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October 25, 2002
Paul Krugman Is on the Edge...
Paul Krugman is on the edge of despair: his reactions to Dana Milbank's Washington Post article about George W. Bush's inability to tell the truth.
Dead Parrot Society: ...Mr. Milbank is a brave man, and is paying the usual price for his courage: he is now the target of a White House smear campaign. That standard response may help you understand how Mr. Bush retains a public image as a plain-spoken man, when in fact he is as slippery and evasive as any politician in memory. Did you notice his recent declaration that allowing Saddam Hussein to remain in power wouldn't mean backing down on "regime change," because if the Iraqi despot meets U.N. conditions, "that itself will signal that the regime has changed"?
The recent spate of articles about administration dishonesty mainly reflects the campaign to sell war with Iraq. But the habit itself goes all the way back to the 2000 campaign, and is manifest on a wide range of issues. High points would include the plan for partial privatization of Social Security, with its 2-1=4 arithmetic; the claim that a tax cut that delivers 40 percent or more of its benefits to the richest 1 percent was aimed at the middle class; the claim that there were 60 lines of stem cells available for research; the promise to include limits on carbon dioxide in an environmental plan. More generally, Mr. Bush ran as a moderate, a "uniter, not a divider." The Economist endorsed him back in 2000 because it saw him as the candidate better able to transcend partisanship; now the magazine describes him as the "partisan-in-chief."
It's tempting to view all of this merely as a question of character, but it's more than that. There's method in this administration's mendacity. For the Bush administration is an extremely elitist clique trying to maintain a populist facade. Its domestic policies are designed to benefit a very small number of people — basically those who earn at least $300,000 a year, and really don't care about either the environment or their less fortunate compatriots. True, this base is augmented by some powerful special-interest groups, notably the Christian right and the gun lobby. But while this coalition can raise vast sums, and can mobilize operatives to stage bourgeois riots when needed, the policies themselves are inherently unpopular. Hence the need to reshape those malleable facts...
October 25, 2002
Dead Parrot Society
By PAUL KRUGMAN
few days ago The Washington Post's Dana Milbank wrote an article explaining that for George W. Bush, "facts are malleable." Documenting "dubious, if not wrong" statements on a variety of subjects, from Iraq's military capability to the federal budget, the White House correspondent declared that Mr. Bush's "rhetoric has taken some flights of fancy."
Also in the last few days, The Wall Street Journal reported that "senior officials have referred repeatedly to intelligence . . . that remains largely unverified." The C.I.A.'s former head of counterterrorism was blunter: "Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements." USA Today reports that "pressure has been building on the intelligence agencies to deliberately slant estimates to fit a political agenda."
Reading all these euphemisms, I was reminded of Monty Python's parrot: he's pushing up the daisies, his metabolic processes are history, he's joined the choir invisible. That is, he's dead. And the Bush administration lies a lot.
Let me hasten to say that I don't blame reporters for not quite putting it that way. Mr. Milbank is a brave man, and is paying the usual price for his courage: he is now the target of a White House smear campaign.
That standard response may help you understand how Mr. Bush retains a public image as a plain-spoken man, when in fact he is as slippery and evasive as any politician in memory. Did you notice his recent declaration that allowing Saddam Hussein to remain in power wouldn't mean backing down on "regime change," because if the Iraqi despot meets U.N. conditions, "that itself will signal that the regime has changed"?
The recent spate of articles about administration dishonesty mainly reflects the campaign to sell war with Iraq. But the habit itself goes all the way back to the 2000 campaign, and is manifest on a wide range of issues. High points would include the plan for partial privatization of Social Security, with its 2-1=4 arithmetic; the claim that a tax cut that delivers 40 percent or more of its benefits to the richest 1 percent was aimed at the middle class; the claim that there were 60 lines of stem cells available for research; the promise to include limits on carbon dioxide in an environmental plan.
More generally, Mr. Bush ran as a moderate, a "uniter, not a divider." The Economist endorsed him back in 2000 because it saw him as the candidate better able to transcend partisanship; now the magazine describes him as the "partisan-in-chief."
It's tempting to view all of this merely as a question of character, but it's more than that. There's method in this administration's mendacity.
