The Department of Blowhard Regulation

The Atlantic's Joshua Green has a novel idea: let's regulate the blowhard pundits. There should be punishment, Green argues -- public shaming at the least, but possibly also rescinded invitations from media outlets, and lost jobs -- for people whose business it is to render opinion on world affairs and public policy but who repeatedly get things wrong: "Not just off-by-a-few-degrees wrong, but invading-Iraq-is-a-good-idea wrong. 'Dow 36,000' wrong."

"And what are the consequences?" Green asks. "There are none at all! You can blow the biggest questions of the day, time after time, and still claim to be a discerning seer."

Green would like to see some reputable foundation or publication (or "The Daily Show," which frankly kind of already does this) keep tabs on pundits' predictions. When the chin-strokers rack up too many misses, Green says, perhaps their employers should treat them the way Gawker treats its most witless commenters. The New York media-and-gossip site subjects these tedious souls to a very public virtual "execution," outlining their sins and forbidding them to ever comment again. Should something similar be done to people who were hyping the housing market in '07?

There's some dramatic irony in Green's item, a fact of which he shows at least partial awareness. Before "Dow 36,000" was a book, for example, it was an Atlantic article! (Green links to it.) What's more, two of the magazine's biggest hires of recent years, Andrew Sullivan and Jeffrey Goldberg, were among the most vociferous of the journalists making the case for marching on Baghdad. (Green lets that bit of awkwardness slide.)

Indeed, I learned of Green's article when I navigated to Sullivan's Atlantic-affiliated blog and a message flashed on my screen saying that pundits who make too many mistakes ought to face consequences. I thought someone had hacked The Daily Dish. In fact, it was just the Atlantic touting Green's article. Awkward …