Semi-Daily Journal

Very odd. Alan Murray now sounds like Paul Krugman, who now sounds like Noam Chomsky. Things are getting pretty weird.

And Noam Chomsky has begun saying that the U.S. is the greatest country in the world. Go figure.

:-)

Chomsky's been pretty consistent about that, as far as I remember. when I was digging through that _Chomsky Reader_ thing when it came out in softcover way back when (a decade ago? more?), I recall his several times saying much the same.

The Nixon CREEP of 1972 encompassed the Federal Reserve. Is that also happening now ? The Taylor rule would suggest the fed funds rate should be higher than 1%.
One advantage Bush has over Nixon is the new voting technology, as Krugman, echoing an excellent article by The Independent, has indicated today.

Krugman recently suggested the staff positions on CEA were non-political when he served, but are political now. In fact they are still are non-political. Nothing has changed.

for a minute I read it as ann murray!

Sorry, but the comparison doesn't work. Comparing Bush's economic policy with Nixon's is being critical, not shrill. Attributing Bush's actions to a desire for re-election may be critical and tough, but doins so in temperate language is not shrill. Attributing absolutely everything the Bush Adminsitration does to a craven desire to line the pockets of his oil-patch, campaign contributor buddies--that's shrill, especially in the intemperate, vituperative language PK favors.

As for your own stuff, I think questioning the honesty and motives of others who agrees with the afministration on a given subject, including intelligent, honorable people like Greg Mankiw and Alan Meltzer--that's shrill. And the headlines you favor for most of your Bush-related essays, like "Oh why are we ruled by such fools...." and "Oh why can't we have a better..."--that's shrill.

Out of curiosity, Maiden Lane, to what motivation do you attribute the many, many examples of backbone administration dishonesty and deception? how about the wreckless fiscal policy? how about the ineptness of iraqi policy?

Since you don't think it's a craven desire to satisfy the political and economic interests of the crony capitalist class, what is it?

Certainly, it's not to fulfill an honorably conservative policy approach....

Since when did the tone of writing suddenly make the information contained within, and the point being elaborated not worthy of consideration? If that were true we can just throw out 100 years of right wing shrill rhetoric out the window just like that.

When it is written in the 10 Commandments "thou must not be shrill in political or economic commentary" then we can worry about the stridency with which one argues their point. Until then I will continue to worry about content.

A Barron's article a few ago addressed that very same subject:

"A SURGE IN GOVERNMENT SPENDING and persistently low interest rates have revived the U.S. economy. The stock market has rebounded after a nasty fall. The dollar is weakening, gold prices are rising, and the federal deficit has ballooned." -- Barron's, That '70's Show

You are forgiven for thinking that is a description of the present. Barron's was in fact "describing the state of the Union, or at least its finances, under a previous White House tenant, Richard M. Nixon. But the eerie parallels point to similar policies, and suggest to some sage observers that the Bush administration's efforts to stimulate the economy will lead to similarly sorry ends."

Nixon pumped up the economy before his re-election, only to see it sour. Will history repeat?

That '70's Show, By Jacqueline Doherty
Barrons, November 17, 2003
http://online.wsj.com/barrons/article/0,,SB106885997518601800,00.html

A Barron's article a few ago addressed that very same subject:

"A SURGE IN GOVERNMENT SPENDING and persistently low interest rates have revived the U.S. economy. The stock market has rebounded after a nasty fall. The dollar is weakening, gold prices are rising, and the federal deficit has ballooned." -- Barron's, That '70's Show

You are forgiven for thinking that is a description of the present. Barron's was in fact "describing the state of the Union, or at least its finances, under a previous White House tenant, Richard M. Nixon. But the eerie parallels point to similar policies, and suggest to some sage observers that the Bush administration's efforts to stimulate the economy will lead to similarly sorry ends."

Nixon pumped up the economy before his re-election, only to see it sour. Will history repeat?

That '70's Show, By Jacqueline Doherty
Barrons, November 17, 2003
http://online.wsj.com/barrons/article/0,,SB106885997518601800,00.html

A Barron's article a few ago addressed that very same subject:

"A SURGE IN GOVERNMENT SPENDING and persistently low interest rates have revived the U.S. economy. The stock market has rebounded after a nasty fall. The dollar is weakening, gold prices are rising, and the federal deficit has ballooned." -- Barron's, That '70's Show

You are forgiven for thinking that is a description of the present. Barron's was in fact "describing the state of the Union, or at least its finances, under a previous White House tenant, Richard M. Nixon. But the eerie parallels point to similar policies, and suggest to some sage observers that the Bush administration's efforts to stimulate the economy will lead to similarly sorry ends."

Nixon pumped up the economy before his re-election, only to see it sour. Will history repeat?

That '70's Show, By Jacqueline Doherty
Barrons, November 17, 2003
http://online.wsj.com/barrons/article/0,,SB106885997518601800,00.html

"an unbounded desire for a second term, even at the expense of taxpayers"

Gee, this must be a new breed of politician!

I guess use of "intemperate, vituperative language" invalidates fact, logic and strength of argument.

Maiden Lane, you're slamming PK on his style, not his substance. I must say, it's an effective tactic for avoiding substantive debate. A classic neo-con ploy.

Last weekend, I was home for Thanksgiving. One morning, I was sitting at the kitchen table reading the Times, and the paper was open to the Op-Ed page. Unprompted, my mother said, "I hate Paul Krugman. He's always so hysterical about how awful Bush is, and how everything is falling apart."

Now, my mother is what I guess you'd call a Reagan Democrat (although she didn't start voting Republican until 2000, I think). Economically, she's much more in tune with traditional Democratic positions, but culturally she leans right. Anyway, the point is that she's a reasonable person who doesn't want to let the rich benefit at the expense of the poor, thinks the government should pay its bills, etc. She's someone who listens to the facts and tries to reach the right conclusion based on them. And I think she's someone who, although she voted for Bush in 2000, could be convinced that she should not vote for him in 2004. But I can guarantee you one thing: Paul Krugman will not be convincing her of anything, and that's entirely because of his style.

Now, this may be the wrong reaction for her to have. Maybe she should try to see through the style to the arguments beneath. But I think it's understandable that people find it hard to take someone seriously whom they find unappealing and unpleasant. And this is important, because the fight in 2004 isn't over the 40% of Americans who will vote for Bush no matter what happens, or over the 40% of Americans who will vote for anyone but him. It's over the 20% in the middle, of whom my mom is one. And the more strident and the more obviously Bush-hating (I mean hating, not disliking or critical) a pundit is, the less influence he (or she) will have over that 20%.

Chomsky, by the way, has semi-disavowed that quote and totally disavowed the entire Times interview: http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,6000,1096132,00.html

You might want to leave your mother out of these debates. That rhetorical trick often doesn't end well.

I know a guy who swung over from being apathetic to writing Dean a big check after reading about 50 Krugman pieces, which cover issues that the "moderates" are not willing to confront. Whether Dean is the way or not is not my point, although it is amusing to see him being attacked from the left. My point is that people are more responsive to forceful arguments than the be-nice crowd often assumes.

I doubt Dr. Krugman wants your mother to vote for him or even to like him. Krugman just wants to change her mind. You don't really say whether or not your mother agrees with Dr. K. on the substance. You hint only that she finds him intensely unpleasant, which is evidence mostly that she is aware of his views, having read him quite regularly. That ain't bad, if you are Paul Krugman.

As a test, ask her how she feels about the views of that very nice boy Tim Russert.

Paul Krugman has high standards for the president with respect to veracity. I hope that your mother and at least a solid 11% in the middle raise their standards as well and are not taken in by "compassionate conservatism" as they were last time. Your mother along with half of the voting population chose a repeat drunk driver, ex-cocaine user (not man enough to admit it) and went AWOL while in the National Guard. I doubt the tone of Krugman will affect voters who overlook these foibles _before_ Bush set foot in the White House.

There was no "rhetorical trick" intended. This was just a concrete example of a relatively nonpartisan voter's reaction to Krugman's columns. And the point was that if Krugman wants to change her mind, he's failed. He has not changed her mind, and he will not. (And frankly I'm not sure she reads him regularly any more, either.)

You ask whether she agrees with him on the substance of his columns. But you can't separate substance from style so easily when it comes to pundits. People have to decide who to trust, who to rely on. Especially when it comes to economic and political matters, where conflicting opinions abound and most normal people don't have an easy way of recognizing assertions as obviously true or false, a writer's tone matters. And if it sounds like that writer is willing to do whatever it takes to, say, get Bush out of the White House, then I think people in the middle are going to be less likely to take what that writer says seriously.

Are you are so mother-challenged or possibly ivy-choked that you cannot appreciate Steve Carr's argument. My mom is the same way - maybe more so - she didn't like the Nazi march in Skokie, Illinois. I tried to give the young, hip lecture about free speech and mom still wasn't convinced. Rational though and logic are jewels but we can't always get from point A to point B with just the mechanics. Lighten up people.

People want to believe in the president. People want to believe that he is for the best interests of the country. It is unsettling to have PK remind people on a weekly basis that the policies of Mr. Bush are not the polices that most Americans favor or believe are best for the country. Most voters are beset with denial when it comes to GOP policy. This is in great part due to the effective silencing of GOP moderates by the radical right. All criticism becomes tainted as partisan. That is why it is important to have true conservative Republicans like John McCain that speak their mind.

