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30 comments
February 8, 2009 at 11:25 am
ari
No offense, but I’ve seen better pictures of you.
February 8, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Charlieford
Shouldn’t it be “The New Deal roots OF the stimulus debate”?
February 8, 2009 at 12:10 pm
eric
Are you criticizing the Bee, Charlie?
February 8, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Sifu Tweety
Congratulations, and please be sure to not read the comments on the Bee’s site.
February 8, 2009 at 12:37 pm
ari
You, sir, are a stirrer of pots.
February 8, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Sifu Tweety
Just trying to prevent others from making my mistake.
February 8, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Charlieford
Indeed I am, and just so they know I mean business, I’ve gone out and purchased a siege costume. Come and get me, scribblers! [cackling] Top of the world, ma! [gun fire, blaze of glory]
February 8, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Jason B.
I wish I’d read these comments before reading the article–then I would have seen Sifu’s warning.
February 8, 2009 at 1:04 pm
eric
Awesome, Charlie.
February 8, 2009 at 1:25 pm
silbey
Good work, Eric. Loved the comment, Charlieford.
February 8, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Bitchphd
The Bee? Congrats on successfully infiltrating.
February 8, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Bitchphd
Also, it’s so… even-handed! What are you, a teacher or something?!?
February 8, 2009 at 2:57 pm
eric
even-handed
Can I send the emails straight on to you, then?
February 8, 2009 at 3:28 pm
polticalfootball
I don’t mean to disparage Dr. R’s fine piece, but I think I begin to see how journalists of good will find themselves giving equal time to moronism.
If Emerson’s lurking around, he ought to reflect on this:
Can I send the emails straight on to you, then?
That’s one way the Overton Window moves.
February 8, 2009 at 3:30 pm
eric
Please disparage directly, rather than by insinuation.
February 8, 2009 at 3:34 pm
polticalfootball
Yeah, sorry about that. I really did like the piece, though, and honestly didn’t mean to disparage it.
February 8, 2009 at 3:40 pm
eric
Well, you’re trying to make a point. “That’s one way the Overton Window moves.” But I think it’s misapplied in my case.
I merely indicated to B, via wisecrack, that writing an even-handed and even-tempered piece is no security against nasty emails, which I do not enjoy. (Does anyone enjoy them? Maybe. I don’t.) Nevertheless I have been doing this kind of writing for, by my reckoning, eight-and-a-half years, and I don’t think my propensity to say what I think has been shifted.
February 8, 2009 at 3:59 pm
SEK
writing an even-handed and even-tempered piece is no security against nasty emails
I wasn’t going to cross-post this, but now it seems appropriate.
February 8, 2009 at 4:14 pm
kid bitzer
funny–i read pf’s comment as “by sending the emails to b, e.r. is shifting the public’s overton window”, rather than “by flinching from email’s, e.r.’s overton window is being shifted.”
i guess it’s partly cause i think of the o.w. as a possession of the public, not as something any individual has.
and partly cause i think of e.r. as a shaper of opinion, rather than a shapee. (he seems less shifted than shifty?)
February 8, 2009 at 4:51 pm
politicalfootball
With the proviso that I thought it was a carefully reasoned, well-written article, I’ll tell you what my gripes are.
In endeavoring to write, as you say, an even-handed an even-tempered piece, you lend a spurious coherence to opposing views that are incoherent. Thus:
And it’s true that they do say something quite like this, but their proposed alternative doesn’t address these issues at all. Summarized this way, their position sounds a lot more sensible than it is – heck, it sounds like it has a lot in common with my opinion.
In our Overton-corrupted world, evenhandedness (or “bipartisanship,” as it’s sometimes called) has problems when one side is blowing smoke. You attempt to harness the power of evenhandedness here to make it do your bidding, but I think you fail:
A dispassionate observer might reason that so long as there is going to be a stimulus bill, it ought to be big enough to satisfy a consensus of liberal critics. That way it will either succeed or fail on its merits.
Dispassionate observers are good. We approve of dispassionate observers for many of the same reasons we like even-handedness. Little progress is made in this world without dispassionate observers. But nobody should want a dispassionate observer in a situation like this. A dispassionate observer wouldn’t want this situation turned over to dispassionate observers.
We’re not looking to conduce a scientific experiment. We’re looking to fix a problem. It would be convenient, purely for purposes of assessing arguments and assigning blame, if the Dems could have their way completely. But that’s a really poor reason to give the Dems their way. For one thing, the dispassionate observer you describe would be equally satisfied with the Republicans getting everything they want.
None of this is to suggest that this could/should have been written differently. None of my complaints is meant to be constructive. The form itself has its limitations, some of which dictate the sort of treatment that you give the issues. But that’s my direct disparagement – and hey, you literally asked for it.
