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August 06, 2002
Paul Krugman Gets Angry
Paul Krugman is angry about how the Bush administration can't even keep from editing the archival copies of its own documents: "if you go to the O.M.B.'s Web site now you find a press release dated July 12 that is not the release actually handed out on that date."
The sad thing is that Bush's people in the Office of Management and Budget have probably never read 1984, and do not recognize what they are doing...
The Memory Hole
Last month the Office of Management and Budget got sloppy: it issued a press release stating flatly that tax cuts were responsible for only 15 percent of the 10-year deterioration. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noticed, and I reported it here. Now for the fun part. The O.M.B. reacted angrily, and published a letter in The Times attacking me. It attributed the misstatement to "error," and declared that it had been "retracted."
Was it? It depends on what you mean by the word "retract." As far as anyone knows, O.M.B. didn't issue a revised statement conceding that it had misinformed reporters and giving the right numbers. It simply threw the embarrassing document down the memory hole. As Brendan Nyhan pointed out in Salon, if you go to the O.M.B.'s Web site now you find a press release dated July 12 that is not the release actually handed out on that date. There is no indication that anything has been changed, but the bullet point on sources of the deficit is gone. Every government tries to make excuses for its past errors, but I don't think any previous U.S. administration has been this brazen about rewriting history to make itself look good. For this kind of thing to happen you have to have politicians who have no qualms about playing Big Brother; officials whose partisan loyalty trumps their professional scruples; and a press corps that, with some honorable exceptions, lets the people in power get away with it.
inston Smith, the protagonist of George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four," was a rewrite man. His job was to destroy documents that could undermine the government's pretense of infallibility, and replace them with altered versions.
Lately, Winston Smith has gone to Washington. I'm sure that lots of history is being falsified as you read this — there are several three-letter agencies I don't trust at all — but two cases involving the federal budget caught my eye.
First is the "Chicago line." Shortly after Sept. 11, George W. Bush told his budget director that the only valid reasons to break his pledge not to run budget deficits would be if the country experienced recession, war or national emergency. "Lucky me," he said. "I hit the trifecta."
When I first reported this remark, angry readers accused me of inventing it. Mr. Bush, they said, is a decent man who would never imply that the nation's woes had taken him off the hook, let alone make a joke out of it.
Soon afterward, the trifecta story became part of Mr. Bush's standard stump speech. It always gets a roar of appreciative laughter from Republican audiences.
So what's the Chicago line? In his speeches, Mr. Bush claims to have laid out the criteria for running a deficit when visiting Chicago during the 2000 campaign. But there's no evidence that he said anything of the sort during the campaign, in Chicago or anywhere else; certainly none of the reporters who were with him can remember it. (The New Republic, which has tracked the claim, titled one of its pieces "Stop him before he lies again.") In fact, during the campaign his budget promises were unqualified, for good reason. If he had conceded that future surpluses were not guaranteed, voters might have wondered whether it was wise to lock in a 10-year tax cut.
About that 10-year tax cut: It basically takes place in two phases. Phase I, which has mainly happened already, is a smallish tax cut for the middle class. Phase II, which won't be completed until 2010, is a considerably larger cut that goes mostly to the richest 1 percent of taxpayers.
That two-phase structure offers substantial opportunities for misdirection. If someone suggests reconsidering future tax cuts, the administration can accuse him of wanting to raise taxes in a recession — implying, falsely, that he wants to reverse Phase I rather than simply call off Phase II. On the other hand, if someone says that tax cuts have worsened the budget picture, the administration can say that tax cuts explain only 15 percent of the move into deficit. This sounds definitive, but in fact it refers only to the impact of Phase I on this year's budget; by the administration's own estimates, 40 percent of the $4 trillion deterioration in the 10-year outlook is due to tax cuts.
There is, however, an art to this sort of deception: you have to imply the falsehood without actually saying it outright. Last month the Office of Management and Budget got sloppy: it issued a press release stating flatly that tax cuts were responsible for only 15 percent of the 10-year deterioration. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noticed, and I reported it here.
Now for the fun part. The O.M.B. reacted angrily, and published a letter in The Times attacking me. It attributed the misstatement to "error," and declared that it had been "retracted." Was it?
It depends on what you mean by the word "retract." As far as anyone knows, O.M.B. didn't issue a revised statement conceding that it had misinformed reporters and giving the right numbers. It simply threw the embarrassing document down the memory hole. As Brendan Nyhan pointed out in Salon, if you go to the O.M.B.'s Web site now you find a press release dated July 12 that is not the release actually handed out on that date. There is no indication that anything has been changed, but the bullet point on sources of the deficit is gone.
