Grasping Reality on TypePad, by Brad DeLong
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Ten Years and Four Days Ago at Grasping Reality: July 27, 2007

Four Worth Hoisting and Highlighting:

  • Negative: Michael Kinsley's admission that he is a no-trick pony: Michael Kinsley: Review of Christopher Hitchens http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/books/review/Kinsley-t.html: "A statement that contradicts everything you have ever said before is considered for that reason to be especially sincere, courageous and dependable. At The New Republic in the 1980s, when I was the editor, we used to joke about changing our name to 'Even the Liberal New Republic', because that was how we were referred to whenever we took a conservative position on something, which was often. Then came the day when we took a liberal position on something and we were referred to as 'Even the Conservative New Republic'. As this example illustrates, among writers about politics, the surprise technique usually means starting left and turning right. Trouble is, you do this once and what’s your next party trick?..."

  • Positive: Mark Thoma: Questions for Prominent Economists http://economistsview.blogspot.com/2007/09/questions-for-prominent-economists.html: "Greg Mankiw and George Borjas caught my attention, so I want to make sure I understand what they are saying. First, Greg Mankiw says... 'A prominent Harvard economist emails me to recommend David Brooks's column from a few days ago. He calls it "truly fantastic and obviously correct."' With such a strong recommendation from a colleague, I... read Brooks....[T]he Brooks piece is well worth reading... far more informed by cutting-edge economic research than most things you find on the op-ed pages.'...
     
    "If Greg is going to claim the authority of a 'prominent economist' as standing behind this, he should tell us who that person is.... My question is whether Greg (and 'prominent economist') stand behind all the claims in Brooks article (see here for a list of posts questioning the claims)? If not... could you please give us more guidance?... There are implications that can be drawn from Brooks's column, e.g. that low-income people are generally lazier than higher income, well-educated people... so it would be helpful to have positions on this and other points Brooks makes clarified....
     
    "And I was a little bit surprised to find out that George Borjas believes that: 'No matter how disappointed one is with the Bush administration, all it takes is a little googling of John Kerry's latest nonsense to appreciate that things could be worse.' This statement is made in the context of the minimum wage, so if the statement is not intended to be broader than policies surrounding the minimum wage, I'm less surprised. But if it is intended as a broader comment, then I have to strongly disagree. Iraq alone is enough to convince me, and that's just the beginning of the missteps..."

  • Negative: Peter Beinart (2003): Paul Krugman Should Sit Down and Stay in His Proper Chair http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/an-historical-d.html: "To make his case, Krugman has to do more than merely dissect the administration's policies; he has to explain its motives and culture. And here Krugman's unconventional background becomes a liability. He criticizes Washington reporters for being prisoners of their sources, and the dinner-party-going 'commentariat' for succumbing to groupthink. But guest lists that cross ideological lines can help liberals understand the conservatives they write about....
     
    "Krugman's assumptions about the administration's motives are most problematic on foreign policy. He understands the Iraq war by analogy to the Bush tax cuts, as if rewarding corporate friends with military contracts via the Carlyle Group was a driving force behind the decision to depose Saddam Hussein.... [H]e dismisses suggestions that President Bush's aggressive foreign policy was a genuine reaction to Sept. 11, writing that 'we knew there were people out there who wanted to hurt us; it wasn't that much of a surprise when they finally scored a hit'.... Most Americans do not consider the Bush administration corrupt, and Paul Krugman cannot convincingly prove it is. He should stick to what he does so well: simply proving, on issue after issue, that the Bush administration is wrong."

  • Positive: Ezra Klein: Secret Media Manuals (Can't Follow the Action Without a Program!) http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2007/07/secret-media-ma.html: "Writing the previous post, I got to thinking about how many 'media reading rules' there are in Washington... which most people don't know. Rules like 'Don't take anything written by Marty Peretz, or someone who sounds like Marty Peretz, seriously, as the magazine tacitly disowns it', or 'The Wall Street Journal editorial page is full of shit'. Suggestions like 'read oddly obtuse David Ignatius columns particularly closely because they generally are revealing the thinking of highly-ranked Bush administration sources', and 'while a lot of people think Thomas Friedman is a little silly, he is unquestionably the most closely read foreign policy journalist among politicians, and so his trajectory is actually quite important'. There are dozens more, though I'd need to sit down and think about it for awhile. It would be cool to put together a collection of such tidbits, though: 'A Reader's Guide to the Beltway Press', or something. For now, add to my list in comments:
     
    "The political/family/romantic connections.... Like when Robert Kagan gushes excitedly about the 'surge' and Fred Hiatt just expects you to know that his brother came up with the damn plan..." – Glenn....
     
    "We're making a huge error if we assume anything but a small proportion of WSJ subscribers know the ed pages are laughable and broadly known to be mendacious..." – Ezra....
     
    "This would obviously have come in handy for, say, the NY Times WMD pieces by Judith Miller. People could have just looked ol' Judy up in their field guide to reporters and realized where she lies.... If you want my rule, how about this: 'Don't be fooled by the paper's goofy name; The Christian Science Monitor actually has some of the very best foreign policy reporting in the US'..." – Jerry Medium....
     
    "The real value added to news about, say, national security policy by commentary from people like Josh Marshall and Laura Rosen is that they know the rules that guide reporting on that stuff. It's from reading blogs like theirs that I've learned.... Before I read those blogs, I didn't know how to pick a piece apart to see its meta-story.... There's something awfully screwy with print journalism, if you need a powerful hermaneutic to understand what's going on in a story..." – Scott E....
     
    "I think the most important overriding gloss... is that there is an incredibly cozy relationship between the press and those upon whom they report (stilted but grammatical)and the notion of an adverserial press, particularly on the Op-Ed pages is a quaint one..." – Klein's Tiny Left Nut....
     
    "The Washington press corps... are far more likely to quote you if you insist that your comments are 'off the record' than if they are 'on the record'... as a matter of intellectual property. Reporters assume that anything on the record is so widely available as to be worthless.... Second... the reporter can made it seem as if he has a high-level souce instead of some low-level schmo passing on gossip of dubious quality..." – Bruce Bartlett
     
    "How about this one: remember when Joe Klein wrote in a column excoriating bloggers that 'everyone knows' when a member of congress says they're going to vote a certain way in the future it's OK to put it in the past tense that they did vote this way? (Yes, he actually said that)..." – Rick Perlstein....
     
    "John Solomon of the Washington Post has a long and distinguished track record of being a dupe for republishing whatever oppo research is handed to him by campaign operatives. Judy Miller was always desperate to view herself as an 'International-Woman-of-Mystery' which led her to be taken in by the claims of Iraqi exiles and military spokesmen shilling claims of the administration because the fact that they spoke to her validated her view of herself. The 'inside story' of these reporters really does provide insight into their stories and the sorts of stories they publish..." – Tyro

The Full List:

July 31, 2017 at 09:45 in #hoistedfromthearchives, Streams: Cycle | | Comments (1)

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