Getting Rich By Being Wrong

by digby

Jebediah Reed has a very entertaining and informative piece in Radar about the elite punditocrisy in which he outlines how wrong they have been — and how rich they are getting in spite of it. And he also takes the time to examine what has happened to those pundits who were right — and have been punished for it. It’s not pretty.

Howie Kurtz meditated on this problem just the other day, admonishing those who wonder why in the hell someone like William Kristol is being offered a presumably well-paid perch at TIME when he not only already has his own magazine, but is also one of the architects of the debacle in Iraq. Howie’s answer was a thinly veiled swipe at the dirty hippies, naturally:

Should they be held accountable? Should they be pressed on whether they now admit they were wrong, and how their thinking has changed since the invasion? Should they not be able to get away with the dodge that they thought Bush would manage the war much better than he did? Yes, yes, and yes.

But should they be hooted off the public stage? Tarred and feathered? Sent to reeducation camp? I don’t think so.

(They always seem to get in the reeducation camp thing, which is funny since it’s the conservatives who are always shipping people off to camps, not us.)

Anyway, Kurtz’s argument would hold more water if anyone actually held Kristol to account for what he said and did but needless to say, nobody will. In fact, he was hired because TIME wanted to feature a roster of “stars” and Billy Kristol is a big star.

(Evidently, the difference between the Hollywood and DC star systems is that Hollywood stars’ salaries go down precipitously when they make a string of flops. In DC you get higher billing and even more money. Nice racket.)

There needs to be some discussion about how to change this incentive structure. It’s hurting the country. It’s one thing for the rightwing noise machine to do this for the sad little wingnut welfare queens like Jonah Goldberg. Their industry is designed to reward being wrong for ideological reasons. The mainstream media, however, has no such rationale. (Or does it?) A nation that rewards those who are wrong and punishes those who are right is doomed.

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