In a column aptly titled Alice in Housing Land George Will goes through the looking glass.

He explain that there is no housing crisis and therefore legislative measures to help borrowers are not needed. To make his case, Will uses highly selective number and distorted quotes. He writes:

One symptom of the "crisis" is that housing prices have fallen. How far is unclear. Estimates range from 3 percent to 13 percent. Questions arise.

Do young couples struggling to purchase their first homes concur with the sudden consensus that the decline in prices is a national misfortune? The Economist reports: "Monthly payments on a typical house with a 30-year mortgage and 20 peris cent downpayment were 18.5 percent of the median family’s income in February, down from almost 26 percent at the peak — and close to the historical average."

If prices have only fallen 3-13%, how come the share of family income that is needed to pay for a house has decreased by 40% (from 26 to 18.5)?

Will does not explain that. But he points to the usually reliable Economist to support his  hacktacular non-crisis thesis. So let’s check. Here is what the Economist wrote about the percentages Will cites:

America has several house-price indices and they tell different stories. Widely cited, but least useful, are monthly figures showing median home prices produced by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). These indicate that median prices are down some 13% from their peak, but since these averages do not adjust for the mix of homes changing hands, which fluctuates from month to month, they are inevitably distorted.

Mr Bernanke’s maps use figures from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO). Its statistics have broad geographic reach and track repeat sales of the same house. The monthly national index suggests average prices have fallen only 3% from a peak in April 2007, and the quarterly figures are still positive. But OFHEO’s figures include only houses financed by mortgages backed by the government-sponsored giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They leave out the top and bottom of the market—where prices rose fastest during the bubble and where the mortgage mess was most severe. Thus OFHEO’s figures probably understate the scale of the housing mess.

Will has quoted the 3% number, "the least useful" one, and the 13% OFHEO number, which "probably understate the scale of the housing mess".

The number Will does not quote, but which the Economist sees as the most reliable one, is the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller index which shows a decline so far of some 20+%.

Will thus picks from the Economist piece only what he likes while disregarding all its qualifiers and the numbers the Economist evaluated as the best fitting.

His direct quote from the Economist is even more misleading. Here is the paragraph from the Economist with the part Will cites marked in italic:

Optimists point out that some measures of housing affordability have dramatically improved. According to NAR figures, monthly payments on a typical house with a 30-year mortgage and 20% downpayment were 18.5% of the median family’s income in February, down from almost 26% at the peak—and close to the historical average. But this measure is misleading, not least because credit standards have tightened.

Will says "The Economist reports," letting his readers assume that these are original Economist research, where the Economist reported on NAR numbers, know to be notoriously optimistic. He does not mention to his readers that the Economist calls these numbers "misleading".

One can certainly make a case against Congress intervention in the housing market. But using numbers known to be false and distorted out-of-context quotes are not the way to do it.