The most annoying aspect of this expose is that the 98% figure is incidental to Lott's work. The article makes it appear that Lott is lying about data that is fundamental to his conclusions by comparing him to Bellesiles, who invented virtually all of his data. Lott's contribution to the case for guns was to show that guns reduce crime by examining crime statistics for every county in the US over a substantial period of time. The writer never mentions that this is the core of Lott's research and that he has no difficulty supporting his conclusions.
It angers me that Lott would damage his reputation (and therefore his research) with something so trivial as lying about a survey that is not necessary for his core conclusions and posting fake reviews on his work.
For me, the most annoying aspect of this is that this phoney claim was made and debunked during the course of a couple of weeks early January, all on mail lists and the blogosphere.
Slate chose to run with a non-issue, just to smear professor Lott -- why? Well, it turns out that Lott has a new book scheduled for publication in March -- I wonder if there's any attempt among some 'objective' journalists to rain on that particular parade, hmm?
There's more on the genesis of this sorry mess here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/search?m=any&o=time&s=%22gunning%20for%22
In particular, look at Washintonian's post at no. 22, giving Lott's response.