Every government tries to make excuses for its past errors, but I don't think any previous U.S. administration has been this brazen about rewriting history to make itself look good. For this kind of thing to happen you have to have politicians who have no qualms about playing Big Brother; officials whose partisan loyalty trumps their professional scruples; and a press corps that, with some honorable exceptions, lets the people in power get away with it.
Lucky us: we hit the trifecta.
Posted by DeLong at August 06, 2002 05:32 AM
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Speaking of: "to make excuses for its past errors", in light of the number of errors (and re-errors) Rhinoceros Mickey Kaus has just dug up:
http://slate.msn.com/default.aspx?id=2069001
wouldn't the kindest thing, for Krugman, be to avert our gaze from his claims for awhile?
POWER AND THE RANGERS
By Paul Krugman
A few people have asked me about that letter from Bush's former business associates, regarding the nature of his deal with the Texas Rangers syndicate. They assert something I didn't know: that he was granted a 12 percent share of the profits despite having put up only 2 percent of the money back in 1989, when the deal was initialized, rather than in 1998, when the franchise was sold. Assuming this is true - it would be nice to see the contract - does this make everything clean and above-board?
Actually, if anything it makes things worse. In fact, I suspect that the peculiarity of that contract, if it exists, is why we're only hearing about it now: had it been public knowledge at the time it would have raised a lot of questions.
The deal, say Bush's partners, was "standard". Um, how standard is it for a businessman with a track record of losing other peoples' money to get a 10 percent share of a $100 million business venture for free? He was, they say, just a private citizen - whose father happened to be President. (Imagine the reaction if someone had given such a deal to Roger Clinton just a few months after his brother took office!) One more thing: as I understand it, by giving Bush an ownership share rather than paying him for his services, the partners ensured not just that he would get rich, but that his income would be taxed as capital gains - i.e., at a relatively low rate.
The rest of the Texas Rangers story remains unchanged. The partners were able to sell out at a large profit because they had acquired a brand-new stadium - paid for with taxpayers' money - and some prime real estate - seized for them at low prices using eminent domain. Those privileges actually become a bit more comprehensible if, as the partners assert, it was already true at the time the syndicate received such amazing favors from Texas officials that the president's son was entitled to 12 cents on every dollar of its profits.
Was any of this illegal? Probably not. Was it crony capitalism? Of course.
Ask the following two questions:
1. Did the young George Bush get opportunities to make himself rich that are unavailable to ordinary people, who don't happen to be scions of a powerful political dynasty?
2. Was his one and only business success due mainly to political favors, rather than because he was a good businessman?
I don't see how anyone can deny that the answer to both questions is yes, or can hear the tale without thinking of Tommy Suharto.
We don't have the full story of Bush's career. I have reason to believe that there is a lot more to the Harken story, and also a lot about cronyism during his years as governor. But this isn't really about finding smoking guns. It's about seeing what lies behind Bush's pose as a regular guy, someone who shares the concerns of ordinary people.
Originally published on the Official Paul Krugman Site, 8.4.02
Paul Krugman is a wonderfully disciplined and astute economist. Love reading the columns. Love arguing in my mind with Krugman. Pay no attention to Krugman critics.
Agree with Anne's comments above, except "pay no attention to Krugman critics". Do yourself a favor and read the critiques of Krugman (Kaus, Sullivan, Stein et al) to see how desperate Bushies are to paint him as partisan in order to mute his brilliant, on-target criticisms of the Adminstration.
Agree with gsn comments. Krugman is pointing out that we are building important macro and micro economic problems. The domestic surplus is no more, social security and medicare supports are threatened, tax cuts for the wealthiest are going to accentuate income and wealth inequality, corporate leadershps have created astonishing gaps between their pay and basic employee pay, gaps in corporate leadership interests and shareholder interests have widened, waiting hopelessly for Dow 36,000 personal saving has been too low.... We will need a lot of tough economic reporting to continue to point out and correct problems.
JD
I've got to look up those Texas businessmen, and get into one of those 'standard partnerships'. I'd like to put in 2% of the risk, and get 12% of the profits. It makes me wonder how those guys stayed in business. Could it be by - you know - knowing whom to offer such deals to?
