Unfinished Business re Megan McArdle

I wrote, on May 13, 2008:

Will David Card and Alan Krueger Be Amused?: Megan McArdle writes:

Megan McArdle: So if the only support for your positions [on the minimum wage] comes from movement think tanks (plus maybe a few marginal academics), your position is probably extremely weak...

Megan McArdle commented...

It's amazing how much stupider I sound when you insert words I didn't say.

What Megan McArdle had written that I was commenting on:

More on think tanks: I like think tanks.... When they turn to fighting outsiders over, say, the minimum wage, the quality of their work sharply degrades. They have limited ability to change their policy position, because the donors will revolt; if they can't get an answer the donors will like, they don't ask the questions. They also only hire scholars who agree with them. That already biases their work, but then you have to contend with the groupthink problem: when everyone at the office agrees with you that your opponents are idiots, and you socialize mostly with other people in the movement, your thinking gets a tad lazy.

So if the only support for your positions comes from movement think tanks (plus maybe a few marginal academics), your position is probably extremely weak...

The words "minimum wage" come from the preceding paragraph she had written. The minimum wage is the sole issue area she gives as an example of positions for which "support... comes from movement think tanks (plus maybe a few marginal academics."

Her claim that she "did not say" "minimum wage" in this context is simply false.

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?