For the Bush administration is an extremely elitist clique trying to maintain a populist facade. Its domestic policies are designed to benefit a very small number of people — basically those who earn at least $300,000 a year, and really don't care about either the environment or their less fortunate compatriots. True, this base is augmented by some powerful special-interest groups, notably the Christian right and the gun lobby. But while this coalition can raise vast sums, and can mobilize operatives to stage bourgeois riots when needed, the policies themselves are inherently unpopular. Hence the need to reshape those malleable facts.
What remains puzzling is the long-term strategy. Despite Mr. Bush's control of the bully pulpit, he has had little success in changing the public's fundamental views. Before Sept. 11 the nation was growing increasingly dismayed over the administration's hard right turn. Terrorism brought Mr. Bush immense personal popularity, as the public rallied around the flag; but the helium has been steadily leaking out of that balloon.
Right now the administration is playing the war card, inventing facts as necessary, and trying to use the remnants of Mr. Bush's post-Sept. 11 popularity to gain control of all three branches of government. But then what? There is, after all, no indication that Mr. Bush ever intends to move to the center.
So the administration's inner circle must think that full control of the government can be used to lock in a permanent political advantage, even though the more the public learns about their policies, the less it likes them. The big question is whether the press, which is beginning to find its voice, will lose it again in the face of one-party government.
Posted by DeLong at October 25, 2002 04:17 AM
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"Mr. Krugman is nearly alone among the 37 pundits in that not even one of his 52 columns is contrary to his prevailing political orientation. "
Some cahones critiquing Bush's honesty after the White fiasco. Krugman's continued presence on the NYT, given his failed smear campaign against White, is more proof that Sulzberger has completely succeeded in turning the Old Grey Lady into the Democratic Party Talking Points Bulletin.
Does anyone know if Krugman's lectures are riddled with such vitriol?
I wonder why people like the previous two posters even read this site. This is a site wrong by a professional academic economist; it is interested in the truth, in facts, in honesty. And when the truth turns out to reflect badly something, it is not afraid to say so. It is partisan towards the truth, not towards any particular political bent. Krugman is true to his "prevailing political orientation" because that orientation is towards the truth. Seeking the truth is not a smear campaign, it is not vitriol, and is not done in the interest of any particular party party. And so many people don't seem to understand that. They think that being critical of republicans is the same as being a Democratic partisan, when in fact they are simply speeking the unfettered truth. And that's what this site is also all about. So I wonder what people with no interest in the truth are doing here, for this site has very little to offer them.
Please explain to me how an "orientation is towards the truth" is reconciled with his smear campain against White. His Sept. 17 column, in which he supposedly quoted an email was libelous(negligent defamation).
Krugman is a hack. No different than James Carville or Rush Limbaugh. His relenless attacks on Bush border on unhealthy fixation and suggest underlying personal psychological issues. Even the rightest of the right wingers (Will etc) didn't attack Clinton in every single column. Whatever Krugman's problems are, it doesn't excuse his bending of the truth, exactly what he is accusing Bush of.
Duh 1: Krugman cited a Salon column, therefore the burden of proof on the e-mail is on the Salon reporter.
Duh 2: When there were accusations regarding the Salon journalist, Krugman retracted from his comments on White
Duh 3: White was the head of a money losing division of perhaps the most fraudulent corporation in American capitalist. That he can have a top position in a Republican administration speaks loud about ethics in politics in this country.
As usual, Krugman failed to provide the key link, at least in my Dead Tree Version.
Dana Milbank, WaPo:
"For Bush, Facts Are Malleable
Presidential Tradition Of Embroidering Key Assertions Continues
...All three assertions were powerful arguments for the actions Bush sought. And all three statements were dubious, if not wrong. Further information revealed that the aircraft lack the range to reach the United States; there was no such report by the IAEA; and the customs dispute over the detectors was resolved long ago.
As Bush leads the nation toward a confrontation with Iraq and his party into battle in midterm elections, his rhetoric has taken some flights of fancy in recent weeks...
Presidential embroidery is, of course, a hoary tradition. Ronald Reagan was known for his apocryphal story about liberating a concentration camp. Bill Clinton fibbed famously and under oath about his personal indiscretions to keep a step ahead of Whitewater prosecutors. Richard M. Nixon had his Watergate denials, and Lyndon B. Johnson was often accused of stretching the truth to put the best face on the Vietnam War. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, too, played with the truth during the Gary Powers and Bay of Pigs episodes.
