Everybody makes mistakes in this business of journalism and commentary. It’s inevitable if you’ve spent enough time in the game -- if you talk or write for a living, eventually you’ll botch a fact, speak too loosely off the cuff, make casual assumptions without doublechecking, etc. Why, just the other day, I myself misidentified Brad Lander as the deputy mayor of New York City in a piece, and had to fight the impulse to fall on the nearest convenient katana.

So I can forgive a factual fumble every now and then. But there is a difference between that and whatever the ...

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