It's nice to see Paul Krugman getting some recognition for the job that he has been doing. It's not that anybody really disagrees with the substance of what he has been saying: the Bush administration's trade policy has been pathetic; its failure to figure out that both the national and its own political interest requires that it take the lead in repairing flaws to our system of corporate surveillance and governance has been a disgrace; its long-run plans for dealing with the problems of financing America's social insurance state have been somewhere between incoherent and fraudulent; and even someone as unbalanced and off-the-wall as Andrew Sullivan recognizes that the Bush administration's responses to critics of its economic policy has attained a high degree of mendacity even by the standards typically applied to White House spin doctors.
But the use he has made of his New York Times column has been politically inconvenient to many, and has caused him to catch a lot of flak...
Posted by DeLong at November 26, 2002 10:38 AM | Trackback'E&P' Names Features Of the Year: ...The intersection of politics and economics was big news in a year of rising joblessness, corporate scandals, and soaring deficits. "So much of the political landscape is dominated by economic questions," says Paul Krugman, who was smack in the middle of that intersection as a New York Times Op-Ed writer and prize-winning economist. Now the Princeton University professor is also E&P's columnist of the year. With a clear, nonacademic writing style, Krugman appeals to many people who normally avoid economics like the plague -- even if they disagree with his political views. This year, Krugman used his high-profile Times forum and economic knowledge to skewer Bush-administration policies in columns with such titles as "The Bully's Pulpit" and "Crony Capitalism, USA." That made him a lightning rod read closely by both liberals and conservatives.... LA Weekly's John Powers wrote last week that Krugman is "the president's most effective establishment critic. ... Because he's a renowned Princeton economist who actually understands markets and finance, nobody has more forcefully exposed Bush's lies about his tax plan, Social Security, and corporate reform. Naturally, this has made him a bete noire of the right, subject to frequent intellectual and personal attacks."...
What puzzles me is why Paul Krugman is such a lonely voice of commentary. The issues raised are timely and of signal importance, and largely lost in the rest of the media. Social security or tax discussions generally become merely obscure, as though commentators are afraid to even raise Paul Krugman's points. Are others afraid? Why? Are others so lacking in knowing economics?
Posted by: on November 26, 2002 12:37 PMKudos? No! I recall that scientific inquiry always involves testing at least two hypotheses. Is P. Krugman getting the recognition he "deserves" or is Editor and Publisher merely expressing its preference for the shrill and the downright silly? After all, this is a year where Jimmy Carter got a Nobel Peace Prize (they don't have a prize in bomb-making, despite Nobel's line of business) and Hanan Ashrawri get the Olaf Palme "Peace" prize. Krugman is an embarassment to both the economics and news professions.
Posted by: Josef on November 26, 2002 12:59 PMI am beginning to think that "shrill" must be on
some conservative talking-points list as the
official way to attack Krugman. Anti-shrillness
campaigners, show your credentials by critiquing
the more prominent conservative columnists.
>>After all, this is a year where Jimmy Carter got a Nobel Peace Prize (they don't have a prize in bomb-making, despite Nobel's line of business)<<
Or do they? I recall that George Bush was nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize...
>>Krugman is an embarassment to both the economics and news professions.<<
I can hardly see how anybody could embarass the news 'profession' these days...
Posted by: Jean-Philippe Stijns on November 26, 2002 02:57 PMAh, the kooks have finally found their way to Brad's site ...
Professor, have you considered making this a subscription-only service? $5 or $10/a quarter doesn't sound so bad...
Posted by: Paul on November 26, 2002 03:08 PMThe Rittenhouse Review has an interesting idea about why Paul is such a lonely voice. You may laugh or rage about Rittenhouse's "high school alpha girl" thesis, but it's worth a look. He names names and comes up with one of the few plausible explanations I've read that account for the abysmal state of Washington journalism.
http://rittenhouse.blogspot.com/2002_11_24_rittenhouse_archive.html#85714204
I can't really tell. Is Professor DeLong serious or kidding? Does he think, just to take an easy example, that Krugman's recent column attacking Republicans, but not Democrats, for nepotism was persuasive? Does the professor think that a professional economist citing non-economists like Kevin Phillips, who peaked decades ago with The Emerging Republican Majority, impresses anyone? Is he bothered by the frequent pieces of poor writing that makes me wish some one would send Krugman a copy of Strunk and White? Honestly, Professor DeLong, are you serious here?
Let me say that I am not trying to bait you. I am genuinely puzzled that you are not troubled by the shoddy columns Krugman turns in week after week. I would expect you to blush reading that stuff. If you need an example, look back through my site, where I dissected a Krugman column. It's easy to do the same for most of them.
Posted by: Jim Miller on November 26, 2002 04:59 PMJim Miller wrote, "Does he think, just to take an easy example, that Krugman's recent column attacking Republicans, but not Democrats, for nepotism was persuasive?"
I've seen this point brought up elsewhere.
It's perfectly legitimate to attack only Republicans on the issue of nepotism. Republicans, after all, are the ones who say that our society is meritocratic and that the estate tax should gutted. Did you read the following sentence in his column? "On the contrary, they are often avid defenders of the powerful against the downtrodden. Mr. Scalia's principal personal claim to fame is his crusade against regulations that protect workers from ergonomic hazards, while Ms. Rehnquist has attracted controversy because of her efforts to weaken the punishment of health-care companies found to have committed fraud."
Did you even read the first sentence of the column? "America, we all know, is the land of opportunity. Your success in life depends on your ability and drive, not on who your father was." It is the *right* that exaggerates socioeconomic mobility in the US, so Krugman has skewered them with their own behavior.
That is, Krugman could hardly be implying that only Republicans or conservatives practice nepotism, since it's only human. But he *is* implying that the right is hypocritical on issues of meritocracy.
Best,
Posted by: Stephen J Fromm on November 26, 2002 05:40 PMEschaton has been infested with fleas recently too. Some people seem to like to spend their time hanging around people they despise and saying dumb things. Don't ask me why.
I've tried to explain to these guys that if we are a contemptible bunch of mangy dogs -- as they clearly feel -- the fleas infesting us must be much more contemptible still. I don't think they are able to understand my point.
Posted by: zizka on November 26, 2002 05:51 PMWell thank God for Paul Krugman. If you live in Europe, then sometimes (wrongly I am sure) he seems like the only voice of reason.
Hang on...I feel a DT comment coming on. Let me pre-empt it.
I say this as a European.
Therefore clearly, as with my Canadian friends, I parasite of the US.
Therefore all motor cars are good.
Pheweee...just in time!
