Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
Two quick things:
First, in honor of the holiday, please enjoy Scott and Bob's article over at 3 Quarks Daily: "Waging War on Christmas to Save Thanksgiving." It's well worth the read.
Second, Salon's "Hack Thirty" is finished: the winner, Richard Cohen! Shocker: no Charles Krauthammer. I'd have a different list (adjusted for exposure and importance), but notic how many of our favorites made it on the list (and why).
Happy Thanksgiving again. I will watch the Lions win a glorious victory. I'm certain.
Yes, Happy Buy Nothing Day tomorrow!
http://www.buynothingday.org/faq.html
1.Happy Thanksgiving to you too. I can't say I really enjoyed Scott's article, but I guess that's to be expected since I don't share Scott's worldview. For any serious critic of Christianity I would recommend Chesterton's "The Everlasting Man" :
"The point of this book, in other words, is that the next best thing to being really inside Christendom is to be really outside it. And a particular point is that the popular critics of Christianity are not really outside it. … the best relation to our spiritual home is to be near enough to love it. But the next best is to be far enough away not to hate it. It is the contention of these pages that while the best judge of Christianity is a Christian, the next best judge would be something more like a Confucian. The worst judge of all is the man now most ready with his judgments; the ill-educated Christian turning gradually into the ill-tempered agnostic, entangled in the end of a feud of which he never understood the beginning, blighted with a sort of hereditary boredom with he knows not what, and already weary of hearing what he has never heard. … For those in whom a mere reaction has thus become an obsession, I do seriously recommend the imaginative effort of conceiving the Twelve Apostles as Chinamen. In other words, I recommend these critics to try to do as much justice to Christian saints as if they were pagan sages. But … when we do make this imaginative effort to see the whole thing from the outside, we find that it really looks like what is traditionally said about it inside."
2. John, when would we see you make a similar list like those from the Salon?
Hey BN,
Well, results may vary. I'd disagree with Chesterton there. But nonetheless.
I think my list has already been made. My quibble with his list is that he gives minor leaguers like SE Cupp and Jonah Goldberg too much credit. They're too awful to be on such lists.
I'm surprised Paul Krugman did not make the list. Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles were ripping him on Charlie Rose last week ( http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11294 , http://www.charlierose.com/download/transcript/11294)
Not sure why that would qualify him for the list.
No, that shouldn't. But his op-eds should.
You'll have to back that up.
John, just read any of his last week's editorials. They all have the same theme: "The bad news about America is that a powerful political faction is trying to shackle the Federal Reserve, in effect removing the one big advantage we have over the suffering Spaniards. Republican attacks on the Fed — demands that it stop trying to promote economic recovery and focus instead on keeping the dollar strong and fighting the imaginary risks of inflation — amount to a demand that we voluntarily put ourselves in the Spanish prison."
If that's not a straw-man argument, I don't know what is. These are not rational editorials, but rather highly emotional rants and rave.
This guy said it better that I did:" millions of people every day read Paul Krugman and believe what he says is gospel. Republicans are evil and don’t ask why. He distorts, presents half the story, and generally does everything he can to misrepresent what is actually taking place. (http://www.krugmaniswrong.com/)
Hm.
1. Not agreeing with Krugman doesn't make him a hack.
2. He has a certain expertise on economic matters–and an established record of being right a lot of the time.
3. Doesn't make him right all of the time, and right in this specific instance, but I think it is evidence in favor of his not being a hack, as you suggest.
4. I think, by the way, he's right about the recovery stuff. There's evidence (from other sources–e.g, CBO–that stimulus stuff (which he advocated) has worked.
5. I think Krugman thinks Republicans (and others, including Obama) are wrong and he says why–they believe tax cuts, for instance, increase tax revenue, among other things. This is doubtless true of some of them.
6. Lots of people read George Will, etc., and think it's gospel. Those people are silly. People shouldn't read stuff like this (op-eds of any variety that is) and take it as gospel. But they do. Pointing that out doesn't mean much.
7. As far distortion, etc., that's a matter of particulars. The burden would be on that guy to show that. He probably has tried.
My problem is not with Paul's ideology. Also, his economic expertise can hardly be questioned.
My problem with his editorials is the same problem I have with most of the people that make the list at the Salon, they often misrepresent their opponent's position. Another related thing is his lack of grace: always assume the worse of your opponent.
I haven't noticed that about him. He typically names his opponents specifically (I could be wrong about this, but I don't think so). He alslo has spent a lot of energy criticizing Obama, etc.. That fellows interpretation of today's column (the unnamed fellow you mention as some kind of authority) seems not really to get it.
John,
You are right, he did criticize Obama too. As far as that fellow's interpretation, I didn't read it.
But here's a theme that he's keep pushing:
"The fact is that one of our two great political parties has made it clear that it has no interest in making America governable, unless it’s doing the governing. And that party now controls one house of Congress, which means that the country will not, in fact, be governable without that party’s cooperation — cooperation that won’t be forthcoming."
" China and Germany want America to stay uncompetitive; Republicans want the economy to stay weak as long as there’s a Democrat in the White House."
While I understand that he's writing an editorial and expressing his opinion, the fact is that he is assuming the worse of his "opponents".
Right. This one has gone around a bit. But keep in mind the leaders of the Republican party have declared their first priority is to defeat Obama. They have pretty much made it clear that they're not going to go along with anything that will give Obama a win. Look it up.
John, I hope things are not as black and white as he makes it sound. It would be really sad to see any party put their petty interests way ahead of the good of the country.
While I understand that each party thinks differently on how this can be best achieved, I like to give people credit for wanting to do the right thing. That's why I can't stand people that attack Obama's motives and call him anti-American or even worst.
FWIW:
Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader:
"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president…. Our single biggest political goal is to give [the Republican] nominee for president the maximum opportunity to be successful."
John, does that automatically imply that he and his party will do anything in his power to stop the economic recovery?
I think Obama's right: "The American people did not vote for gridlock, they did not vote for unyielding partisanship. They're demanding co-operation and they're demanding progress and they'll hold all of us, and I mean all of us, accountable."
Hey BN,
if you read carefully, you'll see that he's not making the claim you attribute to him.
I wish I knew what the American people voted for. It seems to me they voted for gridlock, but I don't really know how to interpret such things.