Barry
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/16/opinion/16KRIS.html
The Texas Land Grab
By Nicholas Kristof
It is a delight to watch Krugman drive these conservative pundits up a wall, effortlessly, week after week. Even Krugman's "errors" constitute an objective standard of truth which is well beyond their reach.
Couldn't agree more. If Krugman's detractors took the time to flip through Peddling Prosperity they would see that he attacks Clinton's Strategic Trade policies with the same intellectual rigor he is applying to the current administration. Is it just me or does conservative punditry these days soley consist of personal attacks based on a skewed fact-base and some misinformation thrown in for good measure?
Barry writes:
" I've got to look up those Texas businessmen, and get into one of those 'standard partnerships'. I'd like to put in 2% of the risk, and get 12% of the profits. It makes me wonder how those guys stayed in business. Could it be by - you know - knowing whom to offer such deals to? "
Read the updates from Mickey Kaus, Barry. You'll find yourself embarrassed again. This form of business (i.e. Limited Partnership) invariably is done exactly this way. Sometimes with the General Partners (that's GW Bush) putting ZERO up.
Bush got nothing until the Limited Partners recovered their investment with interest. Only then was he able to get his payoff for his work as General Partner. Again, SOP. And one of the reasons for this "payoff" to GPs is that it is they who have the unlimited liability for the partnership. The limited partners have only their investment at risk. Risk = reward. Bush had more than 2% risk.
Krugman should have read the Houston Chronicle article HE CITED. It's all in there. And since this was pointed out to him in the letter to the NY Times by Bush's partners, he looks like a complete fool (if not worse) for writing the article that has now been anonymously posted for us.
Good thing none of you took up my challenge to enter the Coulter-Krugman Fact Checking Derby.
'Read the updates from Mickey Kaus, Barry. You'll find yourself embarrassed again. This form of business (i.e. Limited Partnership) invariably is done exactly this way. Sometimes with the General Partners (that's GW Bush) putting ZERO up.'
You're technically correct, but missing the larger point: it's not illegal, just quasi-ethical influence-trading. Why would a limited partnership give a member 12% of the profits when they only ponied up 2% of the cash? Well, they must have thought Bush did something over the lifetime of the partnership worth justifying that kind of payout.
Now what kind of activities can a son of a vice-president do for you to justify that kind of payout?
What, would conservatives think it ok for a Clinton administration official to engage in this sort of sweetheart deal, where said official got paid an absolute ton of money solely for their political connections? Add in the land-seizure issue for the stadium, and the whole thing is like Harken: it's not illegal, but boy, does it smell bad.
Speaking of Coulter, what is the official rationalization for the Dale Earnhardt snafu? Did those diabolical liberals hack into the Nexus database, travel back in time and reprint the issue in question?
A factual "error" of the magnitude Krugman is accused of, would simply be lost in the noise if it appeared in Slander.
Mickey Rhino, after laying out the "limited
partnership business as usual" argument,
cheerfully agrees that "crony capitalism" has
nevertheless been fairly established.
Which is it? If George W. Bush is such a capable
businessman that he earned his bonus the same
as George W. Schmerdlap might have, how is he a
crony capitalist? And if he was a marginal
businessman having money squirted at him by his
dad's friends through a limited partnership hose,
then how has Krugman been refuted in any significant way?
"Bush got nothing until the Limited Partners recovered their investment with interest."
Could it be that they recovered their investment pretty quickly because the taxpayers helped build their new stadium?
Man, Kaus sucks. All he does is tiny nitpicking, which results in everyone expending lots of energy over nothing. He concedes Krugman's main point - crony capitalism, but pokes tiny little flaws. This is all he ever does, besides go on and on about how much we need to hate welfare mothers. Boo to Kaus, I say.
The reason that Krugman gets hauled over the coals again and again is neatly encapsulated in the title of Brad's post: "Paul Krugman Gets Angry". People bait him because he always, always reacts, and it's quite funny for them to see him blow up again on his website.
Brad; Krugman almost certainly won't read an email from me, but he will read one from you. Is there any chance that you could pass on the message to him that he is currently engaged in what one of my friends calls "an arse-kicking contest against a hideous creature with sixteen legs and no arse", and that it is clearly giving him only minimal pleasure. It would be really nice to return to the days in which the latest update to the Krugman website was a nice, semi-technical application of the IS-LM framework to a real-world problem, not a Mr Angry response to the latest kid to poke him with a stick.