Steve,

This *is* about the 40% who will vote for Bush no matter what. They are a much bigger problem than Bush himself. Why in the face of such a disaster they continue to support him is a huge question and a huge problem for our country. Krugman and everyone like him needs to keep pouring on the heat as well as the light. We need to hold these people accountable emotionally as well as intellectually.

This Bush-hating argument is silly. It's easy to see it's what Bush personifies or represents that's hated-- undeserved privilege, proud ignorance, extreme fundamentalism. Why bother hating Bush himself, he's a small part of the problem.

Where are the old-time Krugman-haters, BTW? Is it possible that some of them have actually wised up? Steve Carr and Maiden Lane are trying, but they don't quite match the vehemence of the former lot.

Steve -- I think we all know wonderful people who, for whatever reason, refuse to listen to the bad news. I know several, and I have lost much of my respect for them partly for that reason. When you name your mother as an example you put me in a hard place as far as responding goes. That's what MacDonell was trying to say.

Krugman isn't the director of the 2004 Democratic political campaign. He's one commentator in one newspaper.

And contrary to the buzz, I've never read anything by Krugman that really seemed shrill. I think that it's the content of his message that bothers people. People will also accuse him of harping over and over again on one topic, but they also jump on him whenever he writes about non-economic topics about which he is not an expert.

Krugman is a lightning-rod because of the content of what he's saying. Rather than picking up the various anti-Krugman memes and passing them on, people who agree with Krugman on substance should patiently point out to people, for example their mothers, that Krug,man is saying something unpleasant and important which we ignore at our own peril. I don't think that there's any way to sugarcoat what he's saying or to say it in a tactful way. People really have to face up to what's happening, and they resist that. And until they do, Bush's reelection is more likely than not.

Maiden Lane, I don't think Brad was actually describing Murray's column as shrill. He said it was "shrill" in the sense that Krugman's columns are "shrill"--to wit, not actually shrill, but labeled so by people who oppose the reasonable points he makes.

Insisting that Krugman is failing because of his tone or that he cannot succeed without appealing to emotion or that substance will overcome style fails to recognize that there are differences in taste and in intellectual style. Some need a spoonfull of sugar, some like a good fight. If the public, universally, can get to the substance without regard to style, then what accounts for the ratings of Fox News?

Given that there are differences, Krugman is bound to be to some peoples' taste and not to others. Only if he is preaching to the chior (which I take to be the rather successful marketing plan for most right-wing talking heads) or alienating more of the public than he is convincing is he wasting his intellectual (though probably not his financial) time. What is missing, then, is somebody who is less prone to annoy Steve's mother who is also able to convey the same information and analysis that Krugman does. Oh, and getting a high-profile outlet to pay for something less controversial than Krugman, covering the same ground.

Oh, look, it's Alan Murray! Nice bit of luck. Somebody was already paying him, when he realized that the best story, the one he wants to tell in moderate tones, is the one Krugman is telling so shilly. Thank your stars for Alan Murray.

Did I write "shilly"? Oh, bad. I meant "shrilly" ... or "silly" ... or something.

Zizka --

Paul Krugman is a writer, who is writing (I assume) to convince people of what he believes. If he needs me to "patiently point out to people" that what he's saying makes sense, then he's failing as a writer. This isn't an argument about whether people can be convinced of the fundamental problems with Bush's policies. It's an argument about whether Krugman's work is helping convince them. If I have to persaude people to listen to him, then he's not convincing them. I am. (It's not as if the substance of Krugman's arguments against the administration's policies is especially original.)

As for the idea that he's not "actually shrill,"
Krugman has described George Bush's attitude toward the world as the same as Caligula's: "let them hate as long as they fear." He's said that if you work for any Murdoch publication or network "you're basically just part of the propaganda machine." He's compared the Bush administration's "revolutionary" approach to politics to that of the totalitarian movements of the 1930s, argued that Republicans do not "accept the legitimacy of our current political system" and questioned whether Republicans believe in the "democratic process" at all (even though, mysteriously, they control the presidency, both houses of Congress and a majority of governorships). Now, you may believe all these statements, and they may even be true, but they are by no stretch of the imagination "reasonable points." Nor are they likely to convince anyone who doesn't already believe that Bush is evil that he is evil.

If Krugman & Co. were salesmen people might say they're using FUD to close the business, except FUD usually implies an exageration of the threat whereas PK's analysis is spot on.

It's important that a lot of people lose sleep between now and their next opportunity to choose. Not only will it clarify their thoughts they deserve to have their consciences tweaked.

Rove & Co. are using alcohol and hookers to close the business (and I'm probably being unfair to saloonkeepers and whores when I say that.)

Every American mom and dad needs to see it that way. I know from personal experience. They taught me personal responsibility. If I didn't show them I learned it they'd be sadder for it.

And, FUD works, especially when it's true.

Steve,

I think you put your finger on the crux of the matter. You said, "...these statements... may even be true, but [are not]... reasonable points".

Moms and Dads and Sons and Daughters all across America are trying to wish away the truth. If that was ever a good idea it's time is past. Bush, Rove, and Co. are not reasonable people, even by a conservative's standard, and the truth is not pleasant but yet it must be faced.

Deficits matter, the tax cuts are going to the rich, there is no jobs stimulus package, cronies and campaign contributors are being undeservedly rewarded, we need allies to defeat the terrorists, Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, we were lied to about WMDs, on and on.

The truth is always reasonable.

Dennis --

The arguments you list in your last graf are reasonable. They're also all policy-specific arguments. But they have nothing in common with the claims of Krugman's that I cite as shrill. And those are the claims that I worry, to crib from K, alienate more of the voting middle than they convince.

'As for the idea that he's not "actually shrill,"
Krugman has described George Bush's attitude toward the world as the same as Caligula's: "let them hate as long as they fear." He's said that if you work for any Murdoch publication or network "you're basically just part of the propaganda machine.".................... '

Well I submit that shrillness as a writerly quality is achieved not by individual phrases or observations in isolated articles that are perhaps more extreme than the general run of observations one makes, to be shrill one has to start from a position of extremism and move up from there.
Thus I would suppose that Mr. Krugman were shrill if he had made all these comments in one article, as long as the article were no more than say ten pages in length. Otherwise I have no evidence from the list of examples provided that Mr. Krugman has a style that might reasonably be termed shrill, given a dispassionate examination of that style.

RE: This Bush-hating argument is silly. It's easy to see it's what Bush personifies or represents that's hated-- undeserved privilege, proud ignorance, extreme fundamentalism. Why bother hating Bush himself, he's a small part of the problem.
Posted by dennisS

Not a day goes by when I don’t uncover more evidence of European ‘shrillness/silliness.’ Too much of it comes from the Left and too much of that is in much too close proximity to Left thought in this country. The Bush-Cheney hate-fest is indeed as personal as it is - allegedly - substantive. Why is it personal? The European Left resents its loss of influence in the U.S. political arena, as a close ally of ‘the old East Coast elite.’ The excerpt below is from the link below:

[A German acquaintance of the author] “maintained that the American armed forces cannot now be any good, because the old East Coast elite no longer serve in them and they recruit entirely from the ghetto and from Cuba. He lamented the defeat in American politics of the East Coast by the mid-West and the South, and recalled with a shudder a visit he once made to Phoenix, Arizona.”

http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003-09-13&id=3490

My guess is that the European community views someone like Senator McCain with the same contempt they have unleashed on George Bush, so I seriously question the substance of the European anti-American, anti-Bush position and I seriously suggest that the ‘Left’ or the Democrats or whatever groups are bending the bough left of center carefully consider the relationship they want to maintain with the European community. And just for the record, my mom is thoroughly disgusted with the French to the extent that, given they could find a roadmap to a warm pile of substance, she would still be so offended by their ‘style(?)’ that a Mother Theresa standard would receive nothing more than a chilly reception.

I agree with Steve: relatively speaking, the aversion to PK may be more a matter of style than substance. Murray says: "It is also possible that what really links Presidents Nixon and Bush is something else: an unbounded desire for a second term, even at the expense of taxpayers."

How would Krugman phrase it? Here is my feeble attempt at imitatio Krugmaniana:

"There is no doubt that Bush, who in his contempt for law resembles Nixon, shares with the latter an unbounded desire for a second term. He won't care if he bankrupts the country to achieve that goal. You see, this is a man who is willing to rig the elections, lie to the American public, go to war on non-existent grounds, alienate our allies--all for the benefit of Dick Cheney's wealthy friends."

I agree with Steve: relatively speaking, the aversion to PK may be more a matter of style than substance. Murray says: "It is also possible that what really links Presidents Nixon and Bush is something else: an unbounded desire for a second term, even at the expense of taxpayers."

How would Krugman phrase it? Here is my feeble attempt at imitatio Krugmaniana:

"There is no doubt that Bush, who in his contempt for law resembles Nixon, shares with the latter an unbounded desire for a second term. He won't care if he bankrupts the country to achieve that goal. You see, this is a man who is willing to rig the elections, lie to the American public, go to war on non-existent grounds, alienate our allies--all for the benefit of Dick Cheney's wealthy friends."

Mr. Bush is hated in Europe because he doesn't listen to their views and disses them. If some cowboy tells you what you think does not matter and then does something you don't like, will you like or respect him?? I doubt it. European reaction to Mr. Bush has everything to do with the arrogance of Mr. Bush and the way and his administration have disrespected Europe. Bush acts like a loud mouth big time wrestler like Macho Man. How are Europeans supposed to react? Gang war.