Posted by: Matthew on November 26, 2002 07:27 PMThat first poster, Mr. Josef?
Krugman is an embarassment to both the economics and news professions.
Well apparently Prof. Brad DeLong didn't think so.
In fact I don't think I can recall any single economist ever saying that Krugman was an embarassment. Unless of course Josef is an economist, but something tells me that Josef is nothing of the sort.
>>Professor, have you considered making this a subscription-only service? $5 or $10/a quarter doesn't sound so bad...<<
Paul, is the assumption that people with the highest propensity to pay for access to Professor DeLong's website, are those who have the most interesting comments to make?... (Because if the idea is to prevent people from posting whatever goes through their minds, then the solution would seem to be a pay-by-post scheme.)
Posted by: Jean-Philippe Stijns on November 26, 2002 11:59 PMThis might also be a good opportunity to provide some kudos for Jason Leopold, who has now posted his source material on the web, and who appears to have been made the victim of a Gary Webb-like smear by the New York Times and Salon.
In the matter of Leopold, by the way, it seems pretty clear that the news profession was an embarrassment to Paul Krugman rather than vice versa; he stood by his source and did the right thing, while the Times behaved absolutely disgracefully in running away from a good story and turning in someone else's source.
The idea that "Krugman is an embarrassment to the economics profession" is actually laughable.
Posted by: dsquared on November 27, 2002 02:12 AMThe subscription idea is I think a bad one and anyway puzzling. Is there a problem with genuine debate between opposing viewpoints? I learn a lot from posters on this site with whom I have major ideological disagreements.
And can anyone be surprised that Krugman elicits contempt from the right-wing for his NYTimes column? (Before someone rushes to his defense, please explain to me how his attacks --and utter lack of any proposals -- on reform efforts with Social Security are in any way honest or constructive?) As a Republican, I can readily admit that I have contempt for people like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. I don't have any contempt for someone like Josh Marshall or Brad D. Some honesty please.
Posted by: JT on November 27, 2002 06:49 AM The fact is, JT, the Social Security retirement
benefits system is sound for decades to come
with no changes. Eventually, with no new revenues,
benefits would have to be reduced below those
now projected for those distant future years, but
not below current real levels. It could be made
solvent permanently with tax increases that would
be modest by historical standards. The whole idea
that "Social Security is broken, we'll just have
to privatize it" is a right-wing fraud, as Krugman
has accurately pointed out repeatedly. See also
the writings of Dean Baker at
http://www.cepr.net/columns/baker/.
dsquared,
Do you have a link for the Leopold stuff?
AFAIK, NYT never gave Leopold the right of reply. Despicable (even if it is my favorite newspaper).
Best,
Posted by: Stephen J Fromm on November 27, 2002 08:23 AMI found this article, by Leopold, on the whole episode:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0210/S00063.htm
Evidently, his standards found "wanting" by our impeccable news services, he has been banished to New Zealand. As for the source materials, they are posted here:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0211/S00018.htm
Keep in mind that the existence of the email document doesn't really prove anything, since, as Leopold mentions, they are quite easy to forge. It's the source confirmation that Leopold obtained (and Krugman, who according to Leopold spoke directly with the source) that brings the weight to the charge against White.
Speaking as a physicist, I'm often reminded in political discussions of the advice of Richard Feynman, basically never to let ulterior motives (like keeping your job or doing it well) cloud your grasp on reality. Politicians and pundits basically don't have the luxury to live as Feynman recommends. For rational reasons they are willing to endure A to achieve the more significant B, but somewhere along the way they start really believing A (such as: it's acceptable to lie). This is basically the same point again why Krugman is important: by not coming through the standard pundit selection process, he's a lot closer to the Feynman ideal than, say, Mickey Kaus.
But if what Leopold says is accurate enough, and if Krugman wants to keep his intellectual integrity, a serious confrontation with the NYT would be in order.
Stephen:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/archive/scoop/stories/ea/ef/200211051115.fbf8eda0.html might do it, though I confess I have had bad luck in the past with links to scoop.nz
""">>Professor, have you considered making this a subscription-only service? $5 or $10/a quarter doesn't sound so bad...<<
Paul, is the assumption that people with the highest propensity to pay for access to Professor DeLong's website, are those who have the most interesting comments to make?... (Because if the idea is to prevent people from posting whatever goes through their minds, then the solution would seem to be a pay-by-post scheme.)"""
I was being semi-facetious when I made this comment, but now I'm starting to warm to my own idea. The pay-by-post scheme would be workable if micropayments were workable, I think, but since they don't exist, yet, a good substitute would be the quarterly, cheap scheme. In addition, this would also relieve Professor DeLong of having to pay for his server while giving those of us willing to pay a slight fee for the right to comment (and, perhaps, read exclusive content) more benefits than an Amazon/PayPal scheme would.
"""The subscription idea is I think a bad one and anyway puzzling. Is there a problem with genuine debate between opposing viewpoints? I learn a lot from posters on this site with whom I have major ideological disagreements. """
Well, of course, there's no problem with genuine debate between opposing viewpoints...but shrill debate is a different thing. I think that most of us who really have something to contribute but who stay away because of the extreme left/right people who sometimes infest these boards would actually post (more often) instead of letting people like M. Stijns take up our banner in abstentia.
Some may object that the people this scheme is meant to guard against may just ante up for the right to yell at Professor DeLong. Doubtful. And even if they do, at least he'll be getting some consideration out of the deal...
Posted by: Paul on November 27, 2002 11:54 AMMaybe Krugman should be the Democrats' talk radio host. He seems to have Rush Limbaugh's knack for appealing to "dittoheads" and repelling opponents.
I tend not to find Krugman persuasive.
I cannot connect his facts to his insinuations. For example, he insinuates that we are becoming a rigid class society based on inherited wealth, but the data he presents do not relate to that.
I cannot reconcile his theory of political class warfare with the electoral map. The heartland votes Republican and conservative, while some of the richest districts vote Democratic.
I cannot say that he is helping to raise the caliber of debate on Social Security. To me, the ratio of beneficiaries to workers is important, as is the retirement age.
Finally, I think he was not correct to say that Enron was more important than 9/11. The corporate scandal situation seems to have crested. In contrast, Islamic militancy remains a vexing problem (e.g., Bali, Nigeria).
Posted by: Arnold Kling on November 27, 2002 12:36 PMActually, Arnold Kling's critique isn't bad -- he has homed in on Krugman's weakest points. But:
(1) Krugman himself has pointed out in his column that many poor rural areas (and whole states) in America vote more Republican than some wealthier urban areas, and that there are cultural reasons for this. But he's also pointed out that -- thanks to the bizarre misapportionment of this country's Senate from its very beginning (which Madison actually apologizes for in the Federalist Papers) -- rural Americans (both rich and poor)have a huge excess of unfair political clout over urban ones, and don't hesitate to use this artificial imbalance to bleed urban taxpayers (both rich and poor) for their own benefit.