NB: I am wholly in favour of people in general continuing to tell Mickey Kaus what an unholy ass he is, and I must confess I like reading the diatribes; I'm just suggesting that it goes against the principle of comparative advantage for Krugman to be assigned to this job, like Michael Jordan mowing his own lawn.
Patrick, what did George bring to the table to justify an unequal division of risk and profit?
If it were Michael Jordan, the answer would be his name, which has a proven market value. If it were an experienced and successful businessman, the answer would be proven skills and a record of success, which would have a market value.
In the case of George Bush, the only things that he brought to the table were a record of failing in business, and being the son of the president.
Barry
"Bush got nothing until the Limited Partners recovered their investment with interest. Only then was he able to get his payoff for his work as General Partner. Again, SOP. And one of the reasons for this "payoff" to GPs is that it is they who have the unlimited liability for the partnership. The limited partners have only their investment at risk. Risk = reward. Bush had more than 2% risk."
Actually, Bush didn't, because he could declare bankruptcy. Keeping any homestead, of course.
His total liability would be on the order of $1 million (a guess at his total worth).
If it were me or you, of course, this would be devastating. However, Bush is in the class of people who, if they went bankrupt, won't be sleeping in the homeless shelter. As proven by Arbusto, Spectrum 7, etc.
I see that the usual suspects continue to deny reality. There are tens of thousands of LPs, if not hundreds of thousands, set up just like the Texas Ranger partnership (including the NY Yankees with George Steinbrenner as GP, iirc).
General Partners DO NOT have limited liability analogous to corporate ownership. THEIR risk is GREATER than the risk of the limited partners, hence their reward is going to be greater than their financial investment (which is often zero). Again, read the update to Mickey Kaus first post on this egregious error by Krugman, and you will get a first hand description from just such a General Partner. And, I've already posted this information once here, so I hope my repeating it makes an impression.
In the specific case of the Texas Rangers, what Bush had was the ability to organize a group to buy the team in the first place. Peter Ueberoth (again, iirc), then Commissioner of Baseball, wanted substantial amounts of Texas money in any deal to buy the team. Bush, as an entrepreneur, took that opportunity. Without Bush those investors wouldn't have gotten in the front door, because Bush had the confidence of both Ueberoth and the then current owner of the Rangers, Eddie Chiles.
Bush made money for himself as well as his investors. And as for the taxpayers footing the bill, I happen to be appalled at the way professional sports has come to be financed (I prefer The House That Ruth Built model), but this is the way it is. Baltimore "stole" the Cleveland Browns, ditto for St. Louis and the Rams. Someone would have taken the Rangers out of Texas had not the taxpayers made the deal.
Coors Field, Camden Yards, Safeco Field.... Same story.
Now, as to why Krugman is "raked over the coals", it's because he is constantly dissembling AND possibly crossing the line into slander with his columns in the Times. He consistently makes elementary errors in fact or logic ("a pattern" as Kaus correctly noted). In this second column (which was not published in the Times), even after he was apprised of the facts, he continues to dissemble. For instance, this sentence:
"I suspect that the peculiarity of that contract, if it exists, is why we're only hearing about it now."
contains three errors of fact. 1. The contract is not peculiar. 2. It most certainly exists. 3. We're NOT just hearing about it now--Krugman himself cited a Houston Chronicle story from 1998 that had these facts .
Here's another sentence with material factual error:
"...as I understand it, by giving Bush an ownership share rather than paying him for his services, the partners ensured not just that he would get rich, but that his income would be taxed as capital gains...."
Two errors in the above. No one was "ensured" to get rich, least of all a GP who had unlimited liability. And there are specific IRS regulations against treating income for services rendered as a Managing GP as capital gains.
Final irony, someone brought up Ann Coulter's error regarding where the NY Times first reported Dale Earnhardt's death. A molehill that, among others, Joe Conason, has been trying to make into a mountain. (Coulter's larger point survives).
Well, guess where Krugman has been getting his information about George Bush? The very same Joe Conason (as Mickey Kaus alertly noted).
And now, two of those "leads" have blown up in Krugman's face. Thanks to Fact Checking Joe, Krugman has had two letters contradicting him directly, published by the New York Times. Krugman's numerous errors destroy his entire article, Coulter's error in a detail does not invalidate her larger point.
Here's the real story of the NY Times and Dale Earnhardt, by Christopher Caldwell (from NY Press, with my ***s):
----------quote-----------
The death of Dale Earnhardt on the last lap of the Daytona 500 a week ago was one of those Two Nations moments, when you realize how huge is the gulf that separates this country’s urbanites from its rustics. You could tell which parts of the country fit in where by looking at the newspaper headlines.
