Columnist On Columnist Crime

Oops.
Seems to be some air leaking out of a talking-point here.

 

For an economist, Krugman really is good with words.

 

Frank and Fen,

A couple of points:

First, I wasn't looking to score "talking points," like some O'Reilly acolyte. I was merely asking a question.

Second, and more importantly, I wrote that Krugman might need to do some explaining, and he did, insofar as he didn't take a paycheck from the adminstration per se. That said, I'm still puzzled by the timeline of his agreeing to take the job at the administration's request and his and others' current accusations about Republican race-baiting.

Krugman's thesis is not a mere difference of political opinion (e.g. "small government" vs. "big government," different ideas about Social Security reform, etc.) made in good faith--the sort of disagreements that are common in politics and would understandably result in someone working with/for people of different ideologies. He's basically alleging that Republicans are racists and have been for a long time, and that's how they consolidated political power, and their strategy was recognizable back in 1980, even before Reagan took office. It's hard for me to accept that he could have believed this and worked for the administration in any capacity, whether he had to compromise his political principles or not. I mean, if you thought the people running the government came into power through insidious, disgusting means, and they asked for your help, wouldn't you tell them to go pound sand?

So, again, my question stands: Was Republican racism (as Krugman sees it) something he could live with and still help them out, or is it only through convenient hindsight that he argues this conspiracy was evident all those years ago?

This is fun, BTW.

Cheers,

Mike

 

Working on the Council of Economic Advisers, couldn't you assume that you are trying to helpthe entire country, rather than just the current administration?

 

That would be the easy way out -- leaving the job you've been asked to do perhaps to someone less qualified, less willing to disagree with those in power.

Krugman describes the position as a civil-service job. Are you saying that some secretary in the Pentagon needs to resign if she disagrees that the war in Iraq is a good idea? That she'd be unable to professionally handle her duties of typing, answering the phone and maintaining confidentiality just because, in her personal and private opinion, the president is despicable? Or, put another way, should all those who vote Republican, especially those who allege Hillary isn't quite moral or ethical in their opinion, quit or refrain from applying for any federal government position after Hillary wins the election?

 

Frank,

Real quick response this time, because Flyers-Rangers starts in 25 minutes and I've got a column to write.

There are degrees to everything. Krugman may call what he did a "civil-service job," but he wasn't answering phones and taking messages. In his own words, he was called in to help save a panicky administration from potential eonomic collapse. (A bit self-serving in his description, no?)

That's a little different from being a secretary, and this situation is different from a Republican civil servant turning down a job because Hillary gives him/her the political creeps. Again, he's absolutely certain these people are racists. (He's absolutely sure now, that is. We don't know about then.) He didn't need the job but took it anyway. One more time: If Krugman was so certain then that Reagan's appearance in Philadelphia was driven by a despicable race-baiting agenda, was being referred to as a "whiz kid" all it took for him to put aside his disgust? Or, maybe the appearance's meaning wasn't so obvious then. I don't know. I'm just asking.

 

This is, you should pardon the expression, horseshit.
Does anything you've posted prove that Krugman is wrong in his assessment in the vital role that racial reaction and the remnants of American apartheid played in the rise of modern conservatism in general and Republicanism in particular? That is beyond historical question. LBJ admitted it to Richard Russell on the day he signed the voting rights act. There are memos from Harry Dent laying out the Southern strategy. Kevin Phillips watched it work for Nixon. Lee Atwater, even before he knew he was about to meet Jesus, admitted it. I covered the 1980 campaign and I can assure you that nobody was confused about what Reagan was up to in going to Neshoba and talking about states rights. He was blowing the dog whistle for certain people to hear. William Rehnquist started out in the Jim Crow effort to keep minorities from voting and wound up as cheif justice of the Supreme Court after (at least) trimming the truth on the subject in his confirmation hearings. Nobody cared whether Reagan personally was a racist. But he, and the party that birthed him, was willing to use racism for the purpose of gaining political power and then paid those people back by, among other things, defending Bob Jones University's tax-exempt status. Google William French Smith some time.
None of that history goes away because Krugman took a federal job a couple of dozen levels removed from the president who spoke in Philadelphia, and it certainly doesn't diminish his credibility in the least for pointing out what everybody -- except, apparently, David Brooks -- knows.

 

The latest:

Krugman today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/opinion/19krugman.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists

Reagan biographer Lou Cannon yesterday (in what my admittedly biased mind is a painfully weak effort):
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/opinion/18cannon.html?n=Top/Opinion/Editorials%20and%20Op-Ed/Op-Ed/Contributors

 

Now it's a three-way.

Hott.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/20/AR2007112001651.html

 

and krugman can't resist, in his BLOG!:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/21/they-hate-me-they-really-hate-me/

 

the part about how Ruth Marcus selectively edited quotes to get the desired effect was particularly inspiring.

 

I'm telling you, this is going to save newspapers.
(Marcus really wanked it hard, didn't she?)