Skip to main content
ABC News
National Review solves Fermat’s Last Theorem

Let’s say there’s a football game between the Bears and the Giants. The linescore reads as follows:

Team        1st      2nd      3rd      4th
Bears 0 6 14 7
Giants 3 7 0 10

Which team won? Well, the thing most of us would do is to add the score from the four quarters together, which yields Bears 27, Giants 20. Rex Grossman must have had a good day and thrown only two interceptions.

But Byron York of the National Review would declare the Giants the winner. Why? Although losing the game, the Giants won more quarters. And as we all know, that’s the way any good, red-blooded American scores a football game.

Yes, he really did make this argument about Hillary Clinton and the primaries:

There have been four quarters in the Democratic presidential nomination battle. We’re late in the fourth quarter now, and when it’s over, Hillary Clinton will likely have won three of the quarters — and won the most votes overall — but lost the game.

Mr. York? Mr. York? There’s a Mr. Wolfson for you on line four.

Nate Silver founded and was the editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight.

Comments