(for Glenn Kessler and PolitiFact) How to fact check the job recovery numbers

A valuable media watchdog watchdog post at the new blog "counterirritant" pointed out a problem with Glenn Kessler's fact check of a claim from Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Kessler writes the fact checker feature for the Washington Post.  Romney claimed that in a normal recovery from recession the country should be adding something like 500,000 jobs per month.

counterirritant:

Kessler decided that the best way to “check” this was determine how frequently 500,000 jobs were created in a month in the last 65 year.

The post goes on to very effectively criticize Kessler's methodology throughout.

By a funny coincidence (general leftward lean of the mainstream media, maybe?), PolitiFact used very similar reasoning on the same claim:

Is 500,000 jobs created per month normal for a recovery?

The short answer is "no."

We arrived at this conclusion by looking at the net monthly change in jobs all the way back to 1970. Since Romney was referring to total jobs, rather than private-sector jobs only, we used total jobs as our measurement. And since Romney was talking about job creation patterns during a recovery, we looked only at job creation figures for non-recessionary periods, as defined by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Finally, we excluded the current recovery.

The Kessler/PolitiFact method is entirely wrongheaded.

Romney didn't claim that 500,000 jobs created per month was a normal figure during a recovery.  I can imagine the furrowed brows of Kessler, Louis Jacobson and other mainstream media fact checkers.  Aren't they the experts?  What am I talking about?

It's actually pretty simple.

The size of the economy changes.  If country A enters a recession losing 1 million jobs  then it takes two months to regain the lost jobs at a rate of 500,000 per month.  If country B experiences a recession losing 10 million jobs then it takes 20 months to regain them at a rate of 500,000 per month.

Not only does the size of the economy vary, but so does the depth of the recession.  The rate of recovery for lost jobs needs  to account for both factors.  Neither Kessler nor PolitiFact gave any apparent consideration to those critical criteria.  It's like comparing prices between now and the 1950s without adjusting for inflation.

The Romney campaign has made a number of statements like the 500,000 jobs claim, and they probably relate to the following chart or one like it from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Clipped from nytimes.com

Romney's claim almost certainly derives from the fact that post-war recoveries usually replace lost jobs much faster than the present recovery. 

So how does one check that claim?  It's not that hard.  Take the bottom point of employment, then count the number of months that it takes to get employment back up to the peak level.  Divide the number of jobs lost by the number of months it took to return to return to the employment peak at the start of the recession.  Do the same for each of the post-war recessions, then average the numbers to obtain the average job recovery time.  After all of that, divide the number of jobs lost from the 2007 recession by the averaged job recovery time.

Why didn't the Washington Post or PolitiFact do anything remotely resembling the fact check I just described?  It could be gross incompetence.  It could be ideological bias.  Or it could be both.





Correction 6/7/2012  Removed a redundant division operation from the next-to-last paragraph

"In the Know": Better late than never on "Climategate"

The St. Petersburg Times finally ended its relative silence on Climategate.  On Dec. 5, the Times published most of a good account appearing in The Washington Post.

Knowing that space considerations often affect how much of given story will appear in a newspaper, and being the busybody that I am, I located for readers the portion excluded from the version they would have read in the Times:

"We're simply not tracking where the heat is going," said Trenberth, who heads the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.


The diversity of opinion on this topic, however, wasn't evident late last month, when a group of 26 climate researchers issued a report called "The Copenhagen Diagnosis," summarizing scientific advances since the last major U.N. climate report in 2007.

"Has global warming recently slowed down or paused?" the report said. "No."

Those three paragraphs occurred at the end of the original Post version.

In the know, baby.

Kathleen Parker on waterboarding

Bless Kathleen Parker and (at last) the Washington Post.

A reasonable account of the controversy from the mainstream press was long overdue, and Parker delivers.

Whether one agrees with the Bybee-Yoo interpretation is a difference of opinion but nothing more. Any fair assessment has to include consideration of context and distinctions that matter, including the definition of waterboarding, which varies according to country and century.

I have no interest in defending one against the other, but there are significant differences between what the Japanese did during World War II, for example, and what was authorized by the U.S. government.

The latter paragraph represents a critically important point with respect to the attacks on the practice of waterboarding. The press was guilty of promoting bad information about waterboarding, such as what it was and how it compared with past versions of "water torture" and "the water cure."

As previously noted at this blog, Judge Evan Wallach and the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law played a key role in poisoning our well of knowledge. Props to the Post for taking a notable step toward correcting the record.

The tea leaves of scholarship

I wonder about the experts, sometimes.

I just stumbled across a Guardian column by Karen Armstrong, titled "An inability to tolerate Islam contradicts Western values."

Armstrong, according to Wikipedia, is a former nun and is now considered a religious scholar, anointed enough to participate in the Jesus Seminar experiment in truth by voting.

It's normal for editors to add the title to a column; after getting halfway through I suspected that maybe the editor had missed the point. Turns out, as revealed by the ninth paragraph, that Armstrong was referring to the objection Brits raised to the construction of a mosque in east London. To Armstrong, that constituted a repudiation of traditional Western values. The objections to the mosque, wrote Armstrong, sent a "grim message" to Muslims. Apparently the type of "grim message" that will exacerbate terrorism.

