Earlier I commented on Lott's op-ed where claimed that Albuquerque and O'Hanlon got the Baghdad murder rate wrong. In an update on his blog, Lott writes:
Update: Michael O'Hanlon, a co-author of one of the articles that I commented on in my Investors' Business Daily piece, was helpful in getting to the bottom of these claims. First, he responded quickly and was not defensive when I asked him for his sources on the Baghdad murder rate. Second, in an e-mail he told me that he had himself tried to contact the Defense Department to obtain their estimates on the number of murders in Baghdad. Unfortunately, as often occurs with bureaucracies, they did not get him the information that he requested. In a recent e-mail exchange that I had with him he indicated: "you were more successful, and I commend you for that."
Gee, that sure sounds like O'Hanlon accepted Lott's figures doesn't it? I contacted O'Hanlon to check, and sure enough, Lott's selective quotes give a misleading impression. O'Hanlon's position is that Lott was more successful at getting bad data. He asked Lott to remove the misleading quotes from his blog. Lott has not done so. (And no, it's not because he's been on vacation---Lott has updated his blog since the request was made.)