A Lesson In Selective Evidence

This sentence, by the highly esteemed and very serious George Will was published by both the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Tribune-Review this week:

[President Obama] says "the threat of climate change" is apparent in "raging fires," "crippling drought" and "more powerful storms." Are fires raging now more than ever? (There were a third fewer U.S. wildfires in 2012 than in 2006.)

Tamino debunk's Will pretty well:

Here’s a clue for those who want to know the truth of the matter rather than George Will’s “spin.” When you hear a phrase like “a third fewer U.S. wildfires in 2012 than in 2006,” you know you’re being played for a sucker.

And then there's an explanation:

...comparing this year to a single year from the past — and a cherry-picked one at that — is either dishonest, amazingly stupid, or both. You make the call.

According to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), there were 96,385 wildland fires in 2006 but only 67,315 in 2012 (through Dec. 20th). The 2012 count is less by 30.1%, which is close enough to a third, I’ve got no complaint about that.

But them Tamino raises the issue of number of wildfires vs number of acres burned in those wildfires and concludes that it's the number of acres that's important.

Then we're given a chart:

See that dot that's the highest on the chart?  That's 2006.  The last dot on the right is 2012 and the red line is the upward trend of the data.

Notice something?  That last dot looks to be the third highest of all of them.

Are wildfires getting worse or not?  Once you've answered that, go back and look at how Will framed the issue.

From George Will...

From the pages of the Tribune-Review, we have this from the man who predicted 321 electoral votes for Mitt Romney:

The electoral vote system, so incessantly and simple-mindedly criticized, has again performed the invaluable service of enabling federalism — presidents elected by the decisions of the states’ electorates — to deliver a constitutional decisiveness that the popular vote often disguises.

Republicans can take some solace from the popular vote. But unless they respond to accelerating demographic changes — and Obama, by pressing immigration reform, can give Republicans a reef on which they can wreck themselves — the 58th presidential election may be like the 57th, only more so.

He's already making a prediction about the next presidential election.

Now, about that popular vote.  According to CNN, Obama received 60,662,601 votes to Romney's 57,821,399.  This is not counting Florida - where they haven't made results official.  If we add the known votes (4,143,362 for Obama, 4,096,346 for Romney) to the above totals we get 64,805,963 votes for Obama and 61,917,715 for Romney for a total of 126,723,708 votes for the two candidates.

That's 51.14% to Obama and 48.86% to Romney.  That's just over 2.25 percentage point difference - hardly something to cheer about given the state of the economy, unemployment and the the millions in rightwing PAC money (thanks to Citizens United) poured into the race.

But you can't expect much from someone who got the electoral math that wrong.

Now, On That Romney Landslide

A few days ago, The Blaze posted a piece called:

ROMNEY LANDSLIDE: HERE ARE THE BIGGEST NAMES PREDICTING IT & HOW IT WILL HAPPEN

By the way as of this writing, the electoral college stands at 303-206 (Florida and its 29 electoral votes still unassigned) with President Obama winning.  No Romney victory.  No Romney "landslide."

It's one thing to promote your party's candidate by "predicting" a win - but a landslide?  Who are these people?

From The Blaze:

• CNBC's Larry Kudlow predicted 330 electoral votes for Romney
• George Will predicted 321 electoral votes for Romney
• Dick Morris predicted a landslide, though I can't find a specific electoral college count
• Michael Barone predicted 315 electoral votes for Romney
• Glenn Beck predicted 321 electoral votes for Romeny

I do have a question.  If, as these gentlemen have asserted, electoral vote totals of between 315 and 330 constitute a "landslide" and if Florida's 29 electoral votes go to Obama (at this writing he's ahead with 97% of the precincts reporting) what should we then say of President Obama's 332 (303 + 29) electoral votes?

Could we then call it a landslide?

I'm just asking.

McCain Losing ANOTHER??

Check out George Will's column today. He begins:

Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. [emphasis added.]

And then after linking to a piece in the Wall Street Journal that calls McCain "untethered," Will goes on and writes:

n any case, McCain's smear -- that Cox "betrayed the public's trust" -- is a harbinger of a McCain presidency.

See McCain unfairly smeared Chris Cox. The WSJ and George Will said so. Will ends this way:

Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of [McCain's] impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?

You got a problem with that? Take it up with George Will, conservative columnsist.