(2) Krugman's main emphasis in his Social Security columns has been to point out the atrocious dishonesty in Dubya's insistence that privatizing Social Security will be an "all gain, no pain" solution to the system's problems.
(3) As for Kling's last point -- whether the country's economic scandals have "crested" or not -- he's just plain right; this is Krugman's most outrageous error. We will be living with the new Age of Megaterrorism more and more closely from now on -- thanks to the wholesale proliferation of both nukes and increasingly deadly new bioweapons -- and it is THE central problem for human civilization now, and maybe from now on.
Posted by: Bruce Moomaw on November 27, 2002 07:28 PMCher wrote:
>> I don't think I can recall any single economist ever saying that Krugman was an embarassment. <<
Plenty have. For instance William Sjostrom:
http://atlanticblog.blogspot.com/2002_11_24_atlanticblog_archive.html#85718222
>> Professors who can't be embarrassed anymore
>> I knew Paul Krugman was way past being capable of embarrassment. I did not expect the same from Brad DeLong, who purrs over Krugman's jackass New York Times bit about inheritance, in which Krugman said that influential parents are bad if you are a Republican but good if you are a Democrat. Some day DeLong is going to have to make up his mind: is he a serious, highly talented economist or a flack for the Democratic National Committee? <<
The simple fact of the matter is that Krugman has been right far more than he has been wrong. The idea that he should be "balanced" is simply incorrect. He has an obligation to the truth, and the truth of the matter, quite simply, is that the Republicans are in power and are doing stupid and incredibly venal things. They're also lying constantly. It's just that simple. The insistence that both sides are equally bad, venal and corrupt and that whenever you say something bad about one side you must say something bad about the other is one of the reasons that things have become as desperately bad as they have.
So thank God for Paul Krugman, because he's one of the few honest people writing for the major media today.
Posted by: Ian Welsh on November 28, 2002 10:14 AMOh great, here we go again.
First, can anyone name a columnist who has had to admit error as often as Paul Krugman?
Second, Great to see Daniel Davies finally address this, since it was he who lost the bet the Prof. DeLong was honest enough feature in this thread:
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/archives/week_2002_09_29.html
Daniel apparrently didn't find the time to keep up with the comments made then. Had he, he would have realized his remarks above are old, old, news. From my October 11 comments, here's Salon's editors demolition of Leopold:
<<-------quote---------
It was only at this stage of our investigation, Sept. 20, that Leopold finally provided us with the evidence supporting his story's account of an e-mail from White. What he provided was a fax of a printout of an e-mail exchange. ....
The faxed e-mail contained no e-mail addresses or other headers, and that raised our concern.... We told Leopold we needed to authenticate the e-mail. He told us the name of his source for it, and Lauerman told Leopold he was going to call the source to verify the e-mail. The source denied ever having spoken to Leopold.
....Leopold assured us that he had cell phone records to prove that he had indeed talked to the source on numerous occasions. Then he told us that he didn't have the cell phone bill, but he would have the phone company send it to us by the morning of Monday, Sept. 30.
....By early Monday afternoon we had not received them, and found that Leopold was not returning our calls or e-mails. Later that afternoon we received a call not from Leopold but from a relative of his who was also apparently serving as his attorney and intermediary.
First, this intermediary had a phone company representative in a conference call read off phone numbers and dates of calls to us -- but they were calls to a different source in the story than to the one Leopold had told us was his source for the e-mail. Furthermore, all the calls took place after the story had been published. Next, the intermediary explained that the delay in getting the cell phone bill was because the phone belonged to Leopold's wife, not to Leopold himself, and that the bill had been at Leopold's home all along, and that he would fax it to us shortly.
When we reviewed this phone bill early Tuesday it contained numerous calls to the "other source" phone number (the same one the phone-service rep had cited the previous evening), but only one call to the number of the source Leopold originally named as the supplier of the White e-mail. The call was only one minute long, indicating that it was possibly unanswered, and in any case hardly long enough to conduct any sort of interview or obtain a fax of a sensitive e-mail. In any case, the call had taken place five days after Leopold had filed an early draft of the story that already quoted the e-mail.
--------endquote-------->
<<-------quote---------
It was only at this stage of our investigation, Sept. 20, that Leopold finally provided us with the evidence supporting his story's account of an e-mail from White. What he provided was a fax of a printout of an e-mail exchange. ....
The faxed e-mail contained no e-mail addresses or other headers, and that raised our concern.... We told Leopold we needed to authenticate the e-mail. He told us the name of his source for it, and Lauerman told Leopold he was going to call the source to verify the e-mail. The source denied ever having spoken to Leopold.
....Leopold assured us that he had cell phone records to prove that he had indeed talked to the source on numerous occasions. Then he told us that he didn't have the cell phone bill, but he would have the phone company send it to us by the morning of Monday, Sept. 30.
....By early Monday afternoon we had not received them, and found that Leopold was not returning our calls or e-mails. Later that afternoon we received a call not from Leopold but from a relative of his who was also apparently serving as his attorney and intermediary.
First, this intermediary had a phone company representative in a conference call read off phone numbers and dates of calls to us -- but they were calls to a different source in the story than to the one Leopold had told us was his source for the e-mail. Furthermore, all the calls took place after the story had been published. Next, the intermediary explained that the delay in getting the cell phone bill was because the phone belonged to Leopold's wife, not to Leopold himself, and that the bill had been at Leopold's home all along, and that he would fax it to us shortly.
When we reviewed this phone bill early Tuesday it contained numerous calls to the "other source" phone number (the same one the phone-service rep had cited the previous evening), but only one call to the number of the source Leopold originally named as the supplier of the White e-mail. The call was only one minute long, indicating that it was possibly unanswered, and in any case hardly long enough to conduct any sort of interview or obtain a fax of a sensitive e-mail. In any case, the call had taken place five days after Leopold had filed an early draft of the story that already quoted the e-mail.
--------endquote-------->
I note that the "e-mails" purportedly implicating Thomas White at:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/0211/a4512ec8ba13d0c5ae38.jpeg
appear to be bogus. There are no e-mail addresses, and the comments are clearly incomplete. Krugman fell for this!
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan on November 28, 2002 01:15 PM"First, can anyone name a columnist who has had to admit error as often as Paul Krugman?"
