Bastardization of the word pandit/pundit

The word pundit in the American lexicon comes from Sanskrit word pandit. Pandit, in Sanskrit, means an scholar, teacher, and expert. The word ostensibly has the same meaning in the US but in fact means something close to someone who opines a lot without any correlation to expertise. 

In 2012 and 2013, as Bashar al-Assad was terrorizing his own country, John McCain lead the rhetorical charge to arm the Syrian rebels, consistent with his philosophy of fight first, ask questions later. Now we know that one of the rebel groups was ISIS, one of the most evil groups in the world today. In fact, McCain went to visit some Syrian rebels in 2013, who turned out to be part of ISIS. Imagine if he we had followed his advice and armed some rebels, which no doubt would have led to arms to ISIS. What tremendously horrible advice from a supposed "pundit." Being wrong though is not a pass time for John McCain, it is his passion. He is wrong about almost everything he has uttered in the last decade and these are not small matters to be wrong about. For example, in addition to the horribly bad advice on arming Syrian rebels, John McCain was wrong about Iraq in pretty much every way that someone can be wrong about foreign policy. 

Being wrong over and over and over again and not have any shame; that can happen in extremely old age and in fact, if your uncle John was even half as wrong as Senator McCain, you would chalk it up to senility. But McCain is the politician most often brought on Sunday morning talk shows as a "pundit." What is the excuse of the media? Where is the accountability? Why is there least accountability for those who preach accountability for others? Shouldn't being wrong so often and so catastrophically have consequences?

While McCain is too easy a target, he is not the only one who is wrong so often and yet gets valuable space on tv, newsprint to opine as a "pundit." For example, numerous economists and policy makers have been wrong a lot. Michael Boskin of Stanford University has been embarrassingly wrong on numerous economic topics. Others like Charles Prosser and Marty Feldstein, among others, have been wrong over and over again about inflation. And yet they continue to write their next round of opeds in the WSJ predicting that inflation is just around the corner this time. Maybe it will be on what basis do they have any credibility? We know that politicians have no concern for being consistently wrong but it is troubling when academics and policy makers have lost that sense of shame too.

I think we should stop bastardizing the word pundit. We already have a word to describe these charlatans - "derps."