WaPo media critic Howie Kurtz had this exchange with a reader in a recent online chat:
Pennington, N.J.: Why do we keep having people who were wrong on Iraq giving advice on TV? MTP this week had a politician and two Times columnists who have been consistently wrong. Why not have Russ Feingold, Paul Krugman, and Bob Herbert who were and still are right.
Howard Kurtz: If you banned pundits or politicians who were wrong about something from further TV appearances, the newscasts and talk shows would have a near-impossible time finding guests.
I saw the question in the RSS feed and had formulated almost precisely that answer before clicking through.
Julian Sanchez observes, too, that the very nature of instant analysis virtually guarantees poor prognostication.
