Republicans purge every thinker who was correct. Republican economists who were right about 2007-2012 are now, as best as I can see, all ex-Republican economists. And the same dynamic has long been working in the national security space: Gene Healy (2015): Think Tanks and the Iraq War: "It would be even better if the GOP’s 2016 contenders weren’t still, 12 years later, so eager to seek foreign policy advice from people who got the Iraq War Question spectacularly wrong...
...You might suspect that there’s just no accountability for GOP foreign policy advisers; but that isn’t so. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that “Elbridge Colby, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, was being seriously considered for a job as foreign policy director in Mr. Bush’s expanding organization, [but] according to a person familiar with the campaign’s internal deliberations, Mr. Bush’s political operation raised concerns about Mr. Colby’s published views on Iran. Mr. Colby has prominently advocated against a military strike on Iran and has called for the Republican Party to move closer to its roots of pragmatism and containment.” So he’s out. You can’t expect to retain your political and professional credibility after a screw-up like that...
#shouldread #hoisted #mondaysmackdown
