Jonah Goldberg Joke of the Day

Bill Kristol on The New York Times breaking a major story back in June of 2006: "I think the attorney general has an absolute obligation to consider prosecution." Public Editor Clark Hoyt reports:

Rosenthal said Kristol’s comment about prosecution bothered him. It was, Rosenthal said, “a heavy accusation that put him in a category other than a journalist.” But he said that Op-Ed columnists are not necessarily traditional journalists, and he did not think that “holding one opinion” should be the basis for selecting or rejecting a columnist.

Sulzberger said The Times wanted “a columnist who brought to our pages a deeply held and well articulated point of view in line with what you might call the conservative Republican movement. ... Our Op-Ed page is a marketplace of ideas. He’ll strengthen the discussion.”

Spencer Ackerman observes: "Truly a liberal fascist is one who won't take his own side in a putsch."

Joking aside, Sulzberger's comments are revealing. Clearly, one ought to consume a diversity of points of view. That's why back when he was still blogging I always liked to read Max Sawicky's brand of lefty economics even though I'm more inclined toward Brad DeLong's brand of center-left technocracy. For that matter, Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabbarok are one of my daily must-reads as well. I highly recommend the American Scene as an interesting source of various kinds of rightwingery, as well as the Technology Liberation Front for a free market perspective on tech policy. And of course there's my colleagues Andrew Sullivan, Megan McArdle, and Ross Douthat. A healthy intellectual diet needs diversity.

But does it really require a "point of view in line with what you might call the conservative Republican movement" irrespective of its merits? I think there are lots of smart people who have some views on some subjects that are in line with the conservative movement, but to hire a columnist purely because his views mirror The Line from the Conintern is absurd. Suppose the conservative movement wants to mislead people about something or other. It happens fairly often. Now the Times's obligation is to publish articles designed to mislead the Times's audience? Really? And we're supposed to pay to acquire a product that's dedicated to publishing "all the news that's fit to print plus some stuff that's in line with the conservative Republican movement." Why would we do that?

Comments

Yup. I always thought they should have picked someone like Ramesh Ponnuru or that Crunchy Con guy Rod Dreher or stolen Caldwell from the FT or even Bob Kagan (if they absolutely needed the Neo-con Hawk type) etc.

Posted by David | January 14, 2008 9:00 AM

The purpose of having Kristol on the op-ed page is to inoculate the paper against charges of lefty bias. To that end, it's more effective to have a pure party-line propagandist without a shred of honesty in him than an actual independent-thinking person of somewhat conservative tendencies. Plus, it runs less risk of accidentally convincing one's readership of anything; they read Kristol's tripe, they get angry and hurl down their bagels in disgust, they say "How can the Times actually be printing this crap?" and they go off to vote for Obama or Hillary. Mission accomplished. And if they give Kristol an office in the building, maybe Ann Coulter will think twice before strapping on a cordite belt and trying to blow it up. Then again, maybe she'll figure he'll be a martyr and decide to give him his 70 Ring Thing virgins.

Posted by brooksfoe | January 14, 2008 9:07 AM

"Spencer Ackerman observes: "Truly a liberal fascist is one who won't take his own side in a putsch.""

Truly a liberal fascist is the sort of letter writer Hoyt described in his column:

Rosenthal’s mail has been particularly rough. “That rotten, traiterous [sic] piece of filth should be hung by the ankles from a lamp post and beaten by the mob rather than gaining a pulpit at ANY self-respecting news organization,” said one message. “You should be ashamed. Apparently you are only out for money and therefore an equally traiterous [sic] whore deserving the same treatment.”

Kristol would not have been my choice to join David Brooks as a second conservative voice in the mix of Times columnists, but the reaction is beyond reason. Hiring Kristol the worst idea ever? I can think of many worse. Hanging someone from a lamppost to be beaten by a mob because of his ideas? And that is from a liberal, defined by Webster as “one who is open-minded.” What have we come to?

It's pretty clear that Hoyt hasn't spent much time in the liberal blogosphere.

Posted by Fred | January 14, 2008 9:08 AM

It's worth having Kristol in the Times just so that people with your worldview can experience what people with mine get with Krugman.

Posted by James Robertson | January 14, 2008 9:08 AM

Why would we do that?

To avoid being called "the liberal media."