Gee, how about the fact that most columnists don't admit error? William "Al-Qaeda Met With Saddam's Man in Prague" Safire springs to mind...
Posted by: Paul on November 28, 2002 10:49 PM"...appear to be bogus. There are no e-mail addresses, and the comments are clearly incomplete. Krugman fell for this!"
You should realize, Patrick, when you make comments like this you seriously undermine your credibility. Emails can be read and stored by many different programs, and they vary widely for which header fields they actually save (and are usually customizable in this regard as well). Thomas White's email address is missing from the "From:" field, which is unconventional but is also something White could easily have set up as a default. Or it could have been edited out by Leopold's source, for all we know. Pretty much everyone knows this, including Krugman, probably even including you. And to all these people it's obvious that you're reaching pretty far to turn this into another Krugman slam.
The point, again, to anyone wanting to be fair about it, is that since emails are so easy to forge (with or without addresses in the "From:" field), the source's confirmation or lack thereof is the crux of the matter. And for this we have conflicting information.
Posted by: Ben Vollmayr-Lee on November 29, 2002 06:42 AMBen Vollmayr-Lee concedes defeat with:
>> Thomas White's email address is missing from the "From:" field, which is unconventional but is also something White could easily have set up as a default. Or it could have been edited out by Leopold's source, for all we know. <<
In fact, this is not a copy of an e-mail from Thomas White, but comes from someone who has hit the "reply" button (to any message at all). Hence the line:
<< ---original message--- >>
At that point anything goes (and probably did since all context is removed). Also note the absence of any "quote" marks, which should be there if it was what White wrote. BTW, why would White remove his e-mail address from correspondence within his own company?
Let's see how easy it is to forge something at this level:
<<--------quote----------
----- Original Message -----
From: Vollmayr-Lee, Ben
To: Sullivan, Patrick
Sent: Friday, November 29, 2002 6:29 AM
Subject: Apology for error
You're right. I shouldn't have helped perpetuate a slander of Thomas White on such a flimsy pretext.
-----------endquote--------->>
That's every bit as believeable as what Jason Leopold has produced. Of course, mine is stronger, according to you, because Salon's editors haven't destroyed MY credibility.
I hereby give thanks to Paul Krugman for his column today, in which there is this knee-slapper:
>> For most of the last 50 years, public policy took it for granted that media bias was a potential problem. There were, after all, only three national networks, a limited number of radio licenses and only one or two newspapers in many cities. How could those who controlled major news outlets be deterred from misusing their position?
>> The answer was a combination of regulation and informal guidelines. The "fairness doctrine" forced broadcast media to give comparable representation to opposing points of view. <<
Oh yeah, Dan Rather was hyper-fair to Richard Nixon back in the 70s. And when Ronald Reagan told the nation that the "peace-at-any-cost-nuclear-freeze movement was infiltrated and financed by the KGB and the Stasi, Tom Brokaw gave that a respectable hearing?
Sure Paul, did you get your copy of the talking points memo secretly inserted into your Thanksgiving Turkey? Or perhaps, it was this:
----- Original Message -----
From: Begala, Paul
To: Krugman, Paul
Sent: Wednesday, November 27, 2002 8:29 PM
Cc: Vandenheuvel, Christina, Gore, Al, Carville, James, Daschle, Tom
Subject: Fairness Doctrine
Paul, you're letting down the team, all the other guys and gals have already weighed in. What's the matter with you, you're not intimidated by Limbaugh skewering you over Pinch Sulzberger's inheriting the Times are you?
------------------------------------------
To: Sullivan
From: Me
As you presumably know very well, Leopold's source was not only confirmed by the New York Times, but actually exposed by them. Leopold's account of this makes this perfectly clear and it is highly dishonest of you to omit to mention this.
In related news, White has never denied sending the email; only claimed that he "could not recall" doing so.
The New York Times' behaviour on this issue has been shameful; although anyone familiar with the Gary Webb affair would not be surprised.
Posted by: dsquared on November 29, 2002 07:41 AMAnd let's not forget that the NY TImes Op-ed page already refuted Krugman's thesis a little more than a week ago, with Richard Reeves:
<<------------quote-----------
One great irony of the generally successful efforts to conceal Kennedy's many illnesses is that the basic story was available as long ago as 1955, when the American Medical Association's Archives of Surgery, in an article titled ''Management of Adreno-cortical Insufficiency During Surgery,'' recounted the medical history of a 37-year-old man who was the first Addisonian to survive traumatic surgery.
The operation took place on Oct. 21, 1954. The 37-year-old man was easily identifiable as Senator John F. Kennedy. He opted for the surgery at New York Hospital after physicians told him he would probably die on the table. I would rather be dead, he answered, than live with this kind of pain. Paul Martin, of the then-small Gannett newspaper chain, published the story in early 1961, but no one paid any attention.
That would not happen now. The press is a great deal more aggressive than it was in the good old days. Political life is more transparent now. Witness the skeptical surveillance of the medical charts of Bill Bradley in 2000 or Vice President Dick Cheney today. By our rules now, John F. Kennedy almost certainly could never have become president.
--------------endquote--------------->>
But then, maybe that's Krugman's complaint; the right kinds of people got away with a lot more in the good old days.
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan on November 29, 2002 07:58 AMDaniel Davies is behind the curve with:
"As you presumably know very well, Leopold's source was not only confirmed by the New York Times, but actually exposed by them. Leopold's account of this makes this perfectly clear and it is highly dishonest of you to omit to mention this."
Did you miss this from my post, in which the Salon editors demolished Leopold's story:
>> We told Leopold we needed to authenticate the e-mail. He told us the name of his source for it, and Lauerman told Leopold he was going to call the source to verify the e-mail. The source denied ever having spoken to Leopold. <<
Further, Leopold could not produce the telephone records he said he could. Go back and read the Salon editors story, Daniel.
As for White's not denying the e-mail, he was refused the chance to look at the e-mails in question. Probably because they don't exist.
Patrick, if you were a rational person we could agree on a few things:
* Salon and Leopold are offering conflicting stories about the validity of Leopold's source, and therefore the validity of the email.
* The email document contains nothing that could help settle the issue.
You choose to believe Salon. I choose to not have a definite opinion but to side towards Leopold. No problems there.
However, you stated something directly contradictory to the second point, even going so far as to claim it should have been obvious to Krugman that the email was a forgery. This is simply not true, and you're unwilling to admit it, even when called on it. This may not affect your self-perception, but it very much affects others' perception of you.
patrick
Let's score one for you, for the sake of argument. Now take on Krugman's cogent analyses that you ignore
1. The California energy debacle. Bush killed the California and US economy to favor big donors like Enron, and Krugman nailed him for it. A year later, the investigation by the federal government itself proves him right.
