When Punditry Goes Wrong

About ten days before the election Salon anointed "The punditocracy's Seven Biggest Blunders of the 2008 election," specifically of the last two months or so of the campaign. For me the problem is not when pundits are wrong -- that goes with the territory. It is the utter certainty in which they couch their assertions and the way in which that wrongness is never held to account. Indeed, bluster becomes so important in climbing the ranks of the pundit elite that being right or reasonable is far less important than making a name for being assertive. Bill Kristol (as just one example among many) has been so wrong on so much over the last few years, and yet seemingly every burst of idiocy pays off for him with a higher-profile gig.