The right has had the upper hand in politics in the last 20-30 years. It's no fun being on the uncool, loser, liberal side of things. It's downright unserious.

Maybe brooksfoe's elaborate conspiracy is accurate. I don't hope so; I hope the NYT is deluded and stupid, rather than liberal Machiavellian. Plus I see little reason to believe that they have any particular policy views. It's about being Serious. Kristol's on TV, influential on the right, and was in GOP administrations, so he's Serious.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | January 14, 2008 9:12 AM

"It's worth having Kristol in the Times just so that people with your worldview can experience what people with mine get with Krugman."

Posted by James Robertson

A devastating confession - a liberal who's been right when few dared to be is the equivalent of a right-winger whose specialty is being Bizzaro World wrong.

Posted by Barry | January 14, 2008 9:13 AM

Well, I personally don't have a problem with the NYT hiring that worthless Kristol for the Op-Ed page.

But now they should have to fire Brooks and Friedman since their views are redundant, and bring in non-neocon replacements.

Fair is fair, and I'll gladly accept such a 2-for-1 trade...

Posted by RKU | January 14, 2008 9:14 AM

It's worth having Kristol in the Times just so that people with your worldview can experience what people with mine get with Krugman.

Oh, you poor dear. You have been through hell.

Posted by James Gary | January 14, 2008 9:19 AM

Sully, McArdle, and Douche-hat are not part of a "healthy" diet of opinion.

Sorry. No way, no how.

Posted by Jamey | January 14, 2008 9:22 AM

I also believe that for at least the last 15 years of his career as an op-ed columnist at the Times, Bill Safire was one of the most effective liberal recruiting weapons in America. He occupied important space that might otherwise have been taken up by a more coherent and less bats writer, and he wrote utterly unconvincing, meandering nonsense which I don't believe anyone ever took seriously.

Posted by brooksfoe | January 14, 2008 9:26 AM

1. Kristol is an invade-the-world / invite-the-world neocon, not a conservative.

2. The NYT has no conservatives.

3. The NYT already has a neocon, David Brooks, who is superior to Kristol. Kristol adds no diversity, just mediocrity.

Posted by Steve Sailer | January 14, 2008 9:26 AM

Sorry Matt, but I must agree with Jamey.

Posted by Bajsa | January 14, 2008 9:28 AM

The problem with reading a "free market perspective" on tech policy is that, almost invariably, I know what they're going to say on the issue before I read it. The argument isn't always necessarily wrong, but libertarian perspectives on these sorts of policy issues are invariably paint-by-numbers affairs.

it's more effective to have a pure party-line propagandist without a shred of honesty

The Boston Globe has made use of Jeff Jacoby to the name end. It has the added bonus of making conservatism look bad, too.

Posted by Tyro | January 14, 2008 9:29 AM

Note also Hoyt's contempt for NYTimes readers:

Of the nearly 700 messages I have received since Kristol’s selection was announced — more than half of them before he ever wrote a word for The Times — exactly one praised the choice.

699-1 sounds like a pretty strong indication that something is wrong with the NYTimes's choice. But to Hoyt that just shows something is wrong with the readers.

Posted by Oberon | January 14, 2008 9:33 AM

A liberal who's been right? Wake me up when Krugman masters basic arithmetic, such that that the entitlement freight train coming at us is obvious to him. Until then, he's a hack who lacks basic skills.

Posted by James Robertson | January 14, 2008 9:35 AM

It's worth having Kristol in the Times just so that people with your worldview can experience what people with mine get with Krugman.
Posted by James Robertson | January 14, 2008 9:08 AM

This is what is wrong with the modern American consevative; he can identitfy his side in any argument but is incapable of knowing the truth. The Conintern has replaced the Comintern as a threat to human reason.

Posted by Northern Obserber | January 14, 2008 9:40 AM

Re ""all the news that's fit to print "
-----------
Matthew doesn't get the joke.

Posted by Don Williams | January 14, 2008 9:43 AM

No one had any problem with Krugman until Krugman started criticizing Bush. Then, suddenly, all of us had to hear non-stop from our conservative friends and relatives how terrible Krugman was.

The fact is that if Krugman held is fire against the Bush administration's budget and iraq policies, the conservative peanut gallery in here would be praising him as "an example of an honest liberal." But because Krugman criticized Dear Leader, he becomes the target of their ire.

