Monday, October 12, 2015

Krugman Keeps Swinging That Big Driftglass Hammer


I wonder if it's doing any good?

From the NYT:
The Crazies and the Con Man
OCT. 12, 2015

How will the chaos that the crazies, I mean the Freedom Caucus, have wrought in the House get resolved? I have no idea. But as this column went to press, practically the whole Republican establishment was pleading with Paul Ryan, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, to become speaker. He is, everyone says, the only man who can save the day.

What makes Mr. Ryan so special? The answer, basically, is that he’s the best con man they’ve got. His success in hoodwinking the news media and self-proclaimed centrists in general is the basis of his stature within his party. Unfortunately, at least from his point of view, it would be hard to sustain the con game from the speaker’s chair.

To understand Mr. Ryan’s role in our political-media ecosystem, you need to know two things. First, the modern Republican Party is a post-policy enterprise, which doesn’t do real solutions to real problems. Second, pundits and the news media really, really don’t want to face up to that awkward reality.
...

Predictions aside, however, the Ryan phenomenon tells us a lot about what’s really happening in American politics. In brief, crazies have taken over the Republican Party, but the media don’t want to recognize this reality. The combination of these two facts has created an opportunity, indeed a need, for political con men. And Mr. Ryan has risen to the challenge.
This is a conversation Liberals have been having for decades.  It has rung off the walls of our empty churches.  We have spray-painted it up and down the length of walls of the media ghetto where the mainstream press keeps us safely locked far away from the nation's microphones and cameras.


Now the flames are bright enough to be seen from space and hot enough to make the Beltway press sweat inside their realty-denying panic room.

Now Krugman is tagging the other side of our ghetto walls.

I wonder if it's doing any good?

7 comments:

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

How many times has Krugman been on the TeeBee shows since he's been going Driftglass?

So yeah, I think it's doing some good. He's been made to sit in the hall with the rest of us DFHs. And he's getting tired of this shit....

Unknown said...

To answer that last question, no. Krugman has been forced into our Ghetto of Non-Personhood due to his unrelenting efforts to force the truth about the GOP down the media's throat. They've stopped listening to him. Notice that you almost never see him on any of the shows anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if some shows have already scrubbed any residue of his earlier appearances from their websites.

Nothing can penetrate the Teflon Armor of the MSM warrior.

Jim Jones said...

...I think I've seen everything.

David Brooks actually used the word "incompetent" to describe Republicans. And he called out Rush Limbaugh.

But don't take my word for it!

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/13/opinion/the-republicans-incompetence-caucus.html

So, in other words, yes, I think that you and K-thug(said with a smile on my face) are having an effect. Either that or it has become even more obvious that the "Freedom Caucus" aren't Republicans anymore.

They are right wing anarchists. More to the point, they are anarcho-capitalists. But that's a whole other comment.

waldo said...

Yes, it is, and when Bernie gets rollin'.....

tequilamockingbird said...

Ho, hum. So Krugman hits yet another one out of the park.

But here's the big news: Pigs fly! Hell freezes over! David Brooks has written a decent column! In his "Republicans' Incompetence Caucus," Brooks acknowledges that the Republican party has been moving toward its present state of insanity over the past 30 years. Amazing!

DrBB said...

What's really amazing about that op-ed? Not once does he veer off into both-siderism. I kept expecting "Of course Bernie Sanders/HRC..." but nope. Of course he also manages to tie his diagnosis to Limbaugh, Gingrich and their ilk without ever mentioning that guy--what was his name again?--who famously quipped "Government IS the problem" and precipitated a whole coupla generations worth of GOPers proving the assertion by doing government badly. You'd think that might show up in an article focusing on the "incompetence" caucus--it's a feature not a bug. Still, for Brooksie, not bad.

chrome agnomen said...

david brooks for speaker. the con man's con man.