2. Bush's lies re the budget. If you start your assertion with, "the Gore budget would have...", then deduct three points.
3. Bush's lies re social security.
Posted by: pj on November 29, 2002 09:30 AM
Re:
>>In related news, White has never denied sending the email; only claimed that he "could not recall" doing so.<<
Yes. That's a very bad sign for White. He ought to be able to confirm pretty quickly that he didn't send it, if he in fact does not. The "could not recall" locution sounds like somebody who is taking a lot of care not to look back at his own paper trail...
Brad DeLong
'in which Krugman said that influential parents are bad if you are a Republican but good if you are a Democrat.'
Apparently he missed the point of that column.
'First, can anyone name a columnist who has had to admit error as often as Paul Krugman?'
Can you even name another columnist who's admitted error (Safire, I'm looking at you!)? I can't.
Patrick, I almost *want* the email to be made up. The hilarity of you, specifically, defending Salon, is just too much.
Back to the actual subject of this post: what on earth does Krugman possibly getting suckered by a source have to do with anything?
'Sure Paul, did you get your copy of the talking points memo secretly inserted into your Thanksgiving Turkey? Or perhaps, it was this:'
I rather doubt Krugman coordinated this will Al Gore's recent media criticisms. That said, the GOP does it already; is it too precious a tactic for us here on the left?
Posted by: Jason McCullough on November 29, 2002 03:35 PMAnyone who wants to decide whehther or not to believe Leopold or not can either a) check the link I supplied above in which Jason Leopold sets out his own case (including, pointing out that Salon had absolutely no business in calling a source which had insisted on being protected earlier on; readers may want to compare this treatment to that of the still unnamed "Deep Throat" and wonder what might have happened if Woodward & Bernstein had been faced with an editor as badly lacking in spine as Salon's)
or b) checking out any of Mr Sullivan's past posts on the subject of Paul Krugman and coming to an entirely rational conclusion about the calibre of Leopold's accusers.
Posted by: dsquared on November 29, 2002 04:30 PMDaniel Davies artfully dodges admitting that his eaelier statement is false:
"As you presumably know very well, Leopold's source was not only confirmed by the New York Times...."
AFAIK, the Times said no such thing. Jason Leopold claims in the article cited (from New Zealand) that this is the case, but Leopold has a very sorry track record.
Krugman himself has not publicly sided with Leopold, in fact Krugman has been curiously silent about this.
Further, anyone wanting to check out this story can simply go to the thread item, "Kudos to Patrick Sullivan" on this blog, where this issue is exhaustively debated. (With the conspicuous exception of any contribution by the party who "lost the bet".)
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan on November 30, 2002 10:20 AMThis is completely unfair of Brad DeLong:
>> Yes. That's a very bad sign for White. He ought to be able to confirm pretty quickly that he didn't send it, if he in fact does not. The "could not recall" locution sounds like somebody who is taking a lot of care not to look back at his own paper trail...<<
In fact, Leopold refused to make the e-mails available to White. How can White make a definite statement on something to which he is not privy?
Further, if you remember what I said in my "bet", it was that, "when the context...comes out....", and the one thing missing from those "e-mails" that we can now finally see, is any context at all. That's what looks bad. But not bad for Thomas White.
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan on November 30, 2002 10:28 AMHi there. This is Jason Leopold. I'll get right to it. I don't know who Patrick Sullivan is, where he gets his information, whether he is a journalist or just some right wing Nazi, but he is out of his mind.
Mr. Sullivan:
Three weeks ago, Paul Krugman was interviewed by the Guerilla News Network online news site and confirmed that he had in fact spoke to my source that supplied me with the email, which you are calling into question.
Here is what Krugman had to say
"Leopold faxed a copy of the email in question to GNN, and as Salon's editors wrote on MediaNews, it contained no email addresses or headers that would make it easier to verify - it was just a standard Outlook printout. However, when Krugman was contacted for this story, he confirmed that he had, in fact, spoken to Leopold's source for the controversial email, and said, "The person vouched for the authenticity of the email. That's all that person would want me to say, and I can't say any more about it."
In her article for the Village Voice, Cotts quoted Krugman as saying: "Everything else in that story checked out. The substance of his reporting was entirely correct."
Moreover, you are so ill informed on this story. I had in fact offered the email to Thomas White prior to the story being published but his office refused to respond to me.
Lastly, all I can say about Salon is that they are LIARS. Plain and simple. Everything they said in that letter contains lies.
And by the way, Mr. Sullivan, a lesson in technology for you. Sherron Watkins, the Enron whistleblower, wrote many emails, which you can find on the Senate Commerce Committee's web site. They don't contain headers either. Just addresses. You know why, you idiot? Because Microsoft Outlook doesn't necessarily store the addresses if you print out an email.
And another thing: my story was in cyberspace for a month before Krugman picked it up and no one questioned it. It wasn't until Krugman wrote about it that I suddenly found myself being discredited by members of the media, for no reason. To this day no one has bothered to follow up on the story.
Lastly, Mr. Sullivan, read the documents I posted. The email was not the whole story, just a small part of it to drive home the point that White is a crook and hid losses, which the other documents clearly point out.
You and everyone who critiques the media should be aware that if Watergate were to happen today, not one journalist would break the story. Why? Because today's journalists have no balls.
If you would like to ask me anything regarding this story I invite you to email me at jasonleopold@hotmail.com. Heck, here's my phone numberL 310-551-9940.
Kind regards
Jason Leopold
Krugman does deserve media recognition for his writing. His articles in Slate over several years (before he went to the New York Times) are some of the best things ever written by an economist for the general public. They clearly articulated the relevant economic theory, showed how it applied to the case being discussed, and maintained a distance from the policy debate, hat allowed Krugman to be both amusing and insightful. Most of these articles are classics.
For the last two years, Krugman has entirely abandoned these traits. He has been right on many issues of Bush economic policy, but hates the Republicans so much that he cannot think straight about it. There is never an amusing moment in his columns these days -- only an outporing of rage at the Republicans and those (e.g., the voters) who have supported them. Too frequently, he has even stopped thinking like an economist. His piece (perhaps three months ago -- the New York Times no longer allows free access to older columns) on energy policy proposed three actions: more government regulation (e.g., CAFE standards), new technology, and encouragement of energy conservation. But he never mentioned any role for the price of energy in promoting conservation. For that offense alone, his membership in the American Economic Association should be cancelled.