McCain does not elicit the same reaction because he is civil, less arrongant and willing to listen.

RE: Most voters are beset with denial when it comes to GOP policy. This is in great part due to the effective silencing of GOP moderates by the radical right. All criticism becomes tainted as partisan. That is why it is important to have true conservative Republicans like John McCain that speak their mind.

Understood. The American electorate is maddening at best and delusional at worst. I used to believe in the fundamental practical intelligence of some virtual group of Americans - the kind of response we saw to the Clinton-Lewinski scandal - the public cringed but refused to support the death sentence sought by Republicans. But - IMVeryHO, I think a large majority of Americans were caught completely off-guard by the virulence of the anti-American attitude emanating from Europe, as well as the ME. Now all we hear is Totalitarianism! Imperialism! Fascism! Colonialsim! Halliburton! Bush-Cheney-Oil! Etc etc etc. Is it any wonder that many Americans - who do not live, eat, and breathe politics as do obviously many of the posters of this site - are confused and following a conservative approach through what is evolving into the Mother of All Stickey Wickets?

I support the effort in Iraq. I believe it was a bold move and my hope is that it will be topped off with equally bold implementation. I am hoping for the best in Iraq. In this country, Bush has made some serious economic mistakes that will cost him capital of the ’principled’ kind with an accompanying loss of ’interest’ in re-electing him in 2004 - so it is said. Steel tariffs were a mistake. I would like to see the influence of politics (and political handlers) reduced to make more room for policy based on principle.

George Bush is not evil. Stop it. The issues of concern are the corrosive effect of politics on policy and the insidious effect of creeping religious fundamentalism into state functions, given that it is a real phenomenon and not something cooked up by the European Left to pillory the current administration as a way of elevating The Continent back to a level of authority and status in the political playing field. The problem is not so much with individual Americans within the electorate who refuse to face reality or with individual politicians who make mistakes doing a tough job. The problem is lack of leadership, as we have known for some time. As George Bush, et al are discovering up close and personal, and as I am sure John McCain has discovered, political leadership is a thankless job. Does that mean our politicians get a pass? No. But it does mean that the various avenues of ‘chatter’ be constrained by a responsible regard for facts and a set of principles and values that cohere - even in the roughest of times. You do that and I guarantee that moms, dads, guys, and dolls everywhere will get it.

Let's not talk about Mr. Bush. Let us discuss his policies. Running $400 to $500 billion deficits is atrociously bad fiscal policy. Giving tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires is a poor way to stimulate the economy. Unilaterally invading Iraq was a bad idea. A lot of people died that did not need to die. Ignoring the Israeli Palestinian issue for 3 years is terrible policy. A lot of death and destruction have occurred and the situation is more intractable now than in 2001. Failure to negotiate with N Korea and disrespecting S. Korea is bad policy that encourages nuclear proliferation. Steel tariffs are the worst trade policy in over 2 decades.

We don't need to say anything about whether we like or dislike Mr. Bush. Mr. Bush is leading our country in the wrong direction. He can have a nice pension and retire in Texas. His policies are mostly wrong. Whatever you think about Mr. Bush the person, Mr. Bush or anyone that has such a poor record should not be re-elected. If it were Bill Clinton, or Ralph Nadar or Al Gore it would not matter. If they had the same policy record as Mr. Bush, I would not vote for them.

I would agree with maciej that his/her attempt to mimic Krugman is feeble. Krugman's columns bristle with facts, which his critics uniformly avoid confronting... unless, like Luskin, they search for petty errors to try to discredit the whole.

As for Mr. Carr's disagreement with Krugman's style, I suggest he contrast it with, say, Rush Limbaugh: "We won't kill all the liberals. We'll keep a few alive at universities so that future generations will know what they were like" or Ann Coulter: "We need to execute a few terrorists so that liberals will feel physically intimidated." and "It's a shame that Timothy McVeigh didn't back up his truck to the New York Times building." (quotes approximate but faithful to the originals in tone).

I would certainly love to see a civil discourse, based on facts rather than emotional appeals. Such a situation would reduce the Republican Party not only to minority status, but to pariah status. The Republican Party talks fiscal austerity but runs enormous deficits; it talks strong national defense but maltreats the troops; it claims to be for traditional values, but a good fraction of its congressional members are adulterers, chickenhawks, closeted gays, drug and alcohol abusers or, like Congressman Janklow, simply scofflaws.

That's why the Republican Party uses hate radio, false accusations of treason, and culture wars. If it stopped doing so, people might start noticing that the Republican Party is no more than a collection of self-hating (and with good cause) hypocrites.

Some Democrats and liberals, after a decade of trying to reason, have decided that sometimes one must fight fire with fire.

What took them so long?

Democrats invented, or at least widely expanded, the national mass purchase of votes, by politicians catering to favored factions, and now are infuriated that Republicans are perfecting it. I thought as far back as 2000 that Bush was adopting an essentially Nixonian style of domestic politics, and certainly didn't need any pundit to point out the obvious.

These are legitimate critiques, and frankly, with the recent expansion of entitlements, I have no domestic political reason to favor a Republican President to one nominated by the Democrats. I actually agree with some of Krugman's economic analysis, while recognizing that he favors the exercise of far more state power than I. Krugman, however, is dishonest and entirely unfair when analyzing the actions of those he opposes politically, which renders his rhetoric far less effective than it otherwise might be. There is some irony in this, for one of Krugman's complaints (sometimes entirely warranted) against those he opposes is that they use rhetoric to dishonestly and unfairly impugn Krugman and his allies.

Why does the average citizen hate politics, at least when it doesn't involve the overt purchase of the citizen's vote? Look no further than the behavior of those who are most intensely involved in politics. These are not the sort of characters a well-adjusted person would wish to associate with.

Steve,

I reread your post to Zizka itemizing 5 Krugman excesses and actually I do believe that all those things are largely true, though generalizations like-- Republicans don't believe in democratic processes are easy to refute as long as you can find one Republican somewhere willing to admonish his own party with "...Republicans better hope the Democrats don't recapture control of Congress..." (if you know what I mean.)

I believe we're debating, not the substance of Krugman's writing, which you appear to support, but the tone of his articles, which you don't support.

I think winning the hearts and minds of voters in 2004 is important but getting them to accept responsibility for their actions, in the polls and elsewhere, is more important and Krugman is nearly a lone voice in doing that.

Bush is bad. (I'll save "evil" for Ken Starr.) The press has been lame (especially in 2000.) But, really we all had enough information then as we do now and the half of the electorate that refuses to get it should be called on it. Krugman is disliked by some because he makes them feel guilty and I think we need more of that not less. Trust me on this, this hits close to home as it does with you, but I consider it part of my personal responsibility to not paper it over or sweep it under the rug. These are ugly times.

More than I wanted to say but since I'm advocating people jab their fingers at others I figured I better lay myself out.

PS. Ann, sorry I don't get what you're saying. I like Europeans and why shouldn't I?

You’re wired much too tight for me but I will submit a brief response just so no one confuses me with Anonymous Coward #8 (I am anonymous and I am a coward, but I am at least a #9 ;-)

I am in basic agreement with your economic arguments and the thunder in the distance you hear is GWB’s day of reckoning. Both sides of the political spectrum are unhappy with the budget deficit. Concerning fiscal policy, I wish to all heck you’d get away from the ‘tax cuts for the rich’ meme. This is misleading, incendiary, and, not to put too fine a point on it - stale. The issue is the increasing isolation of the equity wealth of shareholders in the capital markets from the labor wealth of wage earners. There connections between these two pools of wealth are becoming fewer and fewer. ‘Tax cuts for the poor’ typically increase consumption but do very little to facilitate access into the capital and equity markets. The key problem is opening up this access and this is a hill I wish the Democrats would choose to stand on. It is a very worthy hill both in terms of principled policy and in terms of political appeal to a broad coalition of voters.

With respect to foreign policy, I understand you are subject to time/space constraints as well but you simply must elaborate on exactly how Bush and company ‘disrespected’ Europe and South Korea. Did he smirk? Was he ‘snarky?’ Did he refuse to dance The Bump with the Queen? The Europeans, led by France and Germany, have been nursing festering hostilities against this country long before Bush took office:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/story.php?storyID=13852

You said earlier that Americans do not want to believe that Bush and his administration are responsible for bad policy - essentially a state of denial. I think that almost willful sense of denial describes your attitude towards Europe. Yes, there is along standing relationship that has been described as an alliance among friendly nations with common values - but do not mistake the fitful commitment of Europeans to ally themselves with the more demanding strategies of American foreign policy and do not underestimate the influence of the capital markets on political positions, especially those of France and Germany who are implicated in financing ME aggression. True, Zbigniew Bzrezinski has counseled a return to the real politik of the European-American alliance but it is unwise to ignore the political drivers within many European countries as the EU begins to take shape. Surely an experienced political operative cannot fail to appreciate the desire for geopolitical power behind the EU. And just as surely, it should be considered suspicious that the EU has no judiciary, no divided legislature, and no veto power for member nations. Oh gosh, what is the word - hegemonic? My point is that there is more there over there than meets the eye and now is not the time to lapse into shrill/silliness. The sheer concept of ‘friendship’ at this level is so chimerical as to defy belief in any ‘bricks and mortar’ reality.

