A dude named Eric McGhee who runs a blog called “The Monkey Cage” is running a piece called “Did Controversial Roll Call Votes Doom the Democrats?” McGhee analyses the impact of votes on four “controversial” bills—health care reform, the economic stimulus, cap and trade, and TARP*—on the fortunes of congressional Democrats in the recent election. After quite a bit of heavy lifting, he comes to the less than awesome conclusion that “On balance, I don’t think we can say these four big items definitively cost Democrats the majority. But it seems safe to say that they had a big negative effect on Democratic performance, and they certainly didn’t help.”
Well, if I couldn’t do better myself, I don’t think I’d be blogging. But look what Megan McArdle, business and economics editor for The Atlantic, does with McGhee’s piece, in an entry she’s titled “Health Care Votes Hurt Democrats”:
“How much did health care matter in Tuesday’s results? A lot, argues Eric McGhee; in fact, it may have helped cost Democrats control of the House.”
Yes, McGhee wrote about four bills, but McArdle somehow thinks he’s only talking about one. And she also believes that “matter a lot” and “may have helped” are logical equivalencies. If something “may have helped,” that implies that it “may not have helped”—which is pretty much the opposite of “matter a lot.” “It may or may not rain today” does not provide much information, but it can provide a hook for a blog entry, particularly if your readers can’t, you know, read.