In sum, he used to be a great economics columnist. Now, he is (to use a phrase of condemnation that he introduced) just another policy entrepreneur.
An Brad DeLong should know better than to applaud such conduct.
Jim Fox
Posted by: Jim Fox on November 30, 2002 09:33 PM>>Leopold has a very sorry track record. <<
I am not sure how these things work in the States, but this statement (completely false) is quite probably libellous under UK law.
Posted by: dsquared on December 1, 2002 06:12 AM>>Leopold has a very sorry track record. <<
"I am not sure how these things work in the States, but this statement (completely false) is quite probably libellous under UK law."
The above from Daniel Davies is stupendously amusing coming as it does after Jason Leopold just wrote:
"I don't know who Patrick Sullivan is, where he gets his information, whether he is a journalist or just some right wing Nazi, but he is out of his mind."
And:
" all I can say about Salon is that they are LIARS. Plain and simple. Everything they said in that letter contains lies."
Then we can go to some of the things Jason Leopold produced about himself (can one sue oneself for libel in the UK?):
<<--------quote---------
[NY Times media columnist] Ballinger claimed she had spoken to several news organizations I had written stories for during the past six months and that none of them would work with me again.
What did I do? How could this be? ... I truly thought I was being set up. Why? I don't know...
...This clearly became an issue for the Times to pursue a salacious story about me rather than pursue the story itself, which is Thomas White....
The story the Times wrote about me was nothing more than a way to ensure I never work again as a journalist... [Carr] was going to do a hatchet job on me no matter what....
... Worst of all, Carr, whose story on me was about my so-called track record with printing corrections got my title wrong. He said I was a Los Angeles correspondent for Dow Jones. I was, in fact, the Los Angeles bureau chief. I managed three reporters. Carr, not suprisingly, won't print a correction
----------endquote--------->>
And, I haven't forgotten that Daniel still hasn't admitted that this claim of his is false:
"As you presumably know very well, Leopold's source was not only confirmed by the New York Times...."
In fact, the Times said they couldn't:
"Mr. Forbis [supposedly Leopold's source] did not return several calls seeking comment".
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan on December 1, 2002 09:13 AM
I'm not surprised that Jason Leopold didn't offer us the url so we could read the GNN story for ourselves. It's at:
http://www.guerrillanews.com/media/doc813.html
In which, we can read such things as:
"...a young reporter desperate to save his career...."
and,
"According to Leopold's emotional account, his reputation was deliberately sabotaged...."
and,
"...prompted in part by Leopold's own admitted indiscretions...."
and,
"...was he the victim of his own sloppy reporting? Getting at the truth in this story has proven murky...."
and,
"...A GNN investigation into the whole mess has revealed that Leopold has had trouble in the past producing verifiable sources...."
and,
"...Leopold told GNN that it was a copy editor at Salon who changed the words,'Close a bigger deal. Hide the loss before the 1Q' to read 'Close a bigger deal to hide the loss.'"
and, finally, what we might call the smoking gun:
"...there is no question that Leopold's mistakes seriously hampered his own cause. Specifically, on April 8 the Wall Street Journal ran a correction to a March 18 story on Enron by Leopold, which stated:
" 'Enron President Jeff McMahon, cited in the article as having confirmed the details about Mr. Kelly [Robert Kelly, former chairman and CEO of Enron Renewable Energy Corp.] through a spokesman, said he never provided information for the article.' The previous correction made it appear part of a pattern when the source for the White email denied speaking to Leopold."
Or, as I put it, Leopold has a very sorry track record.
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan on December 1, 2002 09:48 AMJason Leopold offers: "If you would like to ask me anything regarding this story I invite you to email me....".
I prefer the questions (and answers, if any)to be open to everyone. How about telling us why you can't actually provide us with the actual e-mail that Thomas White allegedly sent?
Not some easily edited "reply" to Thomas White (which is what you have provided thus far). And I want to see the context of the e-mail exchanges, complete with a bunch of: >> (or similar "quote" marks).
Don't you think you have to be able to produce such evidence before calling someone a "crook"?
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan on December 1, 2002 10:13 AMI am convinced that Patrick Sullivan is an idiot.
Sullivan, read the documents I posted, all of them. See the signature from White on the Eli Lilly approval sheet in which White's division gave Lilly $50 million.
I am kicking myself for actually responding to you. But you are such an antagonistic bastard I can't help myself
Posted by: jason leopold on December 1, 2002 12:27 PMLastly, Mr. Sullivan, I have written 2,000 stories over the past two years, which can easily be found on Lexis. I have had two corrections printed in all. Those two can easily be found. So, my track record is damn good.
Are you just some person who sits home all day and posts comments about news stories or do you have any purpose in this world? Just wondering.
Jason Leopold is reduced to sputtering:
"See the signature from White on the Eli Lilly approval sheet in which White's division gave Lilly $50 million".
This type of thing was typical in the late Clinton economy. Leopold obviously is not well informed about the mania for losing money to gain, "first mover advantage". This may have been crazy strategy, but it is not criminal (and was recommended by many gurus of the "new economy").
It so happens that in another thread on this blog I recommended Stan Liebowitz's new book, "Re-Thinking the Network Economy", in which Mr. Leopold can "read all about it". There was a surfeit of articles like this one:
>> “So Long , Supply and Demand: There's a new economy out there -- and it looks nothing like the old one”, by Thomas Petzinger Jr., 01/03/2000, The Wall Street Journal, Page S1. <<
From which we have Petzinger writing:
>> Our 500-year-old system of accounting has grave limitations in this world.. But for now, according to the CS First Boston atoms-to-bits report, "there is a substantial and growing chasm between our accounting system and economic reality"…[I]n an economy awash in capital, the endgame, not the score at the end of each quarter, is all that counts…"Earnings are a decision variable, not a requirement," says Prof. [Brian] Arthur, the economist. "If everyone thinks you're doing fine without earnings, why have them?" <<
Liebowitz also quotes this passage from Kevin Kelly's, "New Rules for a New Economy":
"As crackpot as it sounds, in the distant future nearly everything we make will (at least for a short while) be given away free--refrigerators, skis, laser projectors, clothes, you name it."
And lots of others saying similar things about "up-front discounts" and the like. Enron was simply falling for the prevailing wisdom. They were building "the future". Here's how Peggy Noonan put it:
"I couldn't figure out how Enron was making its money, what exactly it was selling, and every time I asked I got a kind of gobbledygook answer or a cryptic one, like "The future!"
So, while we can all have fun laughing at their hubris, we aren't entitled to jump from that to: "crook". Especially not for Thomas White who seems to have had no training in accounting or finance at all. He was a logistics man.
