone of silence” during Saturday’s Saddleback Civil Forum:

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported on “Meet the Press” that “the Obama people must feel that he didn’t do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context. … What they’re putting out privately is that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama.”

That’s pretty astonishing, since there seems to be absolutely no basis for the charge. But the fact that Obama’s people made this suggestion means they know McCain outperformed him.

Kristol is wrong. In fact, the New York Times itself reports today that McCain “was not in a ‘cone of silence’ on Saturday night.” He was instead “in his motorcade on the way to the church” when Rev. Rick Warren was interviewing Obama.

Instead of issuing a correction to Kristol’s column, Tom Tomorrow notes that the Times has simply quietly revised it for the online and national print editions. The column now reads:

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported on “Meet the Press” that “the Obama people must feel that he didn’t do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context. … What they’re putting out privately is that McCain … may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama.”
There’s no evidence that McCain had any such advantage. But the fact that Obama’s people made this suggestion means they know McCain outperformed him.

Perhaps the New York Times is too embarrassed to write a correction for another one of Kristol’s columns. This is the fourth factual error he has made since commencing his column in January. Here are the other three corrections. Unfortunately for Kristol, his Kristol Ball isn’t doing so well either.

Tagged as: obama, new york times, mccain, bill kristol