The multilateral theory of geopolitical strategy cannot survive the transition from desk to field. The UN is an abject failure because the member nations have not been able to develop a shared vision - of, well, anything. The member nations behave as a collection of highly nationalistic states that use the UN as a vehicle for achieving their own geopolitical agendas and have little to no experience or desire to engage in a collective world view that may at times diminish the strategic position of their particular country. This is a potential powder keg of a subject because the failure of the UN to coalesce into an integrated set of mature member states is being willfully ignored as we move into the area of international law. The short version is that global governing strategies require much more thought.

The even shorter version is that I am light years more outraged at European thought and behavior than I am with the current administration in this country.

Steve Carr, we've tried to avoid it stating it clearly.

The problem here is you and your mother. At the point when your mother said what she said, you might have said something like, "Mom, I think he's right". You did not mention doing that and I assume that you didn't. Instead you let her continue to refuse to understand Krugman.

Krugman convinces some people and not others. For those not convinced by his way of saying things, people should try to figure out ways of making the same point nore effectively, instead of just grumbling that Krugman didn't do so.

There are a large number of mild-mannered liberals making nuanced points. They have been getting slaughtered in the war of public opinion. Any effective spokesman will find himself the object of attacks like those Krugman is facing. If you agree with Krugman on the substantive points, its your job to defend him against the inevitable attacks.

Politics is combative by nature and people who can't figure that out lose. We can't allow our people to be blamed for the simple fact that their fighting.

If liberals and moderates relay the manufactured buzz about Krugman (and Clinton, and Hillary, etc.) then of course liberals and moderates will continue to lose. I suspect that your mother has heard someone talking about how awful Krugman is, and that she ended up agreeing with them. Did she have someone explaining to here that Krugman is right?

"[...]Surely an experienced political operative cannot fail to appreciate the desire for geopolitical power behind the EU. And just as surely, it should be considered suspicious that the EU has no judiciary, no divided legislature, and no veto power for member nations[...]"

Well if something is sure, it is that you hate Europeans, and do not want them to enjoy what the US citizen enjoy, to begin with independence from foreign powers. And you have no idea of what is really the EU. First of all it is not a state like the USA. However it does have a judiciary, I do not understand the reference to divided legislative, there is a parliament, that is mostly deliberative and whose may power is to refuse some propositions of the Commission. And fior now most member-states have to much of a veto power, which is only useful to betray the interest of most Europeans, and to hamper the EU power. Most instance of veto are done to benefit the USA, not the EU. Since when could Rhode Island veto POTUS decisions?

As to the ME, it is a mess, if the USA has gone thee it is first and foremost so because of the USA wanted, why should anybody pick such tab? Aznar may line up his pockets, but Spain is loosing millions.

DSW

One need not be "mild-mannered" to be scrupuously fair, honest, and ethical. The fact that so few people writing political punditry endeavor to meet this standard, or that being fair, honest, and ethical is conflated with being "mild mannered", does much to explain the common disenchantment with politics. Again, a well adjusted person normally doesn't wish to associate with people for whom being unfair, dishonest , and unethical is considered normal procedure. Sure, voters are happy to be bribed in return for political support, but that doesn't mean they want to associate closely with the bribe-givers.

I'm wired tight! Thanks for the *brief* response. I'll try and get back to Fouad Ajami's article but it's time I started dinner so that will have to wait.

You're definately seeing something I don't see. Europeans like Americans, according to polls. We share a lot of common values. They don't like Bush's unilaterlism (8 treaties--all useful in my opinion-- denied or abrogated and the whole defending the UN's integrity from Iraq charade) We live in an integrated world of nation's who balance their individual interests with the need to cooperate to foster peace and stability. I'm not suprised by that. True, Europeans have done business with bad regimes and so have we (we're the world's leader by a long shot in arming the world, including the bad guys.)

Saying France nursed ill feelings is one thing, but Germany? You sure?

I can't figure out if you're advocating a stronger UN or saying forget it we go it alone, and if we go it alone, how alone? Is it just Europe or is the whole rest of the world's interests at odds with the US?

As far as South Korea goes; yes Bush was pretty rude to scuttle their efforts to develop rapproachment with the North for domestic political purposes and to promote a missile defense boondoggle.

I'll check Ajami's stuff later.

It's okay. You can attack my mom. She's pretty tough. Anyway, I'm fairly certain that she's never heard any of the "manufactured buzz" about Krugman. Her reaction, as far as I can tell, was based purely on reading his columns. Honestly, that's why I told the story, because it was such a striking answer to a question I'd been wondering about for a while: whether Krugman's style was actually making people less likely, rather than more likely, to vote against Bush.

I think the more important point is one that no one seems to have responded to, which is that ordinary people have to figure out whom they can trust and whom they can't, and one of the reasonable ways they do that is to judge whether or not a writer has an open mind. It won't do to say that Krugman's columns have "facts" in them. So do Stephen Moore's columns and Ann Coulter's books. The question is: How does a reader know --without embarking on an elaborate checking expedition -- that the facts are real and the interpretations reasonable? Tone is one of the ways people make that decision. As far as I can remember, Paul Krugman has not written a single column attacking a Democrat in the past two years. A relatively nonpartisan voter might assume that this means that even if there were issues on which the Republicans had the better case, Krugman would not mention it or would argue against them regardless, and that therefore he's not to be trusted. I think in this sense Charles' implicit comparison of Krugman with Rush Limbaugh and Coulter is quite telling. My mom doesn't believe them, either. Do we really want to emulate Rush and Coulter, anyway?

Re: Bryan's point about shrillness, three of the five examples I used came from the same short text: Krugman's introduction to "The Great Unraveling." A quick perusal of it will yield other lines in a similar vein.

Well. I've got to say i'm tired of all this.

I don't hate Krugman. I think he's a very smart guy and a very gifted writed--especially for someone from academic economics, where stylish writing is in very short supply.

But I to think he is in fact preaching to the choir.

I also think he's making a fool out himself, intellectually. His column yesterday is an excellent example. Maybe it will turn out that Diebold is at the center of a vast right wing conspiracy designed to steal elections for the Republicans by rigging the software of voting machines--but I suspect it won't. But everything about the way that column is constructed--the selective quotes, the innuendo, the constructions such as:

"For example, Georgia — where Republicans scored spectacular upset victories in the 2002 midterm elections — relies exclusively on Diebold machines. To be clear, though there were many anomalies in that 2002 vote, there is no evidence that the machines miscounted. But there is also no evidence that the machines counted correctly. You see, Diebold machines leave no paper trail."

Well, that's just sloppy, dirty, dishonest journalism. Nothing more, nothing less. It's exactly the kind of thing the "American Spectator" did in its many wild-eyed rants about the death of Vincent Foster.

And if you think that kind of thing is okay because "you need to fight fire with fire," then I think you need to do some serious soul-searching.

Thanks, Maiden, for a reminder of why I stopped reading Krugman many months ago.

Steve, I've had people in this forum defend Krugman by writing, essentially, "Ann Coulter is much worse!", apparently unaware that they had condemned their icon in far more harsh terms than I had ever employed.

Barrons wrote:

"Nixon pumped up the economy before his re-election, only to see it sour. Will history repeat?"

I dunno ... is Barrons expecting another Arab oil embargo and quadrupling of energy prices like in 1973/74?

Odd how Barrons doesn't mention these little things when going on about how Nixon's pre-election maneuvers so badly soured the economy in those post-'72 election years.

A canary in a coal mine is also quite shrill. The smart miner will listen.

Will Allen claims that "Democrats invented, or at least widely expanded, the national mass purchase of votes, by politicians catering to favored factions, and now are infuriated that Republicans are perfecting it. "

Obviously Mr. Allen has never heard of Mark Hanna.

Both political parties have a long and rich history of vote buying. Indeed, it has been long ago pointed out that "politics is about who gits." The Republicans have been far more expensive to the nation and at this point are unaffordable.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ann claims that "Concerning fiscal policy, I wish to all heck you’d get away from the ‘tax cuts for the rich’ meme. This is misleading, incendiary, and, not to put too fine a point on it - stale."

Unfortunately, it's also at the heart of the deficits today. There will be no solution of America's financial woes until the tax cuts for the rich are reversed.

As for how Bush disrespected Europe, his Administration has done everything up to threatening to invade (! Yes, really!) It has set in motion a boycott of French and German goods. It has disparaged a number of nations as Old Europe. It has abused the WTO through steel tariffs. It has pulled out of treaties that the United States had committed itself to. It has bloody BUGGED the UN!

Is anything more necessary?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Steve Carr says, "Charles' implicit comparison of Krugman with Rush Limbaugh and Coulter is quite telling."

Yes, it's telling you that there's no comparison.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Maiden Lane says, "Krugman: "To be clear, though there were many anomalies in that 2002 [Georgia] vote, there is no evidence that the machines miscounted. But there is also no evidence that the machines counted correctly. You see, Diebold machines leave no paper trail." ML: Well, that's just sloppy, dirty, dishonest journalism. Nothing more, nothing less. It's exactly the kind of thing the "American Spectator" did in its many wild-eyed rants about the death of Vincent Foster.

