Definition of Punditry

Juan Cole offers the best definition of political punditry I've ever seen:

Jebediah Reed at Radar Magazine makes the point that pundits who were wrong about the Iraq War have been well rewarded, whereas those like Bob Scheer and others who warned about its dangers have been fired or marginalized even though they were right.

This is because punditry is not about being right or wrong or exhibiting good judgment. It is about producing and reproducing elite American political discourse for the masses. It is more important that they can continue to justify changing elite policy than that they supported past policies that didn't work out very well.