What if there are others?

By now I expect most of you have heard about the affair of John "More Guns, Less Crime" Lott and his missing survey and bogus statistics. Were it not for the revelation that Lott has posted defenses of himself under an assumed name in various fora, even going so far as to post a glowing review of his own book as his alter ego/sock puppet "Mary Rosh", I'd chalk the whole thing up as just another case study of academic fraud. The Mary Rosh thing brings in a whole new level of absurdity, the sort of thing that you'd immediately dismiss as ridiculous in any other context.

But now that we know it can and has been done, I have to wonder: Do you think any other writer with credibility issues has been doing the same thing but just hasn't been caught at it yet? The mind reels at the possibilities...

posted by Hairy Tush Reading Ann Coulter's Slander has totally changed my life! I used to be a pathetic America-hating liberal who took his marching orders directly from Dan Rather and Hillary Clinton, but now that Ann Coulter has opened my eyes I won't be fooled again. Her writing is crisp and unassailable, and anyone who doesn't agree with her should be shot as an example to the others.

Oh, and for those who'd say that Ann has a bony ass, I recently had the opportunity to feel it for myself, and I can assure you that not only is it squeezably soft, it's irresistable. So there!

Wait, here's another one:

posted by Terry Posh When Mickey Kaus writes that welfare reform is the most important issue facing American today, I can say from personal experience that he's totally correct. I used to be on welfare, and for the entire time that I was receiving government checks I had no self esteem and actually blamed the government for my sorry state of mind. But once they passed that beautiful, life-altering, far-sighted welfare reform bill, I got off my lazy ass and found a job, and now I live in the suburbs and send my kids to private school. And I don't have any icky terroristic urges any more!

PS - I don't know why so many people make fun of Mickey's baldheadedness. Don't you know that it's testosterone that turns a bushy haired man into a chrome dome? (ed. They do now!)

Help me out here, people. I know they're out there.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on January 30, 2003 to General snarkiness | TrackBack