Grasping Reality on TypePad, by Brad DeLong

One on the then-nadirs of American governance and press coverage: the Libby Pardon:

• Marcy Wheeler on the Libby Pardon: Just Another Obstruction of Justice http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/marcy-wheeler-o.html: The balance of the probabilities is that Scooter Libby perjured himself and obstructed justice because he knew things about Cheney that were deeply embarrassing and discrediting, and because he believed that Patrick Fitzgerald was a special prosector like Kenneth Starr--one who believed that the core of his job was to leak as many grand jury secrets as he could as long as they were discreditable to the president's party. Thus Libby thought that perjury was the better part of valor given that he needed to protect his boss from the discreditable and embarrassing possibility that people would learn how he behaved. There is also the possibility that Scooter Libby perjured himself because for him to testify truthfully would have led to the impeachment and removal from office of Cheney and Bush. Now we will never know which...

• Jimmy Madison Is Shrill! http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/jimmy-madison-i.html: "In the [Constitutional] convention George Mason argued that the President might use his pardoning power to 'pardon crimes which were advised by himself' or, before indictment or conviction, 'to stop inquiry and prevent detection'. James Madison responded: '[I]f the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds [to] believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty...'"

• Jared Bernstein and I Cannot Credit Greg Mankiw http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/jared-bernstein.html: Greg Mankiw blathers on about the long-run supply-side benefits of the 2003 Bush tax cuts made in some alternate universe by some alternate Bush who was serious about spending restraint. He is oblivious to the reality in which we live—a reality in which the 2003 Bush "tax cuts" were not tax cuts at all, but only destructive tax shifts...

Les trahison des clercs:

• Max Sawicky on the Dilemmas of Economists in High Government Office http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/max-sawicky-on-.html: "Professor N. Gregory Mankiw takes umbrage at the implication from some 'bigshot at the left-wing thinktank Economic Policy Institute' (that would be labor market genius Jared Bernstein) that he is 'a hypocrite'.... When you take a political appointment, you can't protest when you are accused of having been political. Political service can be an honorable pastime. The bigger source of embarrassment here is the disjunct between Mankiw the academic ace and Bush the economic nitwit, between the standards of professional work in academia and the intellectual corruption of really-existing Bush economic policy..."

Our press corps was very bad then. It has not improved since:

• Matthew Yglesias Gets Medieval on Fred Hiatt (Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?) http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/matthew-yglesia.html: Matthew Yglesias watches notable skank Fred Hiatt turn into a concern troll, as he worries that Bush's "valuable strands of policy" may wind up "strewn in the wreckage" as the "Bush presidency implodes." Yglesias leads Hiatt to the clue train: The policies that were Bush's weren't valuable. The policies that were valuable weren't Bushes--they were either implemented by others or they never got implemented, being for the Bushies at most boob bait for the bubbas who populate the Washington Post editorial board...

• Dan Froomkin Peers Inside Bush's Head http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/dan-froomkin-pe.html: "DailyKos blogger LithiumCola marvels at the fact that in [Peter Baker's] entire story, 'there is no hint of the influence or even presence of one Richard B. Cheney. It's as though [Jo] Becker and [Barton] Gellman's four-day series on the Vice President's pervasive influence, just last week in this same Washington Post, never happened'..."

• Time on George W. Bush, November 6, 2000 http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/time-on-george-.html: What the Time team of Karen Tumulty and Jay Carney told us about George W. Bush on the eve of the 2000 election, after they had been watching him closely for a year and a half.... Note that the article contains no slam at Bush that is the equivalent of the article's slams at Clinton and Gore--the "chaotic, shapeless operation [the Clinton administration] was in its first year" and the "candidate [Gore] who reinvents his campaign as often as he changes his wardrobe." And the overall thrust of the article turned out to be very false indeed...

And the rest:

• Tom Slee: Happy Feet http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/tom-slee-happy-.html: information blockages and consumer sovereignty...

• Twenty Two Links for 2007-07-06 http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/links-for-200-4.html: including: (1) Scarecrow: Michael Kinsley's Logic https://shadowproof.com/2007/07/05/michael-kinsleys-logic/: "Shorter Michael Kinsley: 'Scooter Libby should never have been prosecuted, let alone convicted, because he was the victim of an unfair "perjury trap", just as Bill Clinton was. You see, poor Scooter was put in this unfair position where if he told the truth, he and/or Dick Cheney, Rove, et al might have been indicted for outing a covert agent, and if he refused to tell the truth, he could be indicted for perjury and obstruction. How unfair to be put in such a position...'" And (2) Ursula K. LeGuin: Ansible 240 http://news.ansible.uk/a240.html#leguin: "The monster laid its squamous hand on her, and the ring branded her like a burning coal. Genre breathed its corpse-breath in her face, and she was lost. She was defiled. She might as well be dead. She would never, ever get invited to write for Granta now..."