That's ludicrous. (1) The statement that there is no paper trail is literally true. Literally EXACTLY true. (2) There is widespread concern among voting experts about the lack of a paper trail. (3) Some people-- but not Paul Krugman-- have expressed a fear, on the basis of other evidence, that there has been manipulation of elections. While it's not proof, it's much better founded than almost anything the Spectator ever published. But at any rate, to accuse KRUGMAN of alleging anything more than than the provable fact that there is no paper trail is to misrepresent what he said.

Your claims are laughable. Literally.

Charles--

To reply in kind:

Bullshit.

There's no way any fair-mided person could read that excerpt in the context of Krugman's column and believe he was merely trying to establish that there's no paper trail. Try reading the whole thing again, or ask somebody you know who doesn't have a dog in this hunt.

Considering Krugman's piece ends by expressing concern about the possibility that partisans could "take advantage of an insecure, unverifiable voting system to manipulate election results," I'm not sure how it's laughable to suggest that he's insinuating that partisans might have manipulated election results.

Krugman's opening paragraph in that column -- three lines before the paragraph that ML quotes -- begins with a quote from the head of Diebold about helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president. Krugman adds that O'Dell "says that he wasn't talking about his business operations," which rather artfully suggests that he *was* talking about his business operations while also protecting PK from slander. (Otherwise Krugman would just have written: "O'Dell wasn't talking about his business operations," which PK knows is true.)

The next graf begins with the sentence Mark quoted, but includes a phrase that Mark also left out a key phrase in the sentence that he quoted, which is "Georgia -- where Republicans scored spectacular upset victories in the 2002 midterm elections" followed by the line about the "many anomalies." Again, what's the point of juxtaposing these facts if not to imply that there may have been manipulation?

Finally, the whole piece is not about possible future problems with Diebold machines. It includes a sustained discussion of problems in the past, quite explicitly saying that it offered people who wanted to hack into the machines the chance to do so. And, again, he ends the piece by suggesting that we should worry that if you give them the chance, "partisans will take advantage of an insecure, unverifiable voting system to manipulate election results." He's already told us that the Diebold system used in Georgia was insecure and unverifiable, which means that it's possible that partisans took advantage of it to manipulate election results. Krugman obviously means to suggest that this may have happened. Why bother to deny that's what he's doing?

More to the point, what possible reason could PK have to open the column with the quote from O'Dell if not to suggest that there's a connection between the political views of the head of Diebold and the possible chicanery that Diebold software enables?

This is completely off topic but Al Gore LOST the 2000 election more than George Bush stole it. When the voting is that close, something is seriously wrong/divided in the electorate. I am not one to look the other way but in my view, Al Gore lost it more than George Bush stole it. This country is too big to have elections that close - with or without the electoral college.

Ann, you're making excuses for Bush. He initiated the lawsuits to stop the recount. America has been conducting recounts in contested elections for a very long time. A close count is not a constitutional crisis. There was plenty of time to get to the bottom of the issue, but a shrill chorus of right wing whiners annoyed the nation so much that it gave up and let the Republicans have their way.

Gore did not lose the 2000 election. Bush and 5 unprincipled partisen Supreme Court Judges stole it.

Ann, you're making excuses for Bush. He initiated the lawsuits to stop the recount. America has been conducting recounts in contested elections for a very long time. A close count is not a constitutional crisis. There was plenty of time to get to the bottom of the issue, but a shrill chorus of right wing whiners annoyed the nation so much that it gave up and let the Republicans have their way.

Gore did not lose the 2000 election. Bush and 5 unprincipled partisen Supreme Court Judges stole it.

Charles, given your "interpretation" of the written word, you might just be the ideal ghostwriter for Krugman, if he ever wants to take a sabbatical. Also, a quick review of what programs consume the largest amounts of Federal spending, and thus represent the largest vote-buying endeavors, will reveal that these were orginally initiatives of the Democrats, although, as stated above, the GOP is busily perfecting the art.

Steve is right, Paul Krugman *is* insinuating that Republican operatives working with Diebold may have stolen the Georgia Senate seat. It is not shrill to connect public record facts and consider a potential crime, a crime that has happened so often in America.

Not shrill at all, it's Patriotic.

And that's what bothers the right wing whine chorus: Krugman is a true Patriot.

Hey, I'm sorry. I was looking at Charles' cite of ML's quote, where the phrase about Georgia was omitted. ML did include the phrase in his original post. Apologies.

By the way, has Brad always had "Fair and Balanced Almost Every Day" at the top of the page? I honestly just noticed it for the first time, which would be really weird if it had been there forever.

Steve, what did you say to your mom? Because she was wrong; her gut feeling misled her. You were there to tell her that.

As I said, Krugman straight isn't for everybody. People who believe that Krugman is right can repackage the message for people who don't immediately like Krugman. That strikes me as much more productive than adding to the anti-Krugman noise. (I really doubt that your mom didn't hear any of the anti-Krugman buzz at all.)

Sorry Ziska, your approach would ultimately entail meaningful debate using facts and analytics; the neo-con spin machine isn't built to handle that. The focus needs to remain on the shrill, liberal media and their traitorous and snivelling behaviour.

Besides, who needs "facts and analysis"? Totally over-rated. Those retired generals, what the hell do they know about sustained combat in Iraq? And economists, what could they possibly know about long-term fiscal policy? Just a bunch of shrill party-poopers.

"A canary in a coal mine is also quite shrill. The smart miner will listen." - Joey G.

Couldn't agree more.

It's those freakin' egophiliac, gluttonously over-fed, self-absorbed, ever-pontificating canaries that are still squawkin' and maundering about their own self-importance once you're well out of the coal mine that make you wanna place a lit stick of dynamite or three between their red cheeks.

For example, the "non-partisan" Paul the Impaler Krugman squawkin' about the faux seriousness of the Palame affair, or about WMDs when there's this http://www.9neesan.com/massgraves/ (among so very many other things) to take into account and deal with proactively. Or Krugman squawkin' about the Kay Report in a manner that puts it into such a contortionist spin that you're tempted to believe he may have read a completely different Kay Report that the one actually published.

To paraphrase Churchill's 1939 reflection on Russia, the Left and Left/Dems have largely become an obduracy wrapped in a solipsism inside an egophilia, and there's nothing terribly mysterious or enigmatic about that.

-----------
"Gore did not lose the 2000 election. Bush and 5 unprincipled partisen Supreme Court Judges stole it. "
Posted by Joey Giruad at December 3, 2003

Joey, you can keep saying that as long you want, as so many have, and I'm sure that whole future generations of Democrats will believe it's true. But the post-election newspaper analyses all showed that Bush would have won FL's electioral votes in practically any conceivable recount scenario. And, like it or not, the popular vote does not a president make under the US constitution.

Ann gets it and you don't. Gore didn't even carry his home state. He should have won the election big time--going away,even--and the fact that he didn't really just shows what a lousy campaigner he turned out to be.

What are you all going to say when, as seems possible--even likely--that Bush defeats the Democratic candidate by a huge margin next year?

Lane- "But the post-election newspaper analyses all showed that Bush would have won FL's electioral votes in practically any conceivable recount scenario. And, like it or not, the popular vote does not a president make under the US constitution."

This statement is factually INACCURATE. Are you trying to revise history? Or do you really believe that? It certainly is not a true statement in any sense.

The newspapers found that only in one narrow scenario did Bush actually win in FL. Because of the Bush lawsuit, there was no official recount. The newspapers found numerous overvotes, ballots that were clearly marked for a candidate and the candidates name was also written on the ballot. Those are legal ballots and they count, legally. The overvotes give the election to Gore by a much larger margin than the Kathleen Harris results were given to Bush.

Zizka --

I told my mother that Krugman's arguments were often good ones. But I didn't try to convince her that she should read him. Talking to her convinced me that if you don't think the Bush administration is fundamentally malevolent and corrupt, or unless you're familiar with all the arguments, all reading Krugman will do is make you feel as if all of Bush's opponents are depressed, bitter people. So instead I just made the case against Bush, which I expect I'll be making for the next year. I'm not sure how she or my dad will vote. I think it depends on who the Democrats run. (She likes Gephardt, who I think would be a terrible choice.) For what it's worth, I don't think she'd vote for Howard Dean in a million years.

One thing, with regard to Brad's recent item about David Frum, can't we agree that saying that in Great Britain, "the United States has a problem, a big one -- and it was made worse, not better, by this recent visit" is fundamentally different from writing that, say, George Bush's attitude toward foreign policy is the same as Caligula's? The former is not shrill. It conveys no sense of "Bush hatred." The latter is and does. Paul Krugman thinks George Bush wants to "smash the system as we know it." David Frum doesn't (or if he does, he probably agrees with the goal). What's the point of pretending that these two have anything in common?

I suppose what I'm really getting at is that I don't understand the argument that Krugman has somehow been the only person criticizing George Bush, so that anyone who criticizes Bush now is somehow finally waking up to what Krugman's been saying all along. To take only the most obvious exmaples, Jonathan Chait has been relentless in his criticisms of Bush's policies since the 2000 campaign began. So has Michael Kinsley. So has Hendrik Hertzberg. (So, of course, have just about all the writers for The Nation.) Why is Krugman characterized as this "lone voice" who's been telling the truths that no one wants to hear? From my perspective, the "truths" that Krugman alone has been telling have been his insistence that the Bush administration has adopted a calculated coherent strategy "to smash the system as we know it," and that Bush's lies and deception are unparalleled in modern American history. But these are precisely the arguments I don't think Krugman is winning any converts to. When Alan Murray writes critically about Bush, he does not sound anything "like Paul Krugman." He sounds much more like Chait (excepting Chait's bizarre "I hate Bush" piece) or Kinsley (albeit without Kinsley's wit).

bakho--

I think you're the one trying to revise history. I read all that stuff carefully as it came out, though I must admit that I haven't exactly steeped myself in it since.