Much like how, a couple days after Clinton left office, Republicans suddenly "discovered" that Daschle was public enemy number 1. They need someone to hate at any given venue, and Krugman is that person for the Op-Ed page of the Times.

Posted by Tyro | January 14, 2008 9:45 AM

A liberal who's been right? Wake me up when Krugman masters basic arithmetic, such that that the entitlement freight train coming at us is obvious to him. Until then, he's a hack who lacks basic skills.
Posted by James Robertson | January 14, 2008 9:35 AM

Will you please stop being a partizan ignoramus. I recommend you read a little outside of the red state approved reading list, you might learn something. And did you know that the WSJ opinion pages are, gasp!, biased? I know, unbelievable, I mean who can you trust when peggy noonan lies to you.

Posted by Northern Observer | January 14, 2008 9:49 AM

"A liberal who's been right? Wake me up when Krugman masters basic arithmetic, such that that the entitlement freight train coming at us is obvious to him."

If the prospect of another Democrat entitlement program is on the horizon (e.g., universal health care), then Krugman conveniently forgets about the freight train. Meanwhile, Moody's says U.S. entitlement spending threatens our triple-A sovereign debt rating.

Posted by Fred | January 14, 2008 9:52 AM

Why would we do that?

For The Minimalist?

Posted by Delicious Pundit | January 14, 2008 10:02 AM

Krugman has correctly - and repeatedly - noted that the entire "entitlement freight train" is simply an intentionally dishonest conflation of Social Security (no problem) and medical spending (long-term trends that do need to be addressed.) Either Fred and James are ignorant of this basic distinction or they are not being honest. Or both, I suppose.

Posted by Marc | January 14, 2008 10:04 AM

American political opinion has moved so far right that arguments in favor of atrocities like aggressive war and torture are now commonplace. By global standards, these are the ravings of criminal lunatics. I'm not aware of even one prominent American pundit or politician who is as far left as Kristol is far right, or even half as far left as Kristol is far right.

Posted by Gary Sugar | January 14, 2008 10:26 AM

Hanging someone from a lamppost to be beaten by a mob because of his ideas?

There's a distinction between someone who has rape fantasies and someone who encourages and spectates a rape.

Kristol has no electorate to repudiate him. He has not suffered any consequences for cheerleading a misconceived war conducted under false pretences. Indeed, he has been rewarded repeatedly for doing so, and every check he receives is written in blood.

A lamp-post is perhaps harsh. But in the absence of the shame that any decent society would lay upon him, I'd be content with a weekend in the pillory, or a good tarring-and-feathering. Or a starring role in my proposed reality show pilot, provisionally titled 'Let's Kidnap Wingnut Fuckheads Off The Street And Waterboard Them'.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | January 14, 2008 10:31 AM

Marc,

Clearly Medicare is a much bigger looming problem than Social Security, but it's false to claim that Social Security's financial trajectory isn't a problem as well. That was a dishonest dodge to avoid offering a counter proposal to Bush's proposed Social Security reform, half of which (borrowing Democrat Bob Pozen's idea to progressively index benefits) was eminently reasonable.

The current Dem talking points on entitlements continue the dishonesty. Dems only bring up Medicare's fiscal problems to draw attention away from Social Security's problems, but they don't propose any solutions to Medicare's budget, which has been growing at an annual rate almost as fast as India's economy. Instead, Dems continue to propose new entitlement programs, without explaining how we will pay for our current programs in the next decade.

Posted by Fred | January 14, 2008 10:35 AM

I love the way most Dems just hand wave about entitlement problems. The way Social Security and Medicare are set up, we have a Ponzi scheme - and the joke is on people currently in their 30's and 40's (and younger).

By the time we get to about 2030, we'll have to do one of a handful of things:

-- raise taxes (a lot). Any by "a lot", I mean at levels that no one, regardless of political persuasion, will be able to get past the electorate

-- Implement massive budget cuts in everything except Social Security and Medicare

-- Implement massive benefit cuts in Social Security and Medicare

These are simple demographic and mathematical issues. You can hand wave all you want, and Krugman can claim that there's no problem all he wants, but it's there all the same. The Welfare State is premised on assumptions that no longer hold:

-- a large and rapidly growing population of younger workers (to fund the system)

-- an older population that dies before it gets much (or even any) of the promised benefits

Up until the 60's or so, that all worked fine. After that, less and less so. The left views this reality the way the NRA views gun regulations: any discussion of the issue is ruled out of order, and must be demogogued out if existence.

