It's Unfair to Pick on the Economist's "Lexington": Archive Entry From Brad DeLong's Webjournal

July 16, 2004

It's Unfair to Pick on the Economist's "Lexington"

It's unfair to pick on the Economist's "Lexington" for past misjudgments of the Bush administration. But it is irresistible:

Economist.com | Lexington: George Bush, homme sérieux: Feb 8th 2001: ONLY the other day the clever line on George Bush was that he was nothing but a lazy frat boy.... Mr Bush is certainly immune to his predecessor’s obsession with intellectual credentials (indeed, the Clinton White House, all brains, back-stabbing and lechery, was arguably the closest America has ever got to the Sorbonne).... His administration has so far been a model of disciplined efficiency. Every week brings a new White House initiative; every meeting starts and ends on time.... The past 40 years have seen the creation of a new Republican constituency, the conservative intelligentsia... the rise of right-wing think-tanks... the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal... vital role in driving the Republican Party’s successes, persuading it to embrace “unthinkable” ideas such as tax cuts and welfare reform. And Republican presidents who have ignored the intellectual wing of their party—most notably, George Bush senior—have paid dearly.

Mr Bush has been careful to balance practical types like his defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, with policy wonks. Condoleezza Rice, his national security adviser.... John DiIulio, the head of his newly created office of faith-based and community initiatives.... Paul Wolfowitz... model for a character in Saul Bellow’s intellectual-worshipping novel, “Ravelstein”, is number two at the Pentagon. Right-wing think-tanks... labour secretary, Elaine Chao... Heritage Foundation.... Larry Lindsey, comes from the American Enterprise Institute; the head of the Office of Management and Budget, Mitch Daniels, is a former president of the Hudson Institute... Dick Cheney and Paul O’Neill....

Mr Bush’s first three legislative initiatives—on education, faith-based organisations and tax cuts—have all been shaped by policy wonks...

Condi Rice has been the worst National Security Adviser since John Poindexter: she has been unable to get the security agencies to even pretend to pull in harness, and has failed to make George W. Bush listen to the information he needs to hear. John DiIulio's shrieks of disgust and despair about his time in the Bush administration are legendary: he is the coiner of the phrase "Mayberry Machiavellis." Mitch Daniels was the worst OMB Director in the history of the office: the only one who didn't even try to be an advocate for lower spending and balanced budgets. Larry Lindsey and Paul O'Neill are the only two people whom George W. Bush has fired (albeit primarily for their virtues rather than their faults). Elaine Chao has not been visible. Paul Wolfowitz has been Paul Wolfowitz. And Dick Cheney has been Dick Cheney.

Posted by DeLong at July 16, 2004 09:07 AM | TrackBack | | Other weblogs commenting on this post

Comments

I fail to see how harping on a totally bogus party line in science, economics, social policy and so forth counts as intellectual work. I suppose all the "conservative intellect" is involved in figuring out ways to counter cognitive dissonance.

I am not saying they aren't intelligent, but the conservative "intelligensia" hardly deserves the title.

Posted by: Carol on July 16, 2004 09:18 AM

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Hello Brad,
I realize this is slightly off topic but this is the only access I have to your site.
Bests,
John
________________________

john mccarthy
Member
Member # 2901

posted 16-07-2004 11:09 AM
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Onyxman,
I totally agree...it is nothing but frontier justice with the goal of controlling the oil....after all, frontier justice had to have a reason for it's existence....

And now, in the light of day, comes the news (shame) that women arrested in Iraq and incarcerated in Abu Ghraib were forced to watch their children sodomized by Americans....letters smuggled out of Abu Ghraib beg for relatives to come to the prison and kill them for what they have been forced to witness....the frontier justice has run amok and now we are not only forced to deal with and discuss this disgusting mess, we must ask if the Military Intelligence officers (MI) and Military Police (MP) were actually who they portended to be or were they CIA simply posing as MI and MP? Oops, there goes the dreaded sources and methods again.

Now we have the peons facing court-martial and humiliation and unless attorney's worth their salt ask the direct questions to expose this sham, these young men and women will go down the tubes....victims of frontier justice.