"Everybody makes mistakes when they open their mouths and we forgive them," Brookings Institution scholar Stephen Hess said. Some of Bush's overstatements appear to be off-the-cuff mistakes. But, Hess said, "what worries me about some of these is they appear to be with foresight. This is about public policy in its grandest sense, about potential wars and who is our enemy, and a president has a special obligation to getting it right."
Prof. Krugman:
"That standard response may help you understand how Mr. Bush retains a public image as a plain-spoken man, when in fact he is as slippery and evasive as any politician in memory."
Carefully worded, but honestly, who's memory are we talking about? Just yesterday, NZ Bear had a long post about Kissinger and Nixon, including the secret bombing of Cambodia. Does anyone else remember LBJ and the "credibility gap", or the Vietnam War? Milbank mentions Ike and JFK. And I bet everyone here has an opinion of Bill Clinton.
And that is just Presidents. Prof Krugman said "politicians", which really opens the flood-gates, or sewer gates, or whatever.
I suppose some Dems can help with the list. Isn't Al Sharpton a politician? Former Senate candidate, future Presidential candiddate, convicted of libel (slander?) in the Tawana Brawley case. Bob Torricelli. Gary Condit.
Oh, I'll try: Oliver North, Senate candidate. Simon in California. Wasn't there a time when Newt Gingrich was the anti-christ?
Anyway, whose memory?
Regards,
To call Krugman a hack shows that you do not undestand at all what it means to be on the faculty of one the best Economics Departments in the World(all due respect to our host). Krugman is not a hack. He is emminently qualified to evaluate the truth of the statements the administration makes; he criticizes the administration because it continues to act in such a way as to obfuscate facts, mislead the public, and enact policies that are detrimental to our democracy. Krugman is not a political operative; he is a researcher and theorist who understand how the world works and is not afraid to explain it in plain terms, with evidence to back it up. He has participated in no "campaigns," unless you count the collective research being done by the academic community of every political orientation.
Krugman is fixated on Bush, so fixated I stopped reading his column regularly.
But it's easy to see why Krugman is so fixated on Bush: the awe-inspiring deceitfulness of the Bush Administration. You have to go back to Nixon to find an administration with the same track record of lying and of trying to politicize every branch of the government.
The tax cut debate was a radicalizing experience for Krugman. If you read his columns from that time, you can feel the mounting incredulity. How could the administration lie so brazenly? How could the media let them get away with it?
Before the Bush administration, Krugman was a left-leaning economist. If he is now a Democratic partisan, it is Bush that made him one.
I never thought of Krugman as left-leaning, but rather as a pretty orthodox centrist. And there's no reason to fault him for being fixated on the Bush admin, because they do exercise much control over this country's economic affairs, after all, and their disingenuous behavior in that regard is big news worth being dwelt upon.
word, chris. I couldn't have said it better if I had a month to think about it.
"You have to go back to Nixon to find an administration with the same track record of lying"
is is?
Perhaps you remember a recent president that lost his law license and right to argue before the SC because he perjured himself?
Or the president that told us the early 90's was "the worst economy in 50 years", and appearantly didn't remember the 70's.
Oh, the majesty of the "Clinton rebuttal". Yes, Brian, you have defeated me utterly. How could I forget Bill Clinton and his penis, when it is only mentioned on every single political thread on every comment board of every weblog?
Clinton committed perjury, and he was punished for it. The Bush administration has managed to lie on virtually every issue that has come before them. Which is worse? Call me crazy, but I would lean to the second.
Chris, I meant that Krugman was a left-leaning economist, with the emphasis on economist. I don't think it's a stretch to call Krugman left-of-center. What you would expect from a left-leaning columnist is what you got from his books: he agreed with the broader goals of the Democratic party, while hitting them over the head for their economic ignorance. For the Republicans, he would disagree with their broader goals, but agree with their economics from time to time.
My point is that if he sounds like a partisan shill to Republicans, it's because the Bush administration turned him into one. The constant lies, and the lack of political cost for them, is driving him insane.
Clinton's perverted peccadillos weren't the point of my comment, but nice straw man.
No response to the "worst economy in 50 years" comment?
"Clinton's an unusually good liar. Unusually good. Do you realize that?"- Sen. Bob Kerry D Neb
Brian, do you think maybe that he could have thought it at the time, and doesn't think it now? I thought it was the worst economy in 50 years at the time. And that's the best you can do? A matter of subjective opinion? You think Clinton is a worse liar than Bush: from that can we conclude that I must think you are lying? Hint: I don't.
