The pentagon last week caved in to Democratic criticism and pulled the plug on a program called the Policy Analysis Market. It also pulled the plug on retired Adm. John Poindexter, who ran the program. The market would have allowed traders to speculate in an artificial market on economic and political events in the Middle East, including assassinations and terrorist attacks. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) called the program “repugnant” and “morally wrong.” Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) described it as useless, offensive, and “unbelievably stupid,” and the New York Times piled on with an editorial calling on the Pentagon to fire Poindexter. There is a minor problem with all their declarations about the Policy Analysis Market: It just might have been the most accurate predictor of terrorist activity available to us in the war against radical Islamists. Instead of asserting the all-too-familiar orthodoxy of both Washington and New York, the capitals of politically correct-inspired conformity, Wyden, Dorgan, and the editors of the New York Times might have asked how useful a tool the market could have been in the war on terror.Full Story
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