JOHN LOTT UPDATE….The Washington Post wrote a story about the John Lott/Mary Rosh fiasco yesterday:
Lott said he initially used his own name in online debates with critics. “But you just get into really emotional things with people. You also run into other problems.” So he started using the name Mary Rosh. “I should not have done it, there is no doubt. But it was a way to get information into the debate.”
As it turns out, the Post went pretty easy on Lott, accepting without comment his claim that the “Mary Rosh” review of his book on Amazon was actually written by his 13-year-old son. The article also failed to excerpt some of Mary Rosh’s most embarrassing quotes, but blog readers who want the straight dope can find a complete list here.
Unfortunately, all this attention means that my own chances of interviewing Lott have apparently been seriously compromised. Lott wrote to me last night:
The end of the week I had interviews with the Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, and one other place. More than a few hours were spent on this. I have only done a tiny fraction of what I have to do for the paper that I told you about before. When I get done with the paper, which now may not be before the end of the week, we can talk, but I have to tell you that at this point I feel interviewed out. I also have a hard time believing that there were any questions that you were interested in that weren’t already covered.
Well, he’s definitely wrong about that last sentence, but it doesn’t look like I’ll ever get the chance to prove it. Hopefully somebody with more clout than me will manage to pin him down on the mysteriously vanished 1997 survey some day.
