Month: September 2007
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McArdle’s blindness to supply-siders
New Atlantic blogger Megan McArdle claims that the Bush adminstration did not cut taxes out of “crackpot supply-sidism” but instead was “making extravagantly exaggerated claims about the benefits of its policies”: 4) Highly respected economists Greg Mankiw and Glenn Hubbard shilled for the crackpot supply side theories of the Bush administration. This accusation is, to
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More on the “progress” fallacy
The Wall Street Journal highlights Washington Democrat Brian Baird’s statement backing the surge in response to attacks from MoveOn.org: Mr. Baird is so far showing no signs of backing down from his comments. In response to the MoveOn attacks, he said: “I believe I must speak and act based on what I believe is in
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The CEO president in action
President Bush may not have asked questions about Hurricane Katrina and doesn’t remember how the Iraqi army got disbanded, but he sure is vocal about his ice cream and mountain bike trails! You can protest that these are unfair anecdotes, but they fit with a larger pattern — Bush used to take two-hour lunches in
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Jonathan Chait’s The Big Con
The New Republic’s invaluable Jonathan Chait has released his first book: The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics. Here’s the beginning of an excerpt in TNR that highlights Chait’s devastating combination of empiricism and wit: American politics has been hijacked by a tiny coterie of right-wing
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Larry Craig hearing crickets
After receiving encouragement from Arlen Specter, Larry Craig is apparently making noise about staying in the Senate, but I think the rest of the Republican caucus is going to be somewhat less receptive. As James Carville pointed out on Meet the Press, it is striking how few Republicans defended Craig: What I found extraordinary about
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A special interest gaffe
Michael Kinsley famously said that a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth. Here’s the special interest version courtesy of David Kragnes, chairman of the American Crystal Sugar Company, who had a great Freudian slip during an interview with NPR’s Peter Overby: OVERBY: [Kragnes] says sugar has a good story to tell and it’s
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The surge: “Progress” and sunk costs
It looks like the coming debate over Iraq will focus on whether “progress” is being made as a result of the troop surge (see, for instance, Mary Matalin’s comments on Meet the Press). Administration officials and their surrogates are trying to lower the bar by suggesting that because the situation may be slightly improved compared
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Mary Matalin speaks for “normal people”?
I’ve tried to avoid commenting on the Larry Craig scandal — it’s sad and I don’t have anything new to say — but I need to emerge from seclusion to complain about this soundbite from Mary Matalin on “Meet the Press”: MATALIN: If you’re a liberal and you cheat on your wife, it’s a private
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WSJ touts third-party prospects
In the process of bemoaning the accelerated primary schedule, the Wall Street Journal editorial board offers more lame third party hype: Perhaps it will all turn out for the best this time around. But if the process leaves one or both parties lukewarm about their nominees, it could also open the field for a third