But I just did a search of the most prominent recount that I do remember, and here's the headline and lead:

FLORIDA RECOUNT STUDY: BUSH STILL WINS
Study reveals flaws in ballots, voter errors may have cost Gore victory

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A comprehensive study of the 2000 presidential election in Florida suggests that if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed a statewide vote recount to proceed, Republican candidate George W. Bush would still have been elected president.

The National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago conducted the six-month study for a consortium of eight news media companies, including CNN.............."

Here's the URLhttp://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/florida.ballots/stories/main.html

As I recall, most, if not all, of the other such independent efforts reached similar conclusions.

On foreign opinion of the US and its presidents, as a foreigner I'd have to say it's definitely some of your presidents, rather than the country, most have a problem with.

Bush 1 and Clinton were both taken seriously and even liked, even when they pursued policies that would not command popular support in other countries. Reagan was (wrongly, IMO) considered a genial idiot - but from time to time every country elects idiots. At least he wasn't corrupt, like Nixon, Chirac or Berlusconi.

But Bush 2 - whatever were you thinking? Equal parts of ignorance and arrogance - and worse, seemingly proud of his ignorance. It does reflect badly on your countrymen when they can't distinguish arrogant ignorance from 'moral certainty'.

I reckon all democracies should have a largely ceremonial head of state, whose office we can teach our children to respect, as the embodiment of the country. The CEO (prime minister, chancellor, grand vizier, whatever) can then be treated as the grubby politician most are - this avoids the problems of confusing respect for the office and the person. Your founding fathers made a mistake in not seeing this. They were too blinded by their respect for George Washington.

Maiden Lane says, "There's no way any fair-mided person could read that excerpt in the context of Krugman's column and believe he was merely trying to establish that there's no paper trail. "

What a very peculiar statement.

What Krugman is saying is that the lack of a paper trail makes it impossible to refute those who fear skulduggery. That is not the same as claiming that the absence of a paper trail implies wrongdoing. Just to make sure the simple minded will not misunderstand, Krugman SAYS "there is no evidence that the machines miscounted."

This is not ambiguous.

Are you attempting to mindread Professor Krugman? If so, you're not very good at it.

Maiden Lane also says, "But I just did a search of the most prominent recount that I do remember, and here's the headline and lead: FLORIDA RECOUNT STUDY: BUSH STILL WINS
Study reveals flaws in ballots, voter errors may have cost Gore victor. WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A comprehensive study of the 2000 presidential election in Florida suggests that if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed a statewide vote recount to proceed, Republican candidate George W. Bush would still have been elected president."

Unfortunately, you didn't read deeply enough and unfortunately the headline does not accurately represent the article. The article says that if undervotes and overvotes had been examined and interpreted according to state law, Gore would have won, albeit narrowly.

Florida law is very clear. If there is a mark or punch for a candidate and the candidate's name is also written in, that's a valid ballot. Machines, however, reject such ballots as overvotes. Likewise, if there is a discernable mark or partial punch by one candidate's name, and no other candidate is similarly marked, that is a valid ballot, even if the machine rejects it. But Florida law requires that if the intent of the voter can reasonably be discerned, the ballot *must* be counted.

So, as the article says, "In addition to undervotes, thousands of ballots in the Florida presidential election were invalidated because they had too many marks. This happened, for example, when a voter correctly marked a candidate and also wrote in that candidate's name. The consortium looked at what might have happened if a statewide recount had included these overvotes as well [as the legal undervotes] and found that Gore would have had a margin of fewer than 200 votes."

Fewer than 200, but more than zero.

If you want the citations to Florida law, I can provide them.

Oh, and by the way: the NYT did a study that determined that 500 absentee Bush votes were filed after Election Day, were filed by someone who wasn't registered or were otherwise not legal votes.

No, it's clear that Bush lost. It's also clear that he has a lot of very good friends in the media to make sure that no one heard about Florida's clear, simple, common sense election law.

RE: Europe and America.

The original subject of this thread was the relative merit of style versus substance in the print media. The rocky relationship between America and the countries of Europe, who presumably share common values and common commitments to democracy, freedom, and markets, makes points for the importance of style. So Bush is an ‘arrogant cowboy’ but John Kennedy was a charming Knight in shining armor? So be it.

Regarding the EU, no one in this country loses sleep over the EU. I was trying to point out the innocuous fact that it would be presumptuous and naïve to assume that the European community would possess a strategic global world view that was in complete alignment with the interests of the United States. I was also trying to make the argument that the perceived intensity of the anti-American sentiment, which emerged in sharp focus during the war in Iraq, required a deeper explanation than contempt for a President who had ‘dissed’ them. Time to grow up just a little?

RE: Bush-Gore Recount.

This is why people hate the legal system. You get your ‘technical’ win, but my point still stands and I think it is too obvious to merit further debate.

This article has lots of good citations of Florida law, which suggest that the overvotes should have counted: http://democrats.com/view.cfm?id=1609.

Charles, when a columnist ends a piece about a voting system which is already in place by saying that we should worry about partisans taking advantage of it to "manipulate election results," he is implying that partisans may be using it to "manipulate election results," which is to say that there may have been "wrongdoing." Why would you want to argue this point? The column is meant to make us wonder, among other things, if the "anomalies" in Georgia were in fact the result of manipulation, which in turn would make us more likely to reconsider the use of touch-screen voting. I really can't believe we're actually arguing about this.

Steve,
the fact that a system that do not allow for checking if it was tampered was approved, is inadmissible in itself. Why should anybody trust whatever results those machine have produced?

It is like in justice, where not only the judges have to be impartial, they must look so.

DSW

Lane re-read the article, not just the headlines:

"In addition to undervotes, thousands of ballots in the Florida presidential election were invalidated because they had too many marks. This happened, for example, when a voter correctly marked a candidate and also wrote in that candidate's name. The consortium looked at what might have happened if a statewide recount had included these overvotes as well and found that Gore would have had a margin of fewer than 200 votes."

These were legal votes. In other words, IF all legal votes in FL were counted, Gore wins.

Facts are sometimes inconvenient, but they are the facts nonetheless.

Steve Carr says, "Charles, when a columnist ends a piece about a voting system which is already in place by saying that we should worry about partisans taking advantage of it to "manipulate election results," he is implying that partisans may be using it to "manipulate election results," which is to say that there may have been "wrongdoing." Why would you want to argue this point?"

Because I don't like to put words into people's mouths, Mr. Carr. It's wrong. If he says, as he does, that there is no evidence of wrongdoing in Georgia, it would be wrong to claim that he is saying that there *is* evidence of wrongdoing.

The integrity of the election system is so vital to this country that after an election, there should be absolutely *no* doubt who won. Unfortunately, there are increasing doubts about elections.

Read your argument again. It's tendentious point after tendentious point. O'Dell is not just an ordinary corporate head. His company is in charge of tabulating elections. Like a judge, he should be non-partisan. Therefore, there is no separation between "business operations" and private behavior. But in addition to being intensely partisan, he's also a GOP leader. This is unethical.

There is no doubt that Diebold machines can be hacked. They are a security nightmare. Anyone who has worked with Access-based software or indeed any Mickeysoft product knows just how weak security is. No evidence has come forward that they were hacked in Georgia. However, impermissible software changes were made after certification, which is cause enough for concern-- if one cares about the integrity of election results.

_______________________

Will Allen says, "Charles, given your "interpretation" of the written word, you might just be the ideal ghostwriter for Krugman, if he ever wants to take a sabbatical. "

How ironic. I am the literalist, reading the words and taking their meaning at face value. This, you call "interpretation."

No, it is you, Mr. Lane, and Mr. Carr who are reading into the column thoughts that aren't there.

Again, assuring the integrity of elections is so vital that even the *possibility* of compromise of security is unacceptable. That's what Krugman is saying.

___________________________

Michael B might want to visit Central America. There are about as many mass graves as there are in Iraq. The bodies mostly contain bullets of American origin.

Or he might want to re-visit Iraq's history. Who sold the chemical precursors for chemical weapons to Saddam? Why... Don Rumsfeld! But that was back in the days when Saddam was the good guy, at least according to Reagan and Poppy Bush.

Wow, still going. Great. I have couple more things to say;

1) Ann, Gore didn't lose the election. We did. We're all losers because of what happened in Florida and the Supreme Court. That's what I mean about accepting responsibility.

2) Steve, if I recall correctly Krugman was the first to name Bush's lies lies. He's still more consistent about that than any of the other all very fine writers you mentioned.

3) I suggest we all meet back here in 6 months to discuss the Diebold voting machines, after Alan Murray writes his column on it.

Uh- In case you had not noticed, PK is a Jonnie come lately to the voting machine problem. There is a huge fracas between voting machine maker and Bush supporter Diebold and activist groups that want accounting standards for voting machines.