[snip]
Earnhardt’s death was the top headline in both The Washington Post ("Dale Earnhardt Killed at Daytona") and The Washington Times ("Dale Earnhardt Killed in Last-Lap Crash"). While the keening reverence on display just two hours south [in the Richmond papers] was absent from both the papers, neither of them assumed, either, that anyone would ask Who the Hell’s Dale Earnhardt? or What’s Daytona? or Last Lap of What?
At the Northern end of the continuum you have The New York Times, which ran the story ***in its very bottom corner***, beneath "Pakistani Tale of a Drug Addict’s Blasphemy." The headline was "Stock Car Star Killed on Last Lap of Daytona 500." I love that "stock car star"–as if to say, "Well, you wouldn’t recognize his name, but take my word for it, a lot of people will." God knows who writes the Times’ headlines, but it’s probable the one they had in mind was more along the lines of: "Inexplicably Treasured Cracker with Mustache Immolated in Bizarre Folk Ritual."
--------endquote--------
Patrick, do you enjoy being a hack, or do you not realise that you're being one?
The Liberal New York Times
By Paul Krugman
For my sins, I now read four newspapers every morning. And I find myself with a puzzle.
You see, we hear constantly about the liberal bias of the Times. Yet questions of factual accuracy aside, is the Times notably liberal, or notably anti-Bush, compared with other papers?
Of the papers I read, I'd say that the tone of reporting is most hostile to the Bush administration in the Financial Times. Well, OK, that's a British paper, and even conservative British papers like the Times are far more critical of Bush than any major US paper. (Though what does that tell us?)
But the second most critical is USA Today - its coverage of the administration is a lot tougher than the New York Times.
Even the Wall Street Journal is not very different in what it covers and what it says, editorial page aside, from the NYT.
So why does the Times attract so much fire?
The answer, I think, is that it makes such a good symbol. Ann Coulter's book Slander concludes with a flat lie designed to play into cultural stereotypes: she claims that the Times didn't have a front-page story on the death of Dale Earnhardt, when every other paper did. This supposedly symbolizes the way liberals are contemptuous of ordinary Americans. In fact, the Times had a highly respectful story, on the front page, on the same day as other papers - check it out at The Daily Howler. (Why, exactly, has this devastating piece of fact-checking received no notice from major media? Paging Howard Kurtz ...)
Now the thing is that nobody would believe in this particular lie if it was told about USA Today. It works when told about the Times because the Times is the paper everyone loves to hate.
I don't give advice to Howell Raines. I don't even communicate with him more than a couple of times a year - one important thing to realize is that Times op-ed columnists are really, truly autonomous. But my advice would be to just cover the news as he sees fit. Nothing will assuage the critics - they need the Times as a villain, and they'll find ways to attack it no matter what.
Originally published on the Official Paul Krugman Site, 8.6.02
Um, just as I predicted. Ann Coulter launches a diatribe against the NYT based on the premise that they did not cover Earnhardt's death on their front page, and the revelation that they did in fact cover it on their front page qualifies only as a factual "molehill" which does not detract from her point.
Now if you wade through all the Mikey Kaus brouhaha over the OMB report, all you end up with is:
1. A series of self-serving factual misstatements by the OMB, only reluctantly and surreptitiously retracted after exposure.
2. But Krugman is the bad guy because he reported this and did not bend over backwards to give the Bush administration the benefit of the doubt.
I agree that for someone of Krugman's intellect to engage these hacks is a misallocation of resources. But given that hacks are running the country, someone's got to do it.
Am I ever grateful for Krugman. We need lots more of such voices to go around.
Note: On July 19, Robert Lipsyte wrote a front page article for the NYTimes and Dale Earnhardt. On July 21, Rick Bragg [Pulitizer Prize] wrote another front page article on Earnhardt for the Times. Bragg, by the way, is from Alabama and writes of feeling in the south for Earnhardt with special compassion.
Wow, finally we have Fact Checking Derby entrants, and one is Krugman. Unfortunately for Paul he validates just what Mickey Kaus has been saying about him in this claim:
" Ann Coulter's book Slander concludes with a flat lie designed to play into cultural stereotypes...."
A "flat lie"? How does he know it wasn't simply a mistake? Especially since, as we have seen from the Caldwell piece, there is other evidence that her "cultural stereotype" is valid.