Gallup found there was as yet no blind hatred of the west in Muslim countries; only 8% of respondents condoned the 9/11 atrocities. But this could change if the extremists persuade the young that the west is bent on the destruction of their religion. When Gallup asked what the west could do to improve relations, most Muslims replied unhesitatingly that western countries must show greater respect for Islam, placing this ahead of economic aid and non-interference in their domestic affairs. Our inability to tolerate Islam not only contradicts our western values; it could also become a major security risk.
(the Guardian)

I'd like to respectfully disagree with Armstrong's analysis, except that the craziness of it bids me to offer it scant respect.

First, 8% of respondents condoning the 9/11 attacks is not "no blind hatred of the West." It's almost one out of 10 with some indication of blind hatred for the West. If one in ten Worshipers of the Almighty Pop-Up Toaster support barbaric acts of terrorism, you're right to be concerned if they want to put a Toasty Tabernacle in your neighborhood--with one caveat. If the WAPUTs in your town repudiate acts of terrorism and actively work to mend the damage that the extremists are wreaking on their reputation, then you'd be intolerant not to welcome them in your neighborhood.

Armstrong appears to buy into the notion that the poll result accurately reflects one of the principal root causes of terrorism--lack of respect for Islam. But the events of the past two weeks appear to undermine that thesis.

In Pakistan, as I've been noting in a series of posts, extremist Muslims were using a major mosque as a base of operations. When the nominally secular government (listed as a federal republic in the CIA World Fact Book) quashed the movement in the Red Mosque, extremist Muslim populations in the north of Pakistan began mounting suicide bombing attacks against their fellow Muslims. And that, unfortunately, is just the corner of the hole in Armstrong's thesis. Conflict between differing Islamic sects has been a dominant aspect of Islamic culture since the Sunni-Shia divide. And in Pakistan it's largely Sunni versus Sunni, though the radicals will abduct and kill Christians readily enough, as has apparently been the case with about 20 South Koreans in Pakistan this past week.

Would Armstrong have us believe that Muslims do not respect Islam?

As if Islam's own history of violence involving Muslim against Muslim weren't enough, there's another expansive genie that isn't going to get stuffed back into the bottle very easily: Cultural imperialism.

The West exports its culture. And we do a very good job of it. As it happens, the culture that we export is largely appalling to the Islamic mind. Let's face it: in a culture where women are expected to cover their bodies in an all-encompassing burka, even the 1970s version of "Charlie's Angels" is pretty shocking. Radical Islamists realize that open trade results in a type of war on their way of life. It is for that reason that Islamic leaders wish to restrict cultural interaction with the West, and part of the reason why radical Islamists want to bring the West down in smoking ruin.

The former we can work with, and most of us can respect it. The latter is a big problem.

Muslims who want respect for their religion will see the problem in their midst and do something about it. Those who tacitly approve do much to justify anti-Islamic skepticism.
***

About the Gallup poll cited by Armstrong

It's usually smart to put polls in their context. It helps in figuring out what the numbers mean (and what they don't).

The National Council on Public Polls listed four caveats with the Gallup poll (and the media coverage given the poll).

News stories based on the Gallup poll reported results in the aggregate without regard to the population of the countries they represent. Kuwait, with less than 2 million Muslims, was treated the same as Indonesia, which has over 200 million Muslims. The "aggregate" quoted in the media was actually the average for the countries surveyed regardless of the size of their populations.
(read the other three)

In other words, the results were not weighted in order to give a more accurate picture.
The NCPP also noted that Gallup did not randomize its poll in terms of choosing the countries in which the poll was conducted, and the survey did not exclude Muslims from answering the questions. Beyond that, the organization warned about additional problems stemming from the manner in which the media may have handled the data when presenting it to the general public.

In short, that 8 percent figure doesn't mean much. It could be much higher (or lower, FTM) worldwide.

The problem would be particularly worrisome if there were big differences in the results across the nine countries. And there were, at least on some key questions. For example, 36 percent of those interviewed in Kuwait said the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were morally justifiable, compared to only 4 percent in Indonesia.
(the Washington Post)

Note: Armstrong may have referred to more than one Gallup poll in her column, but the recent poll was particular to U.K. Muslims, while any information extrapolated to apply to Islam generally was much more likely to have come from a 2002 Gallup poll. In the latter, there was a question regarding the justification of the 9/11 attacks. It isn't clear that any similar question occurred in the U.K. poll.

MSM continues to massage public opinion on pre-war Iraq

John Hinderaker of the Powerline blog posted an excellent piece of media criticism here.

Hinderaker quotes the Washington Post and then quotes from the source of the Post's information--it doesn't look like a match.

Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.
(the Washington Post)

And the source of the "all confirmed" phrasing (from a footnote in the report, as provided by Hinderaker--I haven't been able to link to the source document):

Noteworthy is that post-war debriefs of Saddam Hussein, Tariq Aziz, al-Tikriti and al-Libi as well as document exploitation by DIA all confirmed that the Intelligence Community [b]was correct: Iraq and al-Qaeda did not cooperate in all categories.[/b] The terms the Intelligence Community used to describe the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda were validated, "no conclusive signs," and "direct cooperation...has not been established."

And this is how various dailies around the country fix the headline:

The Cleveland Plain Dealer:
"Report: Saddam not linked to al-Qaida"

The Pioneer Press:
"Pentagon debunks Saddam ties to al-Qaida"

The Kansas City Star:
"Report disputes prewar link
Hussein and al-Qaida were not directly cooperating before Iraq invasion, text shows."

Not every headline is as misleading as those above.

The Register-Guard (Oregon):
Report: Iraq, al-Qaeda contact limited

That's quite an improvement on the Post version, actually!

The story by Smith goes on to take a whack at Vice President Cheney concerning his statements that the current war in Iraq represents a struggle against al Qaida.
If that isn't a non sequitur then there's no such thing.

And the Post compounds the illogic with a Dan Froomkin column blasting Cheney based on their own inept reporting.

Cheney Sticks to His Delusions

By Dan Froomkin

Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, April 6, 2007; 1:20 PM

Faced with overwhelming evidence to the contrary, even President Bush has backed off his earlier inflammatory assertions about links between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

But Vice President Cheney yesterday, in an interview with right-wing talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, continued to stick to his delusional guns.

Inflammatory assertions by Bush? A pity Froomkin offers no examples.

Cheney told Limbaugh that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was leading al-Qaeda operations in Iraq before the U.S. invasion in March 2003.

"[A]fter we went into Afghanistan and shut him down there, he went to Baghdad, took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq; organized the al-Qaeda operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene, and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June. He's the guy who arranged the bombing of the Samarra Mosque that precipitated the sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni. This is al-Qaeda operating in Iraq," Cheney said. "And as I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq." (Think Progress has the audio clip.)

(The Washington Post)

Same total lack of logic, here.
It's a leap worthy of Superman, albeit a leap of illogical thinking rather than a single bound over a tall Metropolis building.
Froomkin starts out by saying that links between Hussein and al Qaida have been discredited, and then mocks Cheney for not being up to speed. The smoking gun is a statement by Cheney that does not refer to any collaboration between the Iraqi government and al Qaida.

As Bugs Bunny would say: "What a maroon."

Not your finest moment, Froomkin.

The Washington Post, with a smackdown of House Majority Leader Pelosi

Pratfall in Damascus

Nancy Pelosi's foolish shuttle diplomacy

Thursday, April 5, 2007; Page A16

HOUSE SPEAKER Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered an excellent demonstration yesterday of why members of Congress should not attempt to supplant the secretary of state when traveling abroad. After a meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Ms. Pelosi announced that she had delivered a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that "Israel was ready to engage in peace talks" with Syria. What's more, she added, Mr. Assad was ready to "resume the peace process" as well. Having announced this seeming diplomatic breakthrough, Ms. Pelosi suggested that her Kissingerian shuttle diplomacy was just getting started. "We expressed our interest in using our good offices in promoting peace between Israel and Syria," she said.

Only one problem: The Israeli prime minister entrusted Ms. Pelosi with no such message. "What was communicated to the U.S. House Speaker does not contain any change in the policies of Israel," said a statement quickly issued by the prime minister's office. In fact, Mr. Olmert told Ms. Pelosi that "a number of Senate and House members who recently visited Damascus received the impression that despite the declarations of Bashar Assad, there is no change in the position of his country regarding a possible peace process with Israel." In other words, Ms. Pelosi not only misrepresented Israel's position but was virtually alone in failing to discern that Mr. Assad's words were mere propaganda.

It's a good read.

Pelosi blew it big-time, and so did some Republicans who visited Syria recently (though the latter apparently didn't deliver inaccurate messages on behalf of Israel).

Another good editorial from the WaPo

Trailing fairly closely on the heels of its editorial on the recent court decision against the NSA surveillance program, the Washington Post hits the nail on the head in summing up the Valerie Plame saga. After placing some qualified blame on the Bush administration the article concludes:

Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.
(the Washington Post)

Washington Post slams NSA decision by Judge Taylor

Hat tip to Power Line.

THE NATION would benefit from a serious, scholarly and hard-hitting judicial examination of the National Security Administration's program of warrantless surveillance. The program exists on ever-more uncertain legal ground; it is at least in considerable tension with federal law and the Bill of Rights. Careful judicial scrutiny could serve both to hold the administration accountable and to provide firmer legal footing for such surveillance as may be necessary for national security.

Unfortunately, the decision yesterday by a federal district court in Detroit, striking down the NSA's program, is neither careful or scholarly, and it is hard-hitting only in the sense that a bludgeon is hard-hitting. The angry rhetoric of U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor will no doubt grab headlines. But as a piece of judicial work--that is, as a guide to what the law requires and how it either restrains or permits the NSA's program--her opinion will not be helpful.
(read the rest)

Judge Taylor was a Carter appointee, for what it's worth.