Doctoring facts for self-interest and agenda-furthering

It's a small issue, but just the sort of thing that the right has been getting away with for decades now-- prime examples being the Limbaughs and O'Reillys of the right-wing machine. It goes something like this:

You have an objective. You need to convince people that they want it, too. Unfortunately, the facts don't support the argument that would convince people. Do you admit that your argument doesn't stand and look for another approach? Nope. You make shit up.

Our story so far: Diane Ravitch wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week in which she bemoaned the "dumbing down" of math textbooks. As an example, she noted that the index for the letter "F" in a classic 1973 algebra textbook included topics such as factoring and functions, while the index for a newer text listed subjects like football and ferris wheels.

An emailer wrote to tell me this was wrong: the text in question has two indexes, and the topic index includes entries for functions, formulas, fractional exponents, and all the other usual topics of introductory algebra. Quoting the context index was just a bit of agit-prop designed to mislead readers about the content of the book.

Long story short-- she was full of it (but pled ignorance), and the e-mailer had it exactly right. Her argument was that she got her info from a book. That book was published by the right-wing Hoover Institution, and did include the misleading information. I don't expect Paul Gigot to issue a correction. Or the right to stop repeating this line as long as it suits their agenda.