AND, I'm not sure she isn't somewhat correct about when the (bottom right corner) front page article appeared. My NY Times search for the article comes back labeled: "Late Edition", which would imply that it was not in earlier editions.
At any rate, her publisher is indicating they will correct this in the next printing. Contrast that with Krugman's being made aware, publicly and privately, of the numerous problems with his Texas Rangers column. He tries to brazen it out, claims to want to see this "peculiar" contract.
Five errors in just two sentences by Krugman, and he still defends himself, while claiming Coulter has told a "flat lie designed to play into cultural stereotypes"!
To borrow a line from the Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court, "Quite extraordinary".
Anyway, Here's Coulter:
"...liberals have absolutely no contact with the society they decry from their Park Avenue redoubts".
NY Press columnist Christopher Caldwell put it thus:
" you realize how huge is the gulf that separates this country’s urbanites from its rustics. You could tell which parts of the country fit in where by looking at the newspaper headlines".
Coulter:
" More Americans recognize the name Dale Earnhardt than, say, Maureen Dowd. (Manhattan liberals are dumbly blinking at that last sentence.)"
Caldwell (about a year and a half earlier, remember) said:
" I love that 'stock car star'–as if to say, 'Well, you wouldn’t recognize his name, but take my word for it, a lot of people will.' "
As I said, Coulter's (possible) inaccuracy does not destroy her point. Had she read Caldwell, she could have made it more devastating by quoting him. But Krugman's far more numerous errors completely shred his two pieces. And, he's sticking to his story.
As well as are several of his idolators, it seems.
Wow, finally we have Fact Checking Derby entrants, and one is Krugman. Unfortunately for Paul he validates just what Mickey Kaus has been saying about him in this claim:
" Ann Coulter's book Slander concludes with a flat lie designed to play into cultural stereotypes...."
A "flat lie"? How does he know it wasn't simply a mistake? Especially since, as we have seen from the Caldwell piece, there is other evidence that her "cultural stereotype" is valid.
AND, I'm not sure she isn't somewhat correct about when the (bottom right corner) front page article appeared. My NY Times search for the article comes back labeled: "Late Edition", which would imply that it was not in earlier editions.
At any rate, her publisher is indicating they will correct this in the next printing. Contrast that with Krugman's being made aware, publicly and privately, of the numerous problems with his Texas Rangers column. He tries to brazen it out; claims to want to see this "peculiar" contract.
Five errors in just two sentences by Krugman, and he still defends himself, while claiming Coulter has told a "flat lie designed to play into cultural stereotypes"!
To borrow a line from the Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court, "Quite extraordinary".
Anyway, Here's Coulter:
"...liberals have absolutely no contact with the society they decry from their Park Avenue redoubts".
NY Press columnist Christopher Caldwell put it thus:
" you realize how huge is the gulf that separates this country’s urbanites from its rustics. You could tell which parts of the country fit in where by looking at the newspaper headlines".
Coulter:
" More Americans recognize the name Dale Earnhardt than, say, Maureen Dowd. (Manhattan liberals are dumbly blinking at that last sentence.)"
Caldwell (about a year and a half earlier, remember) said:
" I love that 'stock car star'–as if to say, 'Well, you wouldn’t recognize his name, but take my word for it, a lot of people will.' "
As I said, Coulter's (possible) inaccuracy does not destroy her point. Had she read Caldwell, she could have made it more devastating by quoting him. But Krugman's far more numerous errors completely shred his two pieces. And, he's sticking to his story.
As well as are several of his idolators, it seems.
Barry wants a deal like Ws? Why shoot so low?
Terry McAuliffe - $100K into $18m, and $100 into $2.45m (thanks to the IBEW.)
BTW, Chicago citizens and visitors have built 3 stadiums in the last 15 years. And if you really want to talk connections, check out the insurance, wrought iron, cleaning, cement, well, probably most all contracts going thru City Hall and its 50 aldermans' pockets. (Unless they're under investigation and the files mysteriously disappear. (I'll give it to Evita, at least her's showed up.) The esteemed aldermen want a raise to $95K a year for a part-time job. W's deal? Small, and I do mean Small, potato(e)s.
Boy, is this getting wierd. A few whiffs of reality: NASCAR is popular, and skews southern and rural, but this "you knew Earnhardt or you were an elitist" is ludicrous. Are you drummed out of the right wing, and the center, if you don't know who Awesome Bill from Dawsonville is? What part of the south Jeff Gordon is from? What a restrictor plate is? Don't think so.
