So, what are the Five Happiest Words you can read in the New York Times?
David Brooks is off today.Slight typo though -- David Brooks is always off.
Meanwhile, K-Thug continues to vividly channel, um, well, me:
July 28, 2011
The Centrist Cop-Out
By PAUL KRUGMAN
The facts of the crisis over the debt ceiling aren’t complicated. Republicans have, in effect, taken America hostage, threatening to undermine the economy and disrupt the essential business of government unless they get policy concessions they would never have been able to enact through legislation. And Democrats — who would have been justified in rejecting this extortion altogether — have, in fact, gone a long way toward meeting those Republican demands.
As I said, it’s not complicated. Yet many people in the news media apparently can’t bring themselves to acknowledge this simple reality. News reports portray the parties as equally intransigent; pundits fantasize about some kind of “centrist” uprising, as if the problem was too much partisanship on both sides.
Some of us have long complained about the cult of “balance,” the insistence on portraying both parties as equally wrong and equally at fault on any issue, never mind the facts. I joked long ago that if one party declared that the earth was flat, the headlines would read “Views Differ on Shape of Planet.”
...
So what’s with the buzz about a centrist uprising? As I see it, it’s coming from people who recognize the dysfunctional nature of modern American politics, but refuse, for whatever reason, to acknowledge the one-sided role of Republican extremists in making our system dysfunctional. And it’s not hard to guess at their motivation. After all, pointing out the obvious truth gets you labeled as a shrill partisan, not just from the right, but from the ranks of self-proclaimed centrists.
But making nebulous calls for centrism, like writing news reports that always place equal blame on both parties, is a big cop-out — a cop-out that only encourages more bad behavior. The problem with American politics right now is Republican extremism, and if you’re not willing to say that, you’re helping make that problem worse.
Wow.
In case you didn't notice, Dr. Krugman crossed a very specific Rubicon here: he has just made the very public case for firing Tom Friedman and David Brooks -- just about as bluntly as the medium allows -- right there in the pages of the New York Times.
Suck on that,
Tommy-boy.
12 comments:
Krugman is starting to sound like a master of the obvious. But in the land of the Villagers, that is a badge of courage. Thus it shall ever be.
Deficit Thinking
I think that being happy that you don't have to read a column by David Effing Brooks today is very short-sighted. The fact that he didn't even have the time to phone in a recycle of the same damn column he's been phoning in for years means that he's out there somewhere -- harassing a cabbie or kibbutzing at the Applebee's salad bar -- expending the skull sweat coming up with some slightly more off take on the same damn column he's been phoning in for all these years.
The brain tax you don't pay today, you have to pay tomorrow -- with interest!
Paul Krugman is a national Treasure some should start mailing his Op-eds to the Davids (Brooks, Gergan, Gregory, Frum).
Also why you notice the absolute worst people in the media have the first name David? (further evidence they where all grown in a lab)
Krugman is correct, as usual. Only Krugman would make a cameo in a zany comedy (c.f. Get Him to the Greek, though that was perhaps the funniest and best part of the whole movie). Nevertheless, Drifty, your years of showing David Brooks for the f/tool he is shall continue to be vindicated in the pages of the Grey Lady (and elsewhere, methinks). Slowly, ponderously, but surely, asshats like Brooks and Friedman will lose all credibility. But like your photoshop, don't forget, it took Harry Potter about ten years to defeat Voldemort.
Wow, Krugman is even moving closer to sounding like Chris Floyd, who wrote today:
"This is currently being exemplified by the debt-ceiling 'crisis'. Every single element of the public presentation of this 'crisis' is transparently, even brazenly false. It is obvious – even to many of our ever-somnolent Establishment commentators – that the situation is an entirely manufactured crisis designed solely to impose shock-doctrine 'austerity' on the American system, thus completing its long, painful mutation into a neo-feudal oligarchy backed by a militarist police state."
Good afternoon, Mr. Glass.
Not sure which Hogwarts spell you've been casting on Mr. Krugman (Imperio?), but keep it up.
Moderate in the US of A in 2011 = half-rabid.
What enfeebled mind seriously thinks that their non-rabid half will somehow miraculously prevail against a mindless virus using only pretty words & even prettier ideas? A virus cannot think, nor can it hear the melodious warbling of its soon-to-be victims.
Not only is the refractory period for Republican Rabies shrinking but, as Obama now proves daily, it is also highly contagious.
"Nice Social Security you've got there. Y'know, it'd be a crying shame if anything were to happen to it. See, my pal Rocco here, he HATES Social Security, & it's all I can do to keep him from burning it to the ground. So I have to know, right this minute: what ELSE are you willing to give up to keep it?"
One does not reason with a rabid beast - one either puts it down, dons sturdy gloves, & incinerates the remains ... or succumbs to it.
It's pretty obvious that Ole Yeller has been frothing at the mouth for a long long time now. Pa needs to drop a shell or two into the trusty 12-gauge & get his ass out behind the barn pronto, before he loses his wife & kid to this nasty shit.
For every point the Dow drops, Wall Streeters shit their pants a little. As the Dow makes its suicide jump off of Tea Party Cliff, the flood of feces arising from Wall Street is definitely going to attract the attention of the masters of the universe. They made this shitstorm, let them mop it up. Gonna catch up on your podcasts now. Thanks for being so far ahead of the curve Drifty!
I know full well your feelings for Brooks, but he did call out the GOP for being totally insane.
PJ: As the saying goes: "Too late chum".
Hef said...
"For every point the Dow drops, Wall Streeters shit their pants a little."
One of my concerns is that the R's will raise the debt ceiling at the last moment, and then use the calamity to push their "business friendly" bills. After this settles, if it doesn't end in a huge flaming crater, I can see Boehner and Cantor standing on the floor saying that big businesses *need* tax cuts to regain stability. The rich / job creators *need* tax cuts to re-invest in the shaken economy.
I have a feeling that the shitting Wall Streeters will turn around to screech and wail, "We're scared! Give us free money to make us feel better!"
Mike.K.
Even worse, lots of Wall Streeters will use the crisis to pick stock up cheap, knowing that the tax cuts, etc., are also coming and that they win either way.
The guys at the top are protected from bad stock market days by the millions they already stole and moved out of the country.
You are the metaphor man, Dg.
Love ya!
S
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