Unfortunately, this pattern of behavior is not new. CIA posing as US military officers in Vietnam have been documented committing atrocities on civilians. Pattern of behavior (read sources and methods) is a favorite expression of attorney's speaking to jury's about a defendant's reputation. As horrible as this news is, it is going to blow back up the line to the Intelligence Community who ran the prisons in Iraq with approval of those at the highest authority....

It is no wonder that the International Criminal Court and the UN have voted NOT to extend the immunity from prosecution for war crimes for United States military forces.

Frontier justice in the modern world with all the lines of communication available is shown for what it is, nothing more than the arrogant display of brutal cowboy mentality forced upon us with disregard for the Nuremberg Code.

The Fourth Reich is ending in disgrace while hiding behind the facade of frontier justice.

John McCarthy
http://www.jenmartinez.com/vetsturn/
http://www.fromthewilderness/free/hall/Mac.html
http://www.geocities.com/larryjodaniel/17.html
http://www.spiritone.com/~pazuu/pow-mia/JohnMcCarthy.htm
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Posts: 46 | From: LA | Registered: Jul 2004 | IP: Logged |

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Posted by: john mccarthy on July 16, 2004 09:30 AM

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The appropriate term is nomenklatura.

Posted by: Matthew Saroff on July 16, 2004 09:34 AM

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Peggy Noonan wrote a similar piece a few years ago about how wonderful and disciplined this White House is: no pizza-fueled all-nighters, staffers show up on time in freshly-pressed shirts and shined shoes, you know, the whole "man in uniform" drill. But best of all was the fact that this White House (unlike that of certain demonic predecessors she could name) didn't go around leaking embarrassing/important data to the media (OT, it featured the fantastic sentence, "Karen Hughes doesn't leak.")

Several months, UN presentations and one Valerie Plame later, how tragic it all seems. Read if you need to chuckle, through your tears perhaps:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=95001740

Posted by: Adam on July 16, 2004 10:34 AM

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The article you cite is evidence of completely duped "Lexington" was. If "Lexington" was willing to be wowwed by Heritage Foundation or AEI credentials, then there has been a whole lot of wasted space in the Economist for some time. If cranking out canned initiatives one after another is praise-worthy, I'm ready for the job. Washington is chock full of paper initiatives just waiting for a White House press conference. Starting and ending meetings on time is not the point of meetings. It was just an early hint that the "MBA presidency" honored form above substance. Bush never, in any of these meetings, was so taken by an issue, or well enough informed to derail the meeting with a question, that the meetings ran over, or broke up ahead of time when it was clear staff had gotten it wrong? Oh, yeah, he isn't "complex."

The "all brains, back-stabbing and lechery" bit early in the piece made it clear. The depth of analysis available in from "Lexington" was that anything "not Clinton" was good. Complete shlock.

Posted by: kharris on July 16, 2004 11:28 AM

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I, for one, would not have been at all upset if one of those meetings where they discussed "Osama bin Laden Determined to Attack United States" in so much more detail that they'd gone into extra innings, so to speak. But, when you've got a busy, busy schedule to keep....

Posted by: John Owens on July 16, 2004 12:16 PM

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COOL!

I claim inspiratory credit.

Posted by: ogmb on July 16, 2004 04:52 PM

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Say what you will about Bush, at least he made the meetings run on time.

Posted by: Social democrat on July 16, 2004 09:05 PM

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After ten years I cancelled my Economist subscription. I couldn't get over how they completely failed to deal with the California energy crisis. But it soon became clear why - they had become Bush toadies. A highbrow New York Post.

Posted by: D on July 17, 2004 06:59 AM

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"Condi Rice has been the worst National Security Adviser since John Poindexter..."

Do today's revelations about Sandy Berger's competence -- or lack thereof -- in handling classified documents tend to alter the rankings any?

Posted by: Pouncer on July 20, 2004 10:09 AM

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Short answer for Pouncer:

No. Berger's was the ideal kind of failing - the ramification-free kind.

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