February 8, 2009 at 5:33 pm
eric
the dispassionate observer you describe would be equally satisfied with the Republicans getting everything they want
Well—what’s that? Why, it’s my friend the dispassionate observer on the phone. No, she doesn’t do the Internets, you know, because, well, that’s for the kids and rude people. But she says to tell you that you’re wrong: the Republicans got everything they wanted for eight years or so, and now it’s the Democrats’ turn. If they can do better, power to them, she says.
Also, she wants to know, if you’re ticked at the Republicans for offering a superficially sensible criticism while substantially offering nihilist nonsense, why are you offering a superficially sensible criticism while substantially offering—well, here, she says I should quote you directly: “None of this is to suggest that this could/should have been written differently. None of my complaints is meant to be constructive.”
February 8, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Bitchphd
Oh HELL yes you can forward the emails on to me. I doubt that’s what you really want to do, though.
February 8, 2009 at 7:18 pm
eric
Larry Summers can be even-tempered, too: “The people who presided over the last eight years … [don't] seem to be in a strong position to lecture on history.”
February 8, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Michael Turner
Eric, do I flatter myself in thinking that you got the Uncle Miltie quotes by way of my recent contributions
It’s silly of me I know, but sometimes, when discussion on this blog sends me down into a half hour or more of research, I come back up and post here with links, quotes and comment in the hope that it will make a difference in the world, even if it’s microscopically small difference. Well, now: op-ed in the Bee, above the fold, pro-New Deal quotes from the Nobel laureate economist the New Deal Denialists would most likely hold up as counter-Keynesian Kryptonite — that’s almost naked-eye visible!
(Pathetic, I know, but it’s been at least six years since I’ve been in print.)
Sifu tweety: “Congratulations, and please be sure to not read the comments on the Bee’s site.”
News site comments are all like that, aren’t they? I have this vaguely paranoid theory that there’s an organized contingent of AGW-denialist wingnuts out there who always try to be the very first to add comments on any story or op-ed about global warming. I haven’t left more than a couple comments on Paul Krugman’s blog, because it’s useless for informed discussion — if you want to talk about what Krugman just said, there are at least half a dozen other blogs that are much better for that.
It’s too bad, but maybe it’s just in the nature of news sites.
February 9, 2009 at 6:47 am
politicalfootball
That’s some nice snark from Summers, but he was a key player in laying the foundation for the subprime house of cards, and I’m not sure he’s in a great position to criticize others.
February 9, 2009 at 7:56 am
Michael Turner
Heuvel’s blog post at the Nation says that Brooksley Born
That didn’t sound right — all three had displayed all three of those reactions? Rubin in particular is known for being pretty even-tempered.
Well, there is perhaps something to it. See NYT’s “Where Was the Wise Man?”, about Rubin’s disappointing role in this late 90s episode. Heuvel apparently based her blog post at The Nation on the NYT story, “Taking Hard New Look at a Greenspan Legacy”. Journalism is usually the first draft of history, but these stories have a nice second-draft quality about them. Maybe one day we’ll know the real story. Until then . . . .
It seems the main reason for The Three Marketeers’ opposition to Brooksley Born’s proposals was that they felt any proposal to regulate the derivatives market would . . . spook the derivatives market. Which would have been a disaster, or so they worried. I guess if they really wanted to, they could all point fingers at Wendy Gramm (supposedly Reagan’s “favorite economist”, and Phil Gramm’s wife), who was obstructive on this regulatory issue back when spooking the derivatives market might not have been such a globally destabilizing thing to do. After a decade, though, it was no longer a tiger cub they were holding by the tail, it was a full-grown tiger. Nice kitty. Heh. Why, I remember when you were so cute, and would curl up in my lap and purr, and take naps, so . . . uh . . . why don’t you do that right now? That’s a good little kitty . . . .
The party line became, in effect: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And if it is broke, it’ll get even more broke if everybody tries to jump off at once. Which they might do if we start talking about ‘a little routine maintenance and some inspections, that’s all.’ So let’s all say it together: it ain’t broke.”
Unfortunately, Brooksley Born isn’t commenting on any of this.
February 9, 2009 at 10:00 am
jazzbumpa
And here I thought the Overton window was a portal for Schroedinger’s cat — never imagining it could be a tiger.
“. . . that Brooksley Born was met with scorn” really, truly belongs in a limerick.
February 9, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Brad
It’s too bad, but maybe it’s just in the nature of news sites.
My local paper’s news site has this as well. It is like there are a bunch of folk with nothing better to do but write diatribes regarding articles in the comments section. I mean, who spends their day just reading stuff and writing comments on it? Oh wait….
February 9, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Bitchphd
Such disdain for the common man…
February 10, 2009 at 8:08 am
Michael Turner
Ooh, the Uncle Miltie quote I mined from PBS goes from Eric’s Sacbee article to Mark Thoma’s blog, and seems to be spreading from there.
Sometimes, a common man spending days just reading stuff and writing comments on it gets to hear a little fanfare . . . .