Five Best Wednesday Columns - Eric Randall via The Atlantic Wire

Dana Milbank does the unimaginable: goes back and checks all prognostications.

Eric Randall, Five Best Wednesday Columns via The Atlantic Wire

Dana Milbank in The Washington Post on political punditry In 2011, while speaking on television, Dana Milbank predicted Rick Perry would perform well in debates, Newt Gingrich’s campaign was finished, and Michele Bachmann was a “formidable” candidate. “The luxury of being a prognosticator is never having to say you were wrong … This year, though, I decided to hold myself to account by going through every transcript of my TV appearances, and several recordings, to score my forecasts. It is not an exercise I’d recommend for pundits with fragile ­self-esteem.” Milbank says the exercise taught him that it’s easier to make accurate predictions about broader trends than to react to a single news event. (He also adds that he predicted many things correctly, and tended to be more accurate in his newspaper column than on television.) He still believes, for instance, that Mitt Romney will win the Republican nomination because the party has so often settled on the conventional front-runner after sorting through all its other options. “Probably the most useful bit of TV commentary I did in 2011 was to remind viewers how little I know.”

Independent of political pundits, all commentators should periodically review predictions, and see what their batting average is.