Posted by James Robertson | January 14, 2008 10:46 AM

3. The NYT already has a neocon, David Brooks, who is superior to Kristol. Kristol adds no diversity, just mediocrity.
Posted by Steve Sailer

There now. And all that time I thought SS was opposed to "diversity".

Posted by ajay | January 14, 2008 10:51 AM

The idea that the editorial page needed a conservative or a liberal is absurd. They needed somebody who knows about environmental issues, period. They have, arguably, two people who know about trade, a couple of Washington insiders, an amateur sociologist, a domestic news guy, an international news guy, but no informed environmental opinion-maker. And that is ridiculous. Kristol brings no expertise to that page whatsoever.

Posted by roger | January 14, 2008 11:13 AM

Social Security projections show the program is fine until 2043, at which point income starts to exceed outgo by 25% or so every year.

I suggest we do nothing about social security until 2043, at which point we stop paying social security to the richest 25% of retirees.

Presto. Problem solved.

Posted by X | January 14, 2008 11:16 AM

Fred said:

. Dems only bring up Medicare's fiscal problems to draw attention away from Social Security's problems, but they don't propose any solutions to Medicare's budget . . .

And he is mostly right about Dems, if by that he means Democratic politicians. However, Krugman has definitely proposed a solution to the problems of Medicare and done so in great detail. His point is that the problems of Medicare essentially refelct problems of increasing costs of medical care in general. The solution is a single-payer universal health care system which (if we use other industrialized countries' systems as a model) will likely reduce medical costs to about 40% of their current levels and give us better overall results.

Unfortunately, the universal health care proposals coming from the Democrats these days are so busy bending over backwards to give the insurance companies a role (why, I don't know, because the insurers will fight any plan for all they're worth) that they completely fail to address the cost issue which essentially requires cutting the for-profit insurers out of the system all together.

James Robertson said:

The Welfare State is premised on assumptions that no longer hold:

-- a large and rapidly growing population of younger workers (to fund the system)

-- an older population that dies before it gets much (or even any) of the promised benefits

These sound to me like arguments against Social Security, and not the so-called "welfare state" in general. As far as point number 1 goes, the population of young workers in this country continues to grow thanks largely to immigration.

For point two, Social Security was never premised on any such thing. The people who designed Social Security projected that life expentancy would increase through the end of the 20th century at pretty much the rate it did. So this second point, while it would be convenient to those who hate Social Security if it were true, is a complete myth.

I wonder if Fred and James Robertson are at all worried about the unfunded liabilities of the Department of Defense. The DOD is slated to run out of money completely at the end of the next fiscal year! Over the next 40 years the picture is even more grim. Without allocation of money from Congress each year, the unfunded liabilities of the DOD reach something like $50 trillion!

Posted by Rob Mac | January 14, 2008 11:26 AM

I think what "Punch" (or is it "Pinch"?) meant to say was "some of my rich right-wing friends have been saying that the Times has been too tough on the Bush Administration. We hired Brooks but I don't know what his problem is. All of a sudden he's pissing on all his friends. Anyway, Kristol should help cover my ass."

Posted by Alan Vanneman | January 14, 2008 11:29 AM

Clearly Medicare is a much bigger looming problem than Social Security, but it's false to claim that Social Security's financial trajectory isn't a problem as well.

That's your opinion. I, & many other people, disagree with you. The Social Security Admintration - which has always employed extrememly pessimistic assumption about SS solvency - projects that it will be fully able to pay out its benefits until 2041. The CBO puts that date at 2046. Even after 2041/2046, if no adjustments are made to benefits or taxes, SS will be able to pay 80 percent of scheduled benefits from revenues. Even with the shortfall, Social Security will still be able to pay a higher benefit (adjusted for inflation) than what retirees receive today.

Another way of looking at Social Security is this: The cumulative Social Security shortfall over the next 75 years is 0.7 percent of cumulative GDP according to the 2006 Social Security Trustees’ Report (0.5& of GDP based on estimates from the CBO). That's less than what we fixed in each of the decades of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. For another comparison: the 75-year cost of making the Administration’s 2001-2003 tax cuts permanent is about 2 percent of GDP.