• Testosterone-Crazed Devil Apes Play the Ultimatum Game! http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/testosterone-cr.html

• Bryan Caplan Has a Vision of the New Jerusalem http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/bryan-caplan-ha.html: It looks something like Tyson's Corner...

• Richard Baldwin Praises the Economists of Italy http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/richard-baldwin.html

• Virginia Postrel Thinks the Aspen Institute Needs More Economists! http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/virginia-postre.html: Our tribe—a tribe which, as Louis Menand says, "engages with the views of non-economists in the way a bulldozer would engage with a picket fence if a bulldozer could express glee"...

• Ron Suskind and the Washington Post http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/ron-suskind-and.html: Joel Achenbach laments that the Outlook editors took his references to Ron Suskind and left them on the cutting room floor...

• Why Is the Washington Post Still Printing? http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/why-is-the-wash.html: Here's Steve Benen watching the atrocity: "The Washington Monthly: [John] Solomon goes into considerable detail, documenting how often Torrenueva has cut Edwards' hair, how much the various cuts cost, when the cuts started, when the cuts ended, how the two men met, what they have in common, and how Torrenueva feels about the 'controversy'. I was particularly struck by Solomon's contention that the story about Edwards' hair is 'some kind of commentary on the state of American politics'. Solomon passively laments that this has 'attracted as much attention as, say, his position on health care'. He seems oblivious to the irony..."

• What Is the China Policy of "Team Bush"? http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/what-is-the-chi.html

• Six Links for 2007-07-05 http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/links-for-200-3.html

• Twelve Links for 2007-07-04 http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/links-for-200-2.html

• A Word of Advice to Franklin Foer... http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/a-word-of-advic.html: If he wants to have a magazine to edit, the phrase "Peter Beinart & Jonah Goldberg" should never appear on its home page...

• Matthew Yglesias: Why Did Scooter Lie? http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/matthew-ygles-1.html: "Most of Libby's defenders—George W. Bush, David Brooks, etc.—don't seem to be denying that Libby committed a crime by lying under oath to investigators. They want us to say that, rather, he deserves to be treated very leniently because there was no big deal here. The alleged absence of an underlying crime is key to that theory. The converse theory is that there was an underlying crime and the crime can't be proven because Libby lied to investigators. If that theory is wrong—if there really was no crime—then it seems we ought to get some kind of explanation from Libby as to why he lied..."

• The Fault, Dear Brutus, Is Not in the Constitution, But in Ourselves http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/the-fault-dear-.html: The problem is not in the Pardoning Power. The problem is that there are not sixteen Republican senators willing to vote that obstructing justice by misuse of the Pardon Power is a High Crime warranting impeachment and removal from office...

• Tyler Cowen Fears the Virginia Department of Transportation http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/tyler-cowen-fea.html: "In the mid-1990s Tyson's Corner was already a kind of "lasciate ogni speranza" place. I cannot imagine what it is like now—or what it will be like in the future..."

• R.I.P. Jim Capozzola http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/rip-jim-capozzo.html: The consensus is that his best piece of work is Al Gore and the Alpha Girls...

• Nine Links for 2007-07-03 http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/links-for-200-1.html

• Jeff Lomonaco, Please Report to the Department of Pre-Crime http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/jeff-lomonaco-p.html

• Scooter Libby Pardoned! http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/scooter-libby-p.html

• Lev Grossman: I Take the iPhone Home http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/lev-grossman-i-.html

• Apple Blew Out iPhone Estimates http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/apple-blew-out-.html

• China's Growing Export Surplus http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/chinas-growing-.html

• Legal Realism Meets Its Limits... http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/legal-realism-m.html: Judge Sentelle... after all, was the judge how thought the hyperpartisan wingnut Kenneth Starr who had at least five right-wing reporters on speed-dial to leak to was an appropriate choice for special prosecutor...

• Impeach George W. Bush Now http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/impeach-george-.html: "The WaPo is hosting a Presidential pity party this morning.... How, exactly, can you learn from the study of history when you refuse to apply history’s lessons to yourself?..." http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/impeach-george-.html

• Today's Health Care Ration-by-Hassle Moment: Lamorinda Pediatrics http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/todays-health-c.html

• How the U.S. Has Kept the Productivity Playing Field Tilted to Its Advantage: Austan Goolsbee Channels John van Reenen http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/how-the-us-has-.html

• Seven Links for 2007-07-02 http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/links-for-2007-.html

• Glenn Fleishman Likes His iPhone http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/glenn-fleishman.html