And I’m not so sure about the other 3 percent, either. It is amazing to behold how liberals will grab hold of the flimsiest statistic so long as it bolsters The Narrative, no matter how easily and convincingly the figure is debunked. These days, the favorite liberal numbers are 1 in 5, 97 percent, and 77 percent.

If you keep up, you’ll recognize them immediately, of course: 1 in 5 women are raped in college; 97 percent of all scientists agree about human-caused climate doom, and women only earn 77 cents on the dollar compared to men’s earnings.

John has already noted how the “1 in 5” rape claim has been debunked by the Obama Justice Department (the real number is six tenths of one percent). Anthony Watts dispatches the “97 percent” canard with a list of 97 articles (including one of ours) debunking this go-to climatista chant. And the 77 cents on the dollar theme has been debunked so many times that one hardly knows where to start (though here’s Hannah Rosin at Slate, and Mark Perry and Andrew Biggs in the Wall Street Journal). Though I always like to point out that if it was literally true that you could pay a woman 23 percent less than a man for the same job, employers would rush to hire women because of the immediate boost to the profit margin it would confer. Employers must really be stupid to be overlooking this easy opportunity! But then liberals are usually as challenged by economic logic as they are by serious treatment of statistics.

This kind of liberal credulity has a long history, and who can forget this syndicated column from 1993:

IF YOU watch NBC’s Super Bowl broadcast closely, amid the clutter of ads hawking Gillette razors, Nike sneakers and the like, you’ll see one that isn’t selling anything. It’s a public-service spot, with a simple message, aimed at men: Beating your wife or girlfriend is a crime. The ad should offer some solace to those who run shelters for battered women. Assuming they’re not too busy to see it. Super Bowl Sunday is, after all, their worst day of the year. For too many households, the violence of football’s most-watched game spills from the gridiron into the home. The Super Bowl brings together many activities that can “trigger” a man predisposed to battering: intense viewing of sanctioned violence, heavy drinking, betting. Women’s shelters report big increases in calls for help on Super Bowl day. This year, some shelters may double their staff to prepare for the influx.

Some “women’s advocacy organizations” went as far as to recommend that women absent themselves from watching the Super Bowl with their husbands because they were unsafe.

Only problem was—it wasn’t even remotely true:

The claim at a Pasadena, Calif., press conference ahead of the 1993 Super Bowl was backed by groups such as the California Women’s Law Center and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, setting off a raftof fearful news headlines and airtime on Good Morning America. It wasn’t until a Washington Post reporter interviewed experts about the claim that the truth emerged: The claim was bogus. Even the Old Dominion University researchers whose work was cited as support for the connection said it was wrong. [Snopes.com has a good roundup on this debacle as well.]

But guess what? Liberals are still repeating this canard, in 2014, as caught by the Politifact folks:

Way to go Mika; that’s really keeping up with things.