Franken-Lies-And-the-Lying-Liars-Who-Tell

24
Paul Gigot Is Unable to Defend an Incredibly Stupid
Wall Street Journal Editorial
Sometimes you read something so stupid it just takes your breath away. You can't quite believe
that someone actually wrote what's on the page. The effect is heightened when the
source is, if not necessarily reliable, at least literate and usually capable of masking its distortions
beneath a patina of institutional credibility borrowed from its news division.
On February 3, 2003, the Wall Street journal wrote an editorial so startlingly dumb
that it may, in fact, be the single most idiotic piece of writing my fourteen Harvard research
assistants found during their many, many hours of labor. (With the obvious exception of the
entire Hannity book.)
Now, I don't want to bore you with the entire editorial. It starts reasonably enough,
praising Attorney General Ashcroft for putting criminals who use guns while committing
crimes behind bars. Their point, I gather, is that it's better to enforce gun laws than not to enforce
them. Kudos.
Then the editorial makes one slightly stupid point, as if to foreshadow the tsunami of
stupidity that is to come. It cites increased prosecutions of federal gun crimes as evidence of
Ashcroft's effectiveness against crime. The problem with this point is that prosecutions tend
to go up whenever crime rates go up. Which started happening the moment Bush took office.
But this is just standard Wall Street Journal distortion. It's in the next paragraph of
their editorial that things really get weird. The Journal charges that the Clinton administration
"spent its time devising new ways to keep average citizens from getting guns, while leaving
bad guys on the street." In other words, Clinton's crime policies, especially on gun violence,
failed-and Ashcroft's were working. To clinch their case, they cite a statistic that they
claim is an indictment of Clinton's approach and "a vindication for Mr. Ashcroft." Are you
ready for Mr. Dumb? Here he comes!
"In reality," the Journal writes, "gun violence has declined from 12% of violent crime
in 1993 to 9% in the most recent justice statistics. Any gun control advocates out there care to
apologize?"