Diebold tried lawsuits (typical Repbulican hypocrisy) to take out the activist group but had to pack it in when Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich posted the offending material on his own website.

http://www.house.gov/kucinich/issues/voting.htm

Elections give politicians legitimacy and mandate. If the elections are not trusted by a large portion of the population, that undermines the legitimacy of the elected. It is in the public interest to have adequate accounting standards applied to whatever method is used to count the votes.

If Krugman's charges are sticking, it is only because there are not adequate accounting standards that would refute the charge. If you don't like the message attack the messenger. This is bigger than Bush. In this case, Krugman is doing a public service. Isn't it best to assure the legitimacy of the election before it takes place rather than arguing about it afterward? Krugman is just repeating what a lot of people have been saying about GA on the web. Republicans make last minute gains not predicted by polling and it is not possible to check the vote counting because there is no paper trail. We have to trust that the computer got it right. Trust completely evaporates when the CEO makes a Boss Tweed type statement about delivering votes for Bush in 2004 and there is no oversight.

Would you trust a voting machine made by George Bush if he was the only person who could read the computer code?Would you trust a voting machine made by George Bush if he was the only person who could read the computer code?
If you believe in legitimate voting, the answer to both of these questions should be NO.

If you think this is not an issue, then go here:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

Download Chapter 2 for a look at the problem undercounts, overcounts, no counts GOP DEM. Errors about and there is next to NO ACCOUNTABILITY.

Ask yourself. Would you be willing to send all the votes into a room with a single computer geek who would then tally the votes, destroy all the paper and then announce the results? Computer hacking occurs all the time. Vote fraud occurs all the time. Elections can and are stolen. Mistakes happen.

Corporations often rush products to market before they are properly tested and vetted because they need to make a profit. We cannot trust corporations to do the right thing without proper oversight.

Posting error.

I meant to write, "Would you trust a voting machine made by Bill Clinton if he was the only person who could read the computer code?" the second time. I hope you get my point that partisans on one side cannot and should not be trusted to count the votes without oversight. IMHO this is basic to fair elections. Maybe I am wrong and we should all place our faith in the honesty of all politicians?

It's a mistake to think that a "literal" reading is always a truer reading. More to the point, reading each sentence in isolation does not constitute a "literal" reading of a column as a whole. Words and sentences derive an important part of their meaning from the sentences and words that surround them. And words do not have single, inerrant meanings. They can be used to imply and insinuate. This is what much of rhetoric involves.

Let's say that Krugman was simply trying to make the point that touch screens were a bad idea because it was possible that they could be hacked and thereby compromise the integrity of the election process. Why, then, did he mention the Republicans' "spectacular upset victories" in Georgia or the "anomalies" there? If he didn't mean to suggest that these things might have been connected to the use of Diebold machines, why bring them up? If he just wanted to make the point that Diebold machines are now being used in real elections, he could easily have said that.

One last example: Krugman artfully drops the fact into a paren that the folder in which the Diebold software was found was called rob-Georgia.zip. Now, this is literally true. What Krugman carefully omits is the fact that the "rob" in "rob-Georgia" was a guy named Rob Behler: http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00078.htm.

Do you really think that if the file had been called "66325-Georgia.zip" Krugman would have bothered to mention it?

Charles, you think Bush is a "sociopath" and a "pathological liar" and that the whole Republican party is a "collection of (self-hating) hypocrites" that would be reduced to "pariah status" if the truth ever came out. Couldn't we agree that you might not be the best-placed person to give an objective evaluation of whether Krugman's columns seem, to a relatively nonpartisan reader, a bit skewed by partisanship?

I think the touch screens are a bad idea. It seems like they're a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist. (Yes, bad ballot designs and hanging chads are problems, but we don't really seem to have any trouble counting votes in a reasonable amount of time.)

But let me turn the question around, Bakho: Would you be willing to support computerized voting if the company that made the machines was run by a resolutely nonpartisan person? I assume, judging from what you've written, that you wouldn't, since all the substantive problems with the system -- hacking, no paper trail, etc. -- would still exist. (One option I have seen mentioned would print out a record of each person's vote. This sounds like an interesting idea, although given the way printers work, it would probably be a logistical nightmare.) I don't believe that Diebold has invested in touch-screen voting in order to win elections for the Republicans, and I'd be surprised if you really believed it. So why spend all this time speculating on the possible nefarious motives of the people behind touch-screen voting (which is what Krugman's mention of O'Dell and his reference to rob-Georgia.zip are all about)? Why not just make the case that it's a bad idea for democracy and should be killed?

Maiden Lane -- your knowledge of the Florida recount stories was incomplete. Without having read Palast's work, you don't know what you're talking about. There were multiple problems with the Florida count, and the stuff you read gave a rather narrow view of only one of them.

You should not present yourself as well-informed when you're not. There's a lot more to the story than the Consortium story, and even that one buried the fact that if all votes had been recounted, Gore would have won.

Steve Carr. Krugman as "The only voice": none of the people you named were major media (NYT, WaPo, network news, CNN, Fox). They all write for niche audiences.

I am completely in favor of other people writing things more to your mother's liking than Krugman's stuff. To me that's not a criticism of Krugman. And when people come along later, finally agreeing with Krugman in more mild terms, I don't think that that's a criticism of Krugman either. Maybe he convinced them, and they can convince your mother.

Similiarly on touch-sreen voting. I think that what Krugman wrote is reasonable, but if someone wants to write a milder version of it, that's fine with me.

I think that the main problem here is substantive. The truth is very bad, and very painful, and it's hard for civil people to accept that. Krugman himself mentions that he initially couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Maiden Lane -- your knowledge of the Florida recount stories was incomplete. Without having read Palast's work, you don't know what you're talking about. There were multiple problems with the Florida count, and the stuff you read gave a rather narrow view of only one of them.

You should not present yourself as well-informed when you're not. There's a lot more to the story than the Consortium story, and even that one buried the fact that if all votes had been recounted, Gore would have won.

Steve Carr. Krugman as "The only voice": none of the people you named were major media (NYT, WaPo, network news, CNN, Fox). They all write for niche audiences.

I am completely in favor of other people writing things more to your mother's liking than Krugman's stuff. To me that's not a criticism of Krugman. And when people come along later, finally agreeing with Krugman in more mild terms, I don't think that that's a criticism of Krugman either. Maybe he convinced them, and they can convince your mother.

Similiarly on touch-sreen voting. I think that what Krugman wrote is reasonable, but if someone wants to write a milder version of it, that's fine with me.

I think that the main problem here is substantive. The truth is very bad, and very painful, and it's hard for civil people to accept that. Krugman himself mentions that he initially couldn't believe what he was seeing.

I don’t believe that touch screen voting is a conspiracy and I am sure I saw Elvis in the mall but I didn’t say a word when the aliens interrogated me. I don’t have red-hot proximity to this industry but, as an end-user and part time developer and observer of the technology, I am not at all surprised at the Beverly Hillbillies approach to the design. Remember the performance difference between AnySoftware V1.0 and V9.5 - the development process is tiered.

The only conspiracy was the premature distribution into the market, an event that is typically driven by Wall Street concerns for meeting quarterly projections. I don’t think this one can be blamed on nefarious politicians, but the production sloppiness is the manufacturing and design equivalent of Enron. That sort of irresponsibility is quite possibly criminal.

I think you are missing Krugman's point about the GA election, rob-georgia, etc. Rob is probably someone's name. However, the system lacks accountability. Without accountability- WE DON"T KNOW. You cannot prove the election was not stolen. You cannot prove it was stolen either. This uncertainty allows millions of people to believe that the GOP stole the election in GA. After all, there is no evidence to refute it. If the election was legitimate, it is bad for the winner who many think is a cheat. If the election is not legitimate it is bad for the people whose will was thwarted. There are no winners if there is no accountability. This is a lose/lose proposition.

This is exactly why accountability is needed. This is exactly Krugman's point. If Las Vegas slot machines can reliably pay out at the desired level and that can be determined by an independent audit, then why cannot voting machines be subject to the same accountability standards?? The best way to maintain scrutiny is to have a transparent process for counting votes that can be independently verified by both sides. The current issue is the existence of vote counting that cannot be verified by anyone except the company that makes the machine. They will tell you that their vote counting is 100% accurate and error free in order to sell their machines. Why do you want to give these companies a pass on something this fundamental and important?? Maybe you trust these companies. Maybe you trust the ability of programmers to write millions of lines of error free code. Maybe you believe that no politician has ever cheated in an election. I'm from Missouri.

Zizka--

Screw you!

I specifically was not presenting myself "as well- informed." I said things like, "as I recall," "from what I read" etc.

As for "Without having read Palast's work, you don't know what you're talking about. There were multiple problems with the Florida count, and the stuff you read gave a rather narrow view of only one of them. "

Sounds like bullshit to me. I was, after all, only talking about one of them, which was that even if the SC had allowed the recount, Gore would have lost.

If you want to quote extensively from "Palast's work" as you put it so pretentiously, be my guest, but I think I'll pass. I'm just guessing that he's another left-wing bush-hater.

Bakho --

Really, are you just trying to get a rise out of me? I said I thought touch screens were a bad idea and that they should be killed. How is this giving these companies a pass? My argument was that if they're a bad idea, they're a bad idea regardless of who runs the company. So talking about who runs the company is meaningless, unless you're trying to score political points against the Republicans.

