Legal Commentary

Remember Betsy McCaughey? She's Back

By Big Tent Democrat

Ezra Klein and James Fallows note that Betsy McCaughey is back spinning her falsehoods again on health care. Fallows writes:

In 1994 [McCaughey] wrote a cover story in the New Republic "revealing" a number of hidden dangers in the Clinton plan that less careful analysts had somehow missed. Unfortunately for McCaughey, most of what she wrote was false. Unfortunately for the Clintons, most of what she claimed was echoed uncritically and became part of the conventional wisdom of why the bill couldn't pass.

. . . Why bring this up now? Because McCaughey has sprung up again to "reveal" another hidden danger in another Democratic administration's plans. . . . [W]hat is wrong with her "analysis" this time[?] [They are] flatly disprovable lies.

More . . .

Now, you know who should be screaming about this? McCaughey's Dr. Frankenstein, Andrew Sullivan, who published her original 1994 falsehoods as TNR's editor, despite knowing them to be false:

Andrew Sullivan, The New Republic's then-editor later acknowledged "I was aware of the piece's flaws but nonetheless was comfortable running it as a provocation to debate.")

What has Sullivan said about all this? I mean he writes at The Atlantic, and Fallows posted his piece on Marc Ambinder's blog. Surely he has seen it. Anything to say about this Sully?

So far, crickets.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on February 13, 2009 (boomark / email).