May 29, 2008: Ten Years Ago on Grasping Reality
- The Harvard Crimson Writes...: "Would you be free either tomorrow or Friday for an interview? If so, what time would work best for you?" I reply: Don't know what I can say that I haven't already said.... I had a very good time as a Harvard undergraduate because I found a niche in it—Social Studies—that functioned like a small liberal arts college and because I very quickly found my way as a sophomore into the graduate economics classes (which I had the math to handle). But many others I know did not,... There is an enormous disproportion between resource inputs and educational outputs. This is a place where the ethos of the senior Arts and Sciences faculty—well, I remember one dinner at one New England college, where a political science professor just back from a semester visiting Harvard said that his first week there Harvey Mansfield had stopped by, looked into his office, and said: "You should close your door. If you don't, undergraduates may wander in"...
Ezra Klein Is Shrill! (Scott McClellan Watch): Ezra: "'The White House would prefer that I not talk openly about my experiences... I have a higher loyalty than my loyalty necessary to my past work. That's a loyalty to the truth'—Scott McClellan. There are no revelations in Scott McClellan's new book.... Just the tinny bleatings of a man who abetted a lying, disastrous presidency because it seemed like a good gig, but doesn't want his name maligned by the historians..."
Trade and Distribution: A Multisector Stolper-Samuelson Finger Exercise: Support for free trade tends to be stronger in democratic than in authoritarian regimes. The scarce factor of production tends to be, well, scarce. Hence not many potential voters own a lot of it. Hence the political support for trade protection in any system of government that gives weight to broad as opposed to strong preferences will tend to produce trade liberalization...
Spencer Ackerman on Senator Jim Webb: Ackerman likes him.... I am not so sure. I remember Webb as a Reagan Administration Navy Secretary who was too effective at fighting for an increased share of the Pentagon budget for the navy during the Cold War. Ronnie didn't seem to understand that the Soviet Union was a land power, and Webb appears to have put his service first. Not a new thing in the Pentagon, but still...
New York Times Death Spiral Watch (Thomas Friedman Edition): Duncan Black has commanded us to spend tomorrow celebrating our great good fortune in having geniuses like Thomas Friedman shaping our foreign policy thinking, and wonderful newspapers like the New York Times to publish them. Here's Duncan: "Tomorrow is the 5th anniversary of Tom Friedman going on Charlie Rose and telling the world that the Iraq war was fought to tell Iraqis to 'Suck On This'... because we could!..."
Reason to Believe that This Is Not Yet the Bottom for the Housing Market
Nunc Dimittis II: A catch by Matt Stoller: "Bush Reelect eCampaign Director: McClellan savaged for saying what everyone knows to be true: 'Feeling for Scott McLellan. Nice getting savaged for saying what everyone knows to be true anyway.' That was Bush-Cheney eCampaign Director Mike Turk, 16 hours ago on his Twitter feed...
Scott McClellan Fills in a Piece of the Bush Puzzle: So George W. Bush did send a signal to the CIA: if we don't like what your relatives say, we will burn your covert agents. Impeach George W. Bush. Impeach him now...