I've already dealt with Jason Leopold's ridiculous citing of his 2,000 stories back in early October. He can read the thread: "Kudos to Patrick Sullivan", for the full story. In a nutshell, rewriting wire service copy is NOT investigative reporting.
As to:
"Are you just some person who sits home all day and posts comments about news stories or do you have any purpose in this world? Just wondering".
I'm the kind of person who does not believe in slandering people. I.e., accusing someone of criminal acts (multi-million dollar stock fraud)on the basis of NO EVIDENCE at all.
And since you ducked my question:
>> How about telling us why you can't actually provide us with the actual e-mail that Thomas White allegedly sent?
>> Not some easily edited "reply" to Thomas White (which is what you have provided thus far). And I want to see the context of the e-mail exchanges, complete with a bunch of: >> (or similar "quote" marks).<<
It's pretty clear you don't have any evidence worthy of the name.
Jason Leopold wrote:
> I'll get right to it. I don't know who Patrick Sullivan is ... whether he is a journalist or just some right wing Nazi ... <
Hey, what happened to the "acceptable comments, no name calling" rule? Not just a Nazi but a *right wing* Nazi!
Dsquared wrote:
>"Leopold has a very sorry track record."
>I am not sure how these things work in the States, but this statement (completely false) is quite probably libellous under UK law.
Oh, considering the massive retraction of his reporting by the WSJ, GNN's report that he had previous trouble verifying sources, his own statement that a Times' reporter told him "she had spoken to several news organizations I had written stories for during the past six months and that none of them would work with me again", etc., I wouldn't be too sure about that.
OTOH, when a person goes around calling another a "Nazi" ... says in print "all I can say about Salon is that they are LIARS" who deliberately sabotaged his career ... says the NY Times is more interested in salacious reporting than the truth ... says "the story the Times wrote about me was nothing more than a way to ensure I never work again as a journalist... [Carr] was going to do a hatchet job on me no matter what...." etc. & so on, well, then we might be getting there.
Posted by: Jim Glass on December 1, 2002 04:08 PMHmm, let's see. To my understanding, the source is Jeff Forbis, a former executive at Enron Energy Services. The rest of this crap about FT citing, nazis, and track records is irrelevant. Ask Jeff Forbis, though I suspect you'll have a hard time getting him to answer now.
If he refuses to answer, it's pretty much impossible for an outside observer to tell who's telling the truth here; Forbis telling different things to different people is a plausible possibility.
Posted by: Jason McCullough on December 1, 2002 05:29 PMRobert Musil seems to have noticed this post and the comments:
http://musil.blogspot.com/2002_12_01_musil_archive.html#85352670
Posted by: E. Coli on December 1, 2002 06:14 PMMr. Leopold wrote:
>> I have written 2,000 stories over the past two years, which can easily be found on Lexis. I have had two corrections printed in all. Those two can easily be found. So, my track record is damn good. <<
As someone who has been in the publishing biz for 20-odd years, I am duly impressed. That 2,000 stories, assuming 50 weeks in a working year, gives 20 stories per week, 4 stories per working day, and -- allowing an hour off for lunch and trips to the coffee machine -- one story every 1 hour and 45 minutes on average, nonstop. I wonder how much original reporting and research went into the average under-two hour story, that was at risk of being in need of correction?
BTW, any journalist who has written 2,000 stories would *certainly* know that lifting passages *verbatim* from another publication is plagiarism pure and simple, "credit" given to the other piece or not. The editor of Salon had it absolutely right: "[S]even paragraphs, or nearly 500 words, had been lifted nearly verbatim from the Financial Times. By every definition I'm aware of, this does constitute plagiarism, whether conscious or unconscious, intentional or accidental." Indeed. Especially when one's own 2,000 stories averaged 500 words or less, judging from the amount of time spent on them.
Earlier, at http://www.scoop.co.nz/ Mr. Leopold told his side of the whole affair. I did appreciate his perspective about what was the worst thing in the NY Times story on it all that was written to do him in and "ensure" that he would "never work again as a journalist"...
"Worst of all, Carr, whose story on me was about my so-called track record with printing corrections got my title wrong. He said I was a Los Angeles correspondent for Dow Jones. I was, in fact, the Los Angeles bureau chief. I managed three reporters. Carr, not suprisingly, won't print a correction."
Priorities, priorities. Well, at least people of all stripes can agree that the Times has a dubious record where printing corrections is concerned.
Posted by: Jim Glass on December 1, 2002 07:35 PMProf. DeLong wrote:
>Yes. That's a very bad sign for White. He ought to be able to confirm pretty quickly that he didn't send it ...<
Really? Think of being on the receiving end of this.
Suppose I wave a paper saying, "I have a message here that Brad DeLong wrote that proves he did a very bad thing and is a truly evil person. Mark my word, 'evil', I say for publication!"
But I won't show Prof. DeLong the paper. I quote it only very briefly, and out of context. The quote sort of changes as it is repeated. Yet, "I have a message and I won't show it to you, now prove you didn't send it!", I say.
How does Prof. DeLong feel about this? And how is he supposed to defend himself? Suppose he replies: "I do not recall saying or writing anything close to the quote."
Do we all think: "Ah, condemned by his own words."
Well, if I'm instead Prof. DeLong's lawyer in this situation, I advise him: 'Let him show you the damn message, then you can tell him whether you wrote it or not. In Journalism 101 they tell reporters to show such evidence to the people they are writing about, not just as a matter of fairness, nor just to get a better story (via a gotcha like on 60 Minutes, or by obtaining an explanation the reporter didn't know about) but most importantly, to save the reporter from making a jackass of himself when he publishes if he doesn't have what he thinks he has. It's simple enough for him to show it to you, and if he's operating sub-J101 he can go take a hike -- he'll likely hang himself with his own rope.'
Looks to me like that's the advice White got, and rightly too.
Going way back to the beginning, Prof. DeLong also wrote:
"It's not that anybody really disagrees with the substance of what he has been saying.."
Actually, Prof. K has made so many bad errors of fact -- all politics aside -- in his Times column that I've stopped reading him near entirely, big fan of his though I was back in his Slate days. So there's at least one person who sure disagrees with the substance of what he was saying in those columns.
That all his errors are slanted one way makes it rather worse. But I also don't read conservatives, libertarians, iconoclasts, misanthropes or anyone else who makes errors like that.
Jim Fox wrote...
> In sum, he used to be a great economics columnist. Now, he is (to use a phrase of condemnation that he introduced) just another policy entrepreneur.<
.. and I can't make myself disagree very strongly with that, as much as I'd like to.