So the smoking gun that hangs the New York Times is that its first-day Earnhardt story ran way the heck down at the bottom of page one, and said "Stock Car Driver" rather than Earnhardt (or maybe Ironhead) in the headline. Breathtaking. And even if it did, Coulter would still be, uh, non-truth-telling.
Patrick, have you ever considered that if we wanted to read your posts, we would have subscribed to the mailing list you're cutting and pasting them from?
Patrick,
Ueberroth has specifically denied that Bush organized the Rangers partnership.
"There is no question that Rainwater and Rose were the primary investment group and I asked them to consider taking George in," Ueberroth said in an interview. "He was an asset because his father's career was going up and reaching the top. We just brought the young man over somewhat out of respect for his father."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh2000/stories/bushside073199.htm
I could nitpick about the meaning of "ensure," or the difference between "if it exists" and "it doesn't exist," but why bother?
And I could direct you to Bob Somerby's archives (www.dailyhowler.com) for an illustration of how Coulter makes more than one factual inaccuracy, but I won't. Because defending Coulter is something only an absolute idiot would do, and it's kind of satisfying to watch you prove what an idiot you are.
(Oh, by the way, don't look at TAPPED either.)
Matt Weiner disingenuously writes:
"Ueberroth has specifically denied that Bush organized the Rangers partnership. "
But then quotes ONLY ONE paragraph from this story:
"Bush Earned Profit, Rangers Deal Insiders Say
By Lois Romano and George Lardner Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, July 31, 1999; Page A12 "
Neglecting to tell us what immediately followed that quoted paragraph. It was this:
<< Several major investors disputed Ueberroth's recollection. "It was a merger of the two groups," said Gerald Haddock, Rainwater's attorney and later the Rangers general counsel. "It is a fact that Eddie Chiles wanted to give the deal to George W. . . . Without George, this group could not have done the deal." >>
Which happens to be exactly what I told this group in an earlier post, and as this WaPo article makes perfectly clear, without Bush the deal wouldn't have happened. How did Matt Weiner miss everything in the article except that one dissonant paragraph? The two Texans: "quickly concluded that they weren't interested".
That's when Ueberoth asked them to meet with the group of Ohioans led by Bush, who ALREADY HAD THEIR MONEY together. Bush got the Texans to join his group, and the deal went forward.
Now, for you Bush Is Dumb stalwarts, here's the rest of the Post story:
<< Running the team together, Rose and Bush were a study in contrasts – Rose is as studied, cerebral and shy as Bush is impulsive, loquacious and brazen. "George is very intuitive, very quick to come to the path he wants to take," said Rose. "And I'm pretty plodding. Never in our partnership did we have a disagreement over the paths. But George came up to a path in 15 minutes, and I never was able to come with the path until three days. . . . Sometimes he called me daily and I'd say, well, I still got the abacus whirling."
<< In 1992, Bush was mentioned as a possible successor to Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent after Vincent lost a vote of confidence and resigned. Bud Selig, owner of the Milwaukee Brewers and the interim commissioner, let the idea quietly die because he wanted the job permanently. He eventually got it.
<< If baseball had come back and said, you're our guy, he might be commissioner of baseball today," said Bush's cousin by marriage Craig Stapleton. >>
Oh, and by the way, Matt I've already demolished the dissembling claims of both and Somerby and TAPPED. You can read all about it at:
http://www.dawsonspeek.com/archives/cat_tapped_obi_watch.php
Patrick, I followed your URL, and the first thing I saw was your defense of murdering abortion doctors. You are scum. Literally, end of discussion.
Anyone else who's interested, search for "Ueberroth Bush Rangers", click on the cache for the Texas Monthly article, and you will find that Ueberroth thought Bush *did not* have enough local money, which directly contradicts Patrick's point.
Just to defend my integrity, in the WaPo article I originally cited, what Haddock said doesn't contradict what Ueberroth said. Bush was initially contacted by DeWitt, used his in with Chiles (who was selling the Rangers) to get the deal on the table. Rainwater didn't want to get involved until Ueberroth approached him. Ueberroth tried again with Rainwater and Rose, they said they wanted a managing partner, Ueberroth suggested Bush. So, the deal couldn't have happened without Bush's connections to Chiles, but it was DeWitt's idea in the first place, and if anyone put the final deal together it was Ueberroth.
Oh, and Brad, sorry for clogging your site. We haven't really addressed the point that the Bush admin changes its archived documents, have we?
