Paul Krugman, provides a small correction box at the bottom of his column today in the New York Times, to deal with some of his multitude of errors in his two recent columns on the Florida election controversy in 2000, and the Ohio controversy (a controversy, really, only for hard core fanatics like Krugman and John Conyers) in 2004.

As to Ohio, Krugman's correction is clear: he admits that he said Miami County had a 98% turnout, when it was in fact 72%. This was pointed out by John Hinderaker of Powerline after Krugman's first column last Friday, which argued that Ohio was the second straight stolen election. The Miami County fantasy was at the heart of that charge, and Hinderaker blew Krugman away on that one, as well as on a second county where Krugman charged irregularities. In his second column, Krugman made no attempt to resuscitate the Ohio charges. They are dead, as was Kerry in Ohio, losing by 119,000 votes. Kerry did the right and honorable thing by conceding, whatever Krugman's continued fantasies about the state.

The second correction in the column today contains more Krugman lies about 2000 in Florida, as ably noted this morning by Michelle Malkin and Donald Luskin, and Patterico.  Krugman says his public editor was right to demand a correction. He then repeats his prior lies!

Krugman now argues that one of the two major consortium studies (the one led by the Miami Herald) showed Gore winning two of three scenarios, and the other Gore winning all of them. Simply put, these are lies. After many attacks on his first article, in which he argued that Gore won all statewide manual recounts, Krugman pulled back in his second column on Monday and tried to distinguish between the statewide recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court, in which Bush won under most of the different counting standards in both consortia studies, and the recounts including overvotes, which no Court had ordered counted, and no candidate had requested be recounted.  On Monday Krugman concluded that had the US Supreme Court not intervened, Bush would have won the statewide recount of the undervote the Florida Supreme Court had ordered in Florida.

Today, Krugman goes back to trying to confuse the statewide recounts with just undervotes, with the statewide recounts with overvotes included. He argues as if there were only one kind of statewide recount conducted by the consortia, when surely he knows better. Nobody — not Bush, not Gore, not any court in Florida — ever requested a recount of the overvote, so who cares what it shows? It enters the realm of the hypothetical — what Hillary Clinton once dismissed with the phrase 'Shoulda, coulda, woulda.' And if one is considering hypotheticals, honesty compels consideration of the Panhandle voters who stayed home when the television networks erroneously reported the polls were closed, when, in fact, they were open for one more hour in the Central Time Zone.
 
For the last time (I hope), here are the facts.

In the statewide recounts including only the undervotes, the recount that sought to see if the US Supreme Court intervention made a difference in the outcome, Bush wins on almost all scenarios in both consortia recounts. In the Miami Herald consortium, which Krugman can not seem to get right, Bush wins on 3 of the 4 recounts, Gore on one. Gore's one win is by just 3 votes. The Miami Herald (not a GOP leaning paper, by any means) argued that a 3 vote margin out of 6 million votes relying on subjective interpretation of its counters is really too close to call. So their result is 3 scenarios for Bush to 0 for Gore, with one indeterminate.

Now look at statewide recounts with overvotes included. The Miami Herald survey gives it to Bush in 2 of 4, and says that those 2 are using the standards most often used for manual recounts in other states. The second consortium gives it to Gore, in each case by under 200 votes, when 2 of 3 of its counters agreed on a disputed vote. But the same survey says that if all 3 counters were required to agree (a higher certainty standard),  Bush wins,and by over 200 votes!

This is all too complex and nuanced for Krugman, obviously, who would rather just say, Gore won, regardless of the facts. The same cavalier attitude enables him to make other 'sophisticated' (phony) arguments that have been thoroughly fisked on Iraq, and the state of the economy, just to name two favorite Krugman subjects.

Bigger questions remain. Did Byron Calame, public editor of the Times, sign—off on this 'correction' which contains further lies? Was he too lazy to read it carefully and check it for accuracy? If so, he has lost whatever credibility he might once have had, and adds no value to the organization. If not, then either he must comment on Krugman's further distortions, or his silence reasonably can be construed as acquiescence to lies.

The New York Times has seen its reputation and credibility erode seriously under the leadership of "Pinch" Sulzberger, its hereditary publisher. The continuous rise of the internet has enabled critics to hyperlink source material proving Krugman's lack of integrity. Krugman simply could not get away with his lies if he were required to post hyperlinks. So Krugman and his backers at the Times hierarchy are in essence flaunting the inadequacies of their publishing format in a manner which will provide ample grist for the critics to demonstrate their obsolescence.

Why is the New York Times still employing a serial liar in its op ed pages? There are only a few answers, and none of them bodes well for the shareholders of the New York Times Company, the newspaper industry (which is virtually ignoring the scandal), or Krugman's reputation.