You and I agree that these companies will say the results are 100% accurate "in order to sell their machines." That is not what Krugman was arguing. In fact, there's nothing about the business motives of the company in the piece at all. His lede was clearly intended to imply that O'Dell's advocacy of touch screens is driven, in part, by his desire to throw the election to Bush. I think this is just wrong. There is no evidence for it. It's an unnecessary and purely partisan insinuation that hurts, not helps, the argument against computerized voting, because it makes it seem as if the problem with computerized voting is that bad or corrupt people run the companies that make the touch screens.

Krugman could easily have written that column without mentioning Republican dirty tricks or Republican partisans or rob-Georgia.zip and made exactly the same points you're making. The fact that he didn't made it easy for people in the middle to dismiss his arguments as yet another manifestation of his irrational hatred of all things Republican.

And I'm not missing the point about rob-Georgia.zip. Rob is not "probably someone's name." It's someone's name. Bev Harris, whom Krugman cites in his column, talks to Rob Behler in that article I linked to above. It was his folder that was available on the server. Krugman had to know this. Mentioning the file name was yet another one of those little insinuations -- in this case a completely untrue insinuation -- that he should be above making.

OK so blame Krugman for not writing about voting machines made by supporters of Democrats. Oh no. All the voting machine companies are run by GOP supporters.

Seriously, this did not start with Krugman. Run a Google with computer vote fraud. It will get over 200000 hits. Krugman is writing about this because it is the current firestorm on the web. It is common wisdom on the web that the GOP is out to use its money and power to steal elections. I don´t totally agree, but that is the current buzz. Comparatively, the PK column is pretty tame. At least PK didn´t use the Stalin quote that the person counting the votes matters more than the people casting the votes.

And the same to you, my dear Maiden.

In case you haven't been informed, it's us paleoliberal leftwing Bush-bashers who are supposed to resort to profanity and know-nothingism in lieu of an argument. Not you nice moderates.

Yeah, Palast is left-wing and he doesn't like Bush.

Steve Carr: "More to the point, what possible reason could PK have to open the column with the quote from O'Dell if not to suggest that there's a connection between the political views of the head of Diebold and the possible chicanery that Diebold software enables?"

What Krugman clearly suggested in that column is that there MAY possibly have been a link. There may indeed possibly have been a link; the matter badly needs to be looked into. Enough said.

As for Michael B., I see his eyes are still bulging. It's the CIA (and Daniel Drezner) who also think the Plame Affair was damned serious. It's the highly reasonable Matthew Yglesias who, after reading David Kay's most recent statements about his investigation, was goaded to call him "a lying sack of shit". And Bush used fake WMD reports -- NOT Saddam's genocide -- as his official justification for guiding the US into something as monumental as war with Iraq. (Mass graves, unfortunately, are still rife in this world. Take a look at Sudan -- or Guatemala -- neither of which the US has ever proposed invading for it.)

But what am I saying? I bow before the reasonableness of someone who's ascribed most of the blame for the Waco tragedy to the "child-frying" Feds rather than the reasonable, peaceful Branch Davidians.

Steve Carr says, "It's a mistake to think that a "literal" reading is always a truer reading. More to the point, reading each sentence in isolation does not constitute a "literal" reading of a column as a whole. Words and sentences derive an important part of their meaning from the sentences and words that surround them. And words do not have single, inerrant meanings. They can be used to imply and insinuate. This is what much of rhetoric involves."

Yes, Mr. Carr, I'm well aware of these things. And sometimes people falsely impute motives to others; it's always detectable by forcing them to look at the exact words.

If you had said that *you* felt he was implying or insinuating electoral fraud, that would be fine. You're welcome to your opinion. As soon as you say that this so obvious that any reasonable person would agree, well, no it's not.

Steven Carr continues "Why, then, did he mention the Republicans' "spectacular upset victories" in Georgia or the "anomalies" there? "

*Others* cite these points reasons *they* suspect wrongdoing. Again, the integrity of elections is *so* critical that there should not even be suspicion.

And when one looks at what people are concerned about, they're quite right to be concerned. It's conceded by the man who does validations for Diebold that there was a violation of election law in applying a software patch after validation. That alone should be enough to trigger an investigation.

Mr. Carr says, "Krugman artfully drops the fact into a paren that the folder in which the Diebold software was found was called rob-Georgia.zip. Now, this is literally true. What Krugman carefully omits is the fact that the "rob" in "rob-Georgia" was a guy named Rob Behler...Do you really think that if the file had been called "66325-Georgia.zip" Krugman would have bothered to mention it?"

I think it adds color to the story. Is it a rhetorical device designed to mislead? Ask Prof. Krugman. But again I think the point is tendentious. Read a George Will column or a William Safire column and see if they don't make irrelevant rhetorical points. Krugman is an Op-Ed columnist, not a member of a monastic order.

Mr Carr says, "Charles, you think Bush is a "sociopath" and a "pathological liar" and that the whole Republican party is a "collection of (self-hating) hypocrites" that would be reduced to "pariah status" if the truth ever came out. Couldn't we agree that you might not be the best-placed person to give an objective evaluation of whether Krugman's columns seem, to a relatively nonpartisan reader, a bit skewed by partisanship?"

Are you less partisan than I, Mr. Carr? I don't think so. To me, your imputations of motives to Krugman seem, please forgive me, paranoid.

As for my observations on the modern-day Republican party, there are a whole shelf of books out on lies by George Bush, Bill O'Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh. While the books are partisan, they're well-documented.

I have written about the Culture of Lies in a broader sense (http://www.americanpolitics.com/20020405Utwater.html) While I believe that the epicenter of the malignancy is in the right, I point out that each of us is genetically susceptible. In any event, if one subtracts the few hard words I have for Bush and cohort, you'll find that my opinions are what conservatives once said they stand for.

I find Ann's comment about Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy to be quite funny. Whatever you do, don't point out what happened. The truth is passe you know. Class warfare and all that.

I'll agree with you: Krugman is like George Will and Wiliam Safire. They all make irrelevant points for rhetorical effect, because they are resolutely partisan writers more interested in scoring political points than persuading non-true believers of the truth. That's all this argument was about in the first place.

On a more important point, I would say I'm less partisan in the sense that I agree with Krugman's political positions most of the time, but am nonetheless critical of him for his rhetorical excesses and tendency to demonize all Republicans. Do you really think that makes me as partisan as someone who believes the Republicans should be reduced to "pariah status" and calls the president of the United States a "sociopath"? I may be wrong in my quest for some measure of evenhandedness, and (even though I want George Bush to lose in 2004), my willingness to believe, say, Mr. O'Dell of Diebold when he says: "I wouldn't and couldn't commit" a "treasonous felony atrocity to try to change the outcome of an election." But that doesn't mean I'm partisan. To say I'm as partisan as you are distorts the meaning of the word beyond all recognition.

Steve Carr says, "I'll agree with you: Krugman is like George Will and Wiliam Safire. They all make irrelevant points for rhetorical effect, because they are resolutely partisan writers more interested in scoring political points than persuading non-true believers of the truth. That's all this argument was about in the first place."

You're not agreeing with me, but rather (again) leaping to conclusions. I simply pointed out that two of the most widely read OpEd writers are partisan and make rhetorical points at the expense of the truth. If Krugman were to have stooped to doing so, it wouldn't exactly be exceptional for that piece of journalistic territory. It's perhaps more exceptional when writers don't.

Did Krugman, in the example you gave (mentioning the Diebold rob-georgia file) engage in rhetorical point-making? Maybe. I'm not a mindreader. So when I say, "Neither are you," I'm only guessing. If I'm right, you should impute motives to Krugman that aren't solidly supported by the actual text.

The sentence "you should impute motives to Krugman that aren't solidly supported by the actual text" (vide supra)

should read, "you shouldn't impute motives to Krugman that aren't solidly supported by the actual text"

"Ann, you're making excuses for Bush. He initiated the lawsuits to stop the recount. America has been conducting recounts in contested elections for a very long time. "

And you are making excuses for Gore. Bush won the initial count, then won a recount, then won a challenge in a lower court. He won at every stage and in every forum except the Florida supreme court. it was indeed unprecedented for the Florida Supremes to change the date of certification - unprecedented and against Federal law concerning changing the rules of elections after they occur - they delayed it for over a week to do triple recounting and to give Gore every chance in the selective and partial recount. The Gore side tried to "mine" the right votes to overturn the election of Bush based on the initial counts, but the clock ran out...

"A close count is not a constitutional crisis."

Indeed it's not, which is why there are simply no legs to the "Bush was selected not elected" line.
People get elected in close races. This was one of them. Gore's challenge was denied in the lower court based on good law, but then was overturned by an overzealous Florida supreme court - which itself was slapped down by the USSC. The USSC selected no winner, they merely stopped a biased recount that was standardless and meritless. Bush was elected fairly according to the counts and recounts that had been made. Calling one set of judges 'partisan' while ignoring the wilful violation of election codes and laws by the Gore-biased Florida Supreme court is itself an exercise in partisan blindness.

This leaves aside a few larger questions: How Gore could have (phony but perceived) peace and prosperity on his side and lose or even get close to that?

And one of his operatives planted the 1970s DWI story 5 days prior to the election. Great timing - Bush went from 3 points up to even on election day. When will someone ask Gore: Was that tactic worth it?

In his errors a man is true to type. Observe the errors and you will know the man.

Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.