'I'm just suggesting that it goes against the principle of comparative advantage for Krugman to be assigned to this job, like Michael Jordan mowing his own lawn.'
I think you're incorrectly pricing the Fun Factor of the whole thing.
Matt Weiner, who claims to be concerned for his integrity, writes:
"Patrick, I followed your URL, and the first thing I saw was your defense of murdering abortion doctors. You are scum. Literally, end of discussion."
First, the piece in question DOES NOT defend "murdering abortion doctors". It deconstructs a very poor analogy (directed at Ann Coulter)with the terrorists who hijacked 4 airplanes on Sept. 11.
We do get emotional here, don't we? Good thing the Prof. has this inviolate politeness policy to keep the discussion high toned.
Second, Matt Weiner told me to read Bob Somerby's Daily Howler (the irony of that title apparently being unintentional). When I pointed him to three articles I wrote that expose Somerby as a near-hysterical dissembler regarding Ann Coulter, he suddenly loses his enthusiasm for that source of enlightenment.
Third, if I were Paul Krugman, I would no doubt label this from Mr. Weiner, "a flat lie":
"...Ueberroth thought Bush *did not* have enough local money, which directly contradicts Patrick's point".
But if we scroll up to one of my earlier posts, we find that I wrote: "Peter Ueberoth (again, iirc), then Commissioner of Baseball, wanted substantial amounts of Texas money in any deal to buy the team".
Since, I'm such a good sport, I'll eschew Krugmanism and simply note the poor quality of Mr. Weiner's reading comprehension.
Fourth, Weiner claims:
"Just to defend my integrity, in the WaPo article I originally cited, what Haddock said doesn't contradict what Ueberroth said."
Yet, the authors of the article Weiner himself cited wrote: "Several major investors disputed Ueberroth's recollection" The authors then quoted from ONE OF THEM.
Weiner then goes on to burnish his integrity with another claim:
"Bush was initially contacted by DeWitt, used his in with Chiles (who was selling the Rangers) to get the deal on the table. Rainwater didn't want to get involved until Ueberroth approached him. Ueberroth tried again with Rainwater and Rose, they said they wanted a managing partner, Ueberroth suggested Bush."
Which just happens to directly contradict the Ueberoth statement Weiner originally offered us:
" 'I asked them to consider taking George in....He was an asset because his father's career was going up and reaching the top. We just brought the young man over somewhat out of respect for his father'."
Not to mention that Weiner's spin about Rainwater and Rose only needing a managing partner is belied by the WaPo article, as it clearly states those two: "quickly concluded that they weren't interested".
Meaning that the following bit of spin from Weiner:
" So, the deal couldn't have happened without Bush's connections to Chiles, but it was DeWitt's idea in the first place, and if anyone put the final deal together it was Ueberroth.".
Would also qualify as a Krugmaniac "flat lie" (were I so inclined) since all Ueberoth really did (after he struck out with them) was tell Rainwater and Rose to contact Bush. Who then convinced them to join with the investors he and DeWitt already had lined up, just as Rainwater's attorney told the Post reporters.
To sum up, the investors themselves flatly contradict Ueberoth's self-serving story.
And, since Weiner has now given us yet another article where this information received an airing (The Texas Monthly), we have even more evidence of Krugman inaccuracy. I.e. he told everyone that "we're only hearing about it now".
Krugman's problem is that he's moved from economics, which is his field of expertise and which he is quite good at, to political commentary, which he is awful at. I'm an economist, and I don't pretend to write about brain surgery, impressionism or politics (although I do write on _economic policy_). Unfortunately, Paul Krugman will become most widely known as an anti-Bush political hack, rather than an economic thinker, all through his own hand. (And I write this as someone who has a lot of concerns about Bush.)
'Krugman's problem is that he's moved from economics'
Yes, SS, the budget deficit, and the tax cut have nothing to do with economics.
Mr. McCullough,
But the Texas Rangers, and what OMB did or didn't say, don't have anything to do with economics. That's the political commentary I'm referring to. I'm smart enough to know what is and isn't economics; are you?
Dave; you may not have read Krugman's influential economic writings on "crony capitalism" with respect to the case of Indonesia in 1998.
Dave, there's real-world economic implications if the administration is lying on numbers. In this specific case, you have to stretch a bit; but what if they're lying about others?
That's why I have no idea "Krugman has become too political" is so popular on the right. It's not like he's bitching about the president's sex life, which has zero economic applications.