Somehow it figures that the American Academy of Actuaries would have a highly sophisticated theory of how to hedge political risks.
The academy is the nonprofit, nonpartisan association representing actuaries in Washington, with the emphasis on nonpartisan. Yet if you were a close watcher of the Gore campaign ads attacking the Bush Social Security plan, you might have noticed that they used the academy's logo and featured this claim: "The American Academy of Actuaries looked at [Bush's] plan and concluded it would lead to catastrophic results."
This was a fairly outrageous misrepresentation, as you might imagine, given the sober reputation of actuaries. In fact, the group had issued a report on October 26 criticizing the Social Security and Medicare plans of both camps, and characterizing them as "incomplete" and "potentially misleading."
So you can see the pickle this created for the actuaries. How to defend their nonpartisan honor without seeming to favor the Bush campaign? The actuaries no doubt carefully calibrated the costs and benefits. They issued a statement that read, in part: "We call upon the Gore campaign to stop misusing the American Academy of Actuaries' name and logo in its paid political advertisements. The Academy regrets that the public may have received the erroneous impression from the ads that it supports Vice President Gore's Social Security and Medicare proposals. . . . The characterization of the Academy's analysis by Vice President Gore is erroneous."
A bold rebuke? Not really. It wasn't released until November 7, Election Day. Too late to hurt Gore.