Posted by: Jim Glass on December 1, 2002 09:17 PMKrugman writes things that are untrue, either willfully or out of ideologically-driven carelessness, in order to damage his political opponents. This doesn't make him much different from other hacks, but most other hacks don't shine their audience with a reputation of academic brilliance. Krugman's academic reputation is no doubt deserved, but hacks are preferable in their unadorned state.
Posted by: Will Allen on December 2, 2002 11:23 AMClearly, Patrick Sullivan is not familiar with any of my work of the past two years. Dow Jones does not "rewrite" stories. Each reporter is assigned a beat and there are investigative teams. I was on the energy beat. I advise you to look before you leap. Read my stories. I never, ever rewrote anything (except for the FT passages in my Salon story, which I admit was a mistake on my part).
It appears that nothing I say will sway the opinion of people, like Mr. Sullivan, who have already made up their minds on what to think.
Let me bring your attention to just a few stories that I wrote:
1. Enron's phony trading floor, which appeared on the front page of the WSJ
2. I was the first person to interview Jeff Skilling after Enron's bankruptcy. The story appeared in the FT among other publications.
Lastly, as per the question of the email which you say I am ducking take a look at this link. Tell me what is different in this email than the one I posted? http://energycommerce.house.gov/107/hearings/02142002Hearing489/tab22.pdf
The NYT blindsided my source and me by calling the person without permission. Forbis' phone number is listed. He lives in Houston.
I stand by my story.
Posted by: jason leopold on December 2, 2002 11:32 AMWill, Paul, Jim: if you're so damned concerned, here's the contact info for Jeff Forbis, according to google:
Jeff A Forbis, (713) 838-0975, 3707 Durness Way, Houston, TX 77025
Let us know what he says.
Posted by: Jason McCullough on December 2, 2002 12:40 PMJason Leopold asks a silly question:
>>Lastly, as per the question of the email which you say I am ducking take a look at this link. Tell me what is different in this email than the one I posted? http://energycommerce.house.gov/107/hearings/02142002Hearing489/tab22.pdf <<
What is different is rather obvious, there is CONTEXT in this e-mail. Context is entirely missing from the alleged Thomas White e-mail.
Take note of how the "---Original Message---" is indented to indicate what is being responded to. When Leopold can produce an e-mail from Thomas White to Forbis that looks like what he produces from Sherron Watkins, he might have something.
The big question is why, after all this time, he hasn't been able to do so. Or perhaps it's why he doesn't think he has to produce evidence to have his story accepted.
To Jason McCullough,
The customary procedure is for someone who is publicly accusing another person to have the evidence on which the accusation is based. To be able to produce it to support the accusation. It is not the responsibility of readers who notice the absence of such evidence to run it down themselves.
If, after a couple of months, the evidence is not produced, it's fair to conclude it does not exist.
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan on December 2, 2002 03:38 PM'The customary procedure is for someone who is publicly accusing another person to have the evidence on which the accusation is based.'
Assertion: Thomas White directed someone to hide a loss at Enron.
Evidence: An email has been produced by Jason Leopold where Thomas White directs someone to hide a loss.
Confirmation of Evidence: Jason Leopold says that Jeff Forbis confirmed the email as accurate. Krugman says Jeff Forbis confirmed the email as accurate.
Refutation of Evidence: Salon, however, says the source denies having spoken to Leopold.
An obvious journalistic practice to resolve this is to call the damn source, Patrick, if you're so certain it's all a crock. The worst that could happen is he refuses to talk to you.
Well?
Posted by: Jason McCullough on December 2, 2002 04:36 PMSays Jason McCullough:
>> Evidence: An email has been produced by Jason Leopold where Thomas White directs someone to hide a loss.<<
Not true. He has produced no such e-mail. The one that is up for viewing on the web is, on its face, something that is in reply to Thomas White. It is not an e-mail from Thomas White at all.
Not to mention that even this could easily be a complete forgery.
And as for what Krugman claims (not first hand in his NY Times column, nor on his website, but as someone else quotes him as saying) about the "source", it is curiously vague. As for what Leopold says, well, he's hardly a disinterested party.
Which brings back to what the "source" himself actually has to say: Not a thing publicly. To Salon's editors: he denied it. To the NY Times: Doesn't return phone calls.
And, the accusation is that White is a "corporate evildoer", and "a crook". Jason, you can't even get straight what the accusation is versus what the evidence is. Circular reasoning of this sort doesn't a big time prosecuting attorney make.
I repeat, unless some evidence that will stand up to scrutiny is produced, Paul Krugman and Jason Leopold have slandered Thomas White.
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan on December 3, 2002 07:05 AM>> An obvious journalistic practice to resolve this is to call the damn source, Patrick, if you're so certain it's all a crock. The worst that could happen is he refuses to talk to you.
>> Well? <<
Go right ahead, Jason, call him and report back on what he has to say. But be sure to ask to see the original e-mail (with context included).
Thanks for clearing up your seriousness about this, Patrick.
Posted by: Jason McCullough on December 3, 2002 10:05 AM"Thanks for clearing up your seriousness about this, Patrick."
I take that as unconditional surrender. Of course, it was the only avenue left for you.
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan on December 4, 2002 06:37 AM
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/120502/met_11144274.shtml
Thursday, December 5, 2002
Last modified at 11:55 p.m. on Wednesday, December 4, 2002
Fowler considered to replace Army secretary, paper says
By Rachel Davis
Times-Union staff writer
A former congresswoman from Jacksonville and long-time proponent of the military in the city could be the leading candidate to replace Army Secretary Thomas White, according to a Washington Post gossip column. Tillie Fowler, now a Washington lawyer with Holland and Knight, was unavailable for comment. But David Gilliland, Fowler's former chief of staff, said no one has approached Fowler about the job. White was once thought to be in trouble because of his former position at Enron. But the White House did not acknowledge any plans to search for a new secretary. "We don't confirm, deny or speculate on future appointments," White House spokesman Jeanie Mamo said Tuesday. Fowler serves on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board, which provides the Pentagon with independent advice on long-term planning and long- and short-range projects assigned by Rumsfeld. She also was named to Chief of Naval Operations Vernon Clark's Executive Panel, which advises the Navy's top-ranking admiral on sea power. "She feels like she's still making her contribution, and no one's talked to her about doing anything else," Gilliland said. Fowler's name was tossed around in 2000 to head the Navy under President Bush, a post that was assigned to Gordon England. England has been tapped as the deputy secretary for the Department of Homeland Security.
Staff writer Rachel Davis can be reached at (904) 359-4614 or at racheldavisjacksonville.com.