That was a dishonest dodge to avoid offering a counter proposal to Bush's proposed Social Security reform, half of which (borrowing Democrat Bob Pozen's idea to progressively index benefits) was eminently reasonable.

Again, that's your opinion. Dean Baker has shown that "progressive indexation", aside from inevitably eroding political support for social security, would hurt middle-class retirees more than well-off workers.

Posted by Peter H | January 14, 2008 11:31 AM

It must be a very great pleasure for the people who run the America right -- ie, investment bankers, Rupert Murdoch, etc. -- to have people as extraordinarily stupid as Fred and James Robertson at their disposal. It would really be a problem for them if conservatism attracted footsoldiers who had the ability to think for themselves, but clearly that's not the case.

Posted by 23456 | January 14, 2008 11:43 AM

Rob Mac,

A single-payer health care system would have lower administrative costs than the system we have now, but the possible savings (something like $60 billion a year) are not enough to significantly affect the explosion in health care costs. Private insurers’ profits and administrative costs account for only 4.5% of our total health care bill. I’m not defender of for-profit insurance companies, but they are not the major cause of health care inflation.

The main drivers of health care costs in the country are that (1) providers have a financial interest in providing more and more costly care, (2) price and utilization controls (by either government or private payers) are ineffective. Whatever system we move to, we are going to have to address those issues.

If you’re interested in this issue, I’d recommend Maggie Mahar’s post on TPM Café. She also has an excellent blog on health care policy:

http://www.healthbeatblog.org/

Posted by Peter H | January 14, 2008 11:59 AM

1. Kristol is an invade-the-world / invite-the-world neocon, not a conservative.

2. The NYT has no conservatives.

3. The NYT already has a neocon, David Brooks, who is superior to Kristol. Kristol adds no diversity, just mediocrity.

Posted by Steve Sailer | January 14, 2008 9:26 AM

SS is still pissed that his fellow Euro-white pal, John Tierney, got bounced from the editorial page for sucking so badly. No Hebrew can truly represent the Glorious Fatherland, thinks he.

Posted by MoDo's Fifth | January 14, 2008 12:07 PM

The problem with the NYT op-ed lineup is not lack of diversity of views: it's lack of reporting and analysis. Kristoff is the only one who often brings new information to the table. Compare the typical Financial Times opinion piece - it's dense with facts an usually shaped by a nonideological attempt to interpret those facts.

Posted by Asp | January 14, 2008 12:55 PM

I miss Max.

Kristol brings "new information to the table"??? Like what, "Democrats are bad"?

This is the truth: "I'm not aware of even one prominent American pundit or politician who is as far left as Kristol is far right, or even half as far left as Kristol is far right." Kristol is a radical lunatic with a smile.

Posted by David in NY | January 14, 2008 1:04 PM

Kristol was hired by the NY Times because the NY Times also promoted the Iraq War. Kristol's op-ed today "The Democrats' Fairy Tale." is more pro-war propaganda. The fairy tale actually is the way Kristol attempts to turn the Iraq Wrar into a big success story. After Saddam had managed to keep Al Qaeda out of Iraq, our invasion brought them in. Now Kristol somehow thinks it's wonderful that we are able to pay, (with our grandchildren's money,) Sunni tribes, (who never liked Al Qaeda to begin with), to fight them. His conclusion: "success has been achieved with the leadership of... George W. Bush.The horror!" The horror is Kristol's fairy tale.

Posted by Sabine Wales | January 14, 2008 2:11 PM

"A healthy intellectual diet needs diversity."

Yeah, right, Matt.

That's why you hate Ron Paul and libertarians.

It's also why I bring you the benefits of radical Transhumanism.

Speaking of which, when do I get my appointment to the NYT Op-Ed pages?

BTW, for those worrying about Social Security in the year 2050, by then you might all be rendered down into your chemical components - so, to paraphase George Carlin, I wouldn't sweat the SS system.

Or you might all be living to be 120 in which case the system will have to be revised anyway because it was designed to support people who would be dead in ten years after they went on it...

That's the problem with technology-ignorant political pundits like Matt - they don't understand that technology is THE driver of future human events. It just isn't that obvious yet - despite his blogging away and doing "Bloggingheads" - neither of which existed five years ago.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 15, 2008 12:23 AM