Here's a simple list of examples that will perhaps illuminate it for you:
- The Reagan military build-up is responsible for the end of the Cold War. Opinion, not a lie.
- Clinton raising taxes led to the late 90s economic boom. Opinion, not a lie.
- The bulk of the Bush tax cut goes to the middle-class. Lie. (Or maybe they're really bad at arithmetic.)
Krugman has been taking a lot of lumps for the gall he has in questioning other's disguising spin as truth. He is not only an embarassment to economists, he has made himself an embarassment to NYT columnists (an incredible feat!)
He was hoist by his own petard recently by A. Sullivan who dug up Krugman's defense of working as a consultant to Enron. Krugman said smuggly that he was one of a handful of academic economists who warrant $50k fees for just making brief presentations to corporate boards. I recall a large bank in Texas that failed spectacularly in the later 1980's that had been bringing in academic "experts" to discuss subjects like androgeny and other cultural trends. If any of you are in the business of building corporate default models, trading equities,maybe the SEC should require disclosure of any fees, in excess of, say, $50 to dubious "experts" like Krugman.
I wish the critics of Krugman would spend more time pointing out just why he is so wrong about the Bush Admnistration rather than criticize Krugman himself. As I see it, if Krugman has been wrong about anything, it is that the house of cards that is Bush's economic plan has collapsed far sooner than he expected.
Anyone who's followed Krugman's career knows that (like a lot of people who have brilliant academic careers) he can come off as intellectualy arrogant, but that he's also universally known among liberal and conservative economists as one of the best minds of his generation, and that he's most definitely not a hack.
He is however, very intolerant of anything he sees as intellectually confused or dishonsest. Back in the early days of the Clinton administration, he was quite critical of their international trade policies, especially the left-leaning 'national competitivenes' theories of people like Robert Riech and Robert Kuttner. He even published a book, 'Pop Internationalism', largely devoted to the subject. And during the Asian financial crisis, he was one of the voices most critical of the Clinton Treasury department and the IMF.
With regard to economic policy, the Bush administration has consistently misrepresented its policies (on taxes), made promises it can't keep (Social Security and deficits), or gone against its own stated principles for political gain (trade policy). In this light it's not difficult to see why Krugman is so hard on Bush. And while I would prefer that Krugman spend more time explaining the issues instead of attacking people's motives, he is saying important stuff that needs to be heard.
I think contempt for incompetence(not to mention mendacity) is a virute, not a vice of Krugman. So I agree.
Krugman's comparative advantage is in economics and not political science. Yes, Bush stretches the truth, yadda yadda yadda. So do a lot of politicians, Democrats and Republicans.
Krugman seems to be going out of his way to destroy his reputation by going after Bush on every single thing, real or imagined. Does he really want to be remembered as a partisan hack?
Krugman could be John Kenneth Galbraith or Milton Friedman; instead, he seems to be shooting for Rush Limbaugh or Paul Begala. I just don't understand it.
umm, what actions of Krugman have dimished his professional reputation? Ask any economist, and they'll tell you he's still at the top of the profession. As for his expertise not being political science, that's okay, he's not pronouncing on political science, he's pronouncing on issues of finance, and other gov't policy, on which is is quite qualified to pronounce. You don't need to be a political scientist to (A) know the truth and (B) know when someone is lying about it.
OK, I'm "any economist" (PhD from one of the 12 programs in the top 10, as a friend of mine would say), and Krugman's commentaries in the NYT are emphatically _not_ "at the top of the profession."
As a political writer, he's a hack! Bush sucks, everything is his fault, ad nauseum. He makes stupid mistakes, like the problems with his column about Bush and the Texas Rangers.
I write this as someone who voted for Gore and has a lot of problems with Bush's economic policy. But Krugman, like our president, presents everything in a black/white, good/bad framework that refuses to acknowledge the subtleties of the economy (and life in general). I stand by my earlier statement: Krugman is trashing his reputation, and I don't undertand why. He should concentrate on economic commentary, not political hackery.
>>That standard response may help you understand how Mr. Bush retains a public image as a plain-spoken man, when in fact he is as slippery and evasive as any politician in memory.<<
Paul Krugman has forgotten the entire 8 long years of the Clinton presidency?