Everyone’d bee emailing me about this: Naked Capitalism Project S.H.A.M.E Naked Capitalism has a full rundown on the life and times of Megan McArdle. The opening:
Megan McArdle is a Koch-trained conservative activist working as a business journalist and pundit. She earned her MBA from the University of Chicago, received journalism training at the Kochs’ flagship libertarian think-tank, the Institute for Humane Studies, and has used her position at The Atlantic and, most recently, Newsweek/The Daily Beast, to run cover for and promote Koch interests and the Republican Party agenda. In early 2009, a GOP outfit backed by the Kochs hailed McArdle for her “leadership role in … re-branding the Republican party.” McArdle continues to conceal the extent of her deeply conflicted relationships with the Koch influence-peddling machine.
Not to toot my own horn but I feel that my take-down of her Iraq War cost estimates was probably my best work.
dmsilev
That whole long article, and not a single word about pink Himalayan salt? Sad.
ranchandsyrup
Love it. But can project S.H.A.M.E work when their target has no shame?
geg6
Heh. Any mentions of a Vitamix or the gastritis that plagues her calculator?
Anonymous
Decisive proof that we do not live in a meritocratic society.
Chris
Doug, keep trolling the trolls.
Eljai
Doug, your takedown of McMegan was awesome. Equally awesome was coming up with the term “totebaggers”. Which reminds me, the Koch’s baby journalmalist was a contributor to NPR’s Marketplace show. Don’t know if she still is; I quit listening to that show because it just made me yell.
Trentrunner
That woman is an idiot.
Lev
Libertarians I see as the conservative movement’s fifth column. They really hate being identified as such, but I believe it right up until they prove to me that they’re not. Aside from Will Wilkinson and a few others, there aren’t many who have proven it to me.
? Martin
Best work? Ducks and barrels…
Warren Terra
Toot away, you earned it.
Not that ? Martin doesn’t have a point.
SectarianSofa
My first reaction to this was to wonder how she got into and out of the UChicago MBA program. I know a bit about UChicago, but not so much about the MBA program — other than a couple of decades ago, when I knew such things, it was highly regarded. Wealthy parents, etc. pave the way from U. Penn on? Or is she not as completely silly fucking stupid and out of her depth as she appears?
I don’t know. I guess stupid people are everywhere.
Also, David Fucking Brooks.
DougJ
@SectarianSofa:
All MBA programs are bullshit.
cmorenc
I cannot figure out what form of secret leverage she has on the publishers of the “Atlantic” to keep a position as its economics editor. It’s not her conservative perspective as such that raises these red flags, but rather her continuous fountain of shaky or outright false (and checkable) factual assertions and non sequiter argumentation that often fall into the category of “making shit up”. Simply put, she disgraces the quality of the publication she works for.
Bittybops
I don’t like her either but what a waste of reportage. The upshot of this whole thing is that she’s a libertarian. We already knew that.
SectarianSofa
@Eljai:
I heard her on there twice, the last time was months ago, though. I turned it off soon as well. I made a comment on a thread about one of those appearances — she sounded glib, cheery, and as if she’d never advanced intellectually beyond her teens.
ericblair
@Lev:
They’re coddled trustafarians or sociopaths or usually both. The former don’t understand that their neat little solutions don’t work for people who weren’t handed everything they ever needed the minute they were born, and the latter don’t give a shit.
Without going into details of the problems of libertarianism, like the tragedy of the commons or the real moral hazards or the ethical implications, it simply gives well-off people who don’t want to do anything about the welfare of others a nicely giftwrapped reason why they don’t have to.
JonathanW
Maybe it’s just me, but McMegan seems to have lost some of her prominence after leaving the Atlantic to go to the Daily Beast. I’ve noticed that Sully doesn’t link to her much if at all now, making me very suspicious of how much he was pushed to link to her (and other bloggers) there.
AkaDad
The inevitable things in life are death, taxes, and the word “but” following the words, “Not to toot my own horn.”
geg6
@DougJ:
Ha! You got there before I did. Exactly.
Linnaeus
@ericblair:
And then there’s the so-called “left libertarians”. Yeah, right.
SectarianSofa
@DougJ:
I wonder how deep the bullshit goes. My limited experience with them is that appear to exist primarily to fund the universities they live in. And that would imply a lot as far as program difficulty and admission.
General Stuck
OT
Watch this video to see both courage and wisdom at unprecedented levels.
Mark S.
@SectarianSofa:
She’s a skilled bullshitter. She uses enough jargon that it isn’t always easy to tell when she’s full of shit.
Howard Beale IV
@ranchandsyrup: Indeed-that’s a problem-which would also explain the disaster that is The Daily Beast/Newsweek. Makes me wonder how long Sully will hang his shingle out there before his own shame in riding the most expedient bus to fame claims his own self.
SectarianSofa
@SectarianSofa:
And I guess MBA programs are the perfect model of Randian capitalism, self-sustaining intellectually and financially. Why do wealthy corporatists give so much fucking money to the MBA programs they graduated from? It’s like a football program, complete with (corporate and journalistic) cheerleaders and questionable refereeing.
Violet
Is she still a “contributor” at MSNBC? They should be ashamed, if so. Heck, they should be ashamed she’d ever been there.
She reminds me of a hot house flower. So big, so sure of itself, so sheltered. Exposed to reality, the results aren’t pretty.
Djur
I’ve seen this credited to Naked Capitalism in a few places, so I feel compelled to mention that the profile in question was originally published by the SHAME Project.
ETA: Which consists of Mark Ames and Yasha Levine, formerly of the eXile, where Matt Taibbi first made a name for himself.
SamR
@ranchandsyrup: No shame, perhaps, but a very thin skin.
mai naem
@SectarianSofa: She went to the most expensive private day school in the country. I do believe that makes it easier to get into UChicago, even if it’s the grad program. The admissions people ain’t stupid. They know that the student ain’t gonna be asking for student loans, if anything, the student’s gonna spend extra $$$ at the school.
Lev
@JonathanW: Reminiscent of how “the network” was always pushing Larry Sanders to plug its lousy shows. “They call it ‘Eight of Us’, but there’s actually only seven characters. Those idiots upstairs don’t know how to count!”
I only wish it worked the same way at the Times. If they encouraged Brooks, Friedman and Krugman to link to each other, even to swipe at each other…well, that would give me a reason to actually read the first two.
Donald
I have an extremely low opinion of McCardle, as almost any sane person should, but the attack on her views of evolutionary biology wasn’t really fair, given the link provided. She wasn’t denying evolution–she was expressing skepticism towards evolutionary psychology and she’s in good company there.
But yes, on the whole, she’s a horrible pundit, like most of them.
ranchandsyrup
@Howard Beale IV: I wouldn’t mind if she went the full JRub and had no shame about having no shame. Mcmegan is sensitive about it. Not to the point of taking a look at her behavior, mind you. Only to the point of victimization.
It seems like sully does what he can to help her. Then has to detail the blogosphere’s responses to her blather.
ETA what SamR said.
The Ancient Randonneur
@DougJ:
I take it you don’t believe in affirmative action for C students.
Valdivia
toot away Doug, it was some of your best indeed. I will reserve the title of the best for some yet unwritten piece :)
Chris
@ericblair:
In other words, conservatives.
“Libertarians are what conservatives call themselves when they’re trying to get laid.”
LosGatosCA
McArdle is actually very good at what she does. It’s just that many, most, people think because she is published her responsibility is to inform the public or persuade them to a view point or conclusion through the use of empirical facts, logic, and insight. Silly them. She’s a well paid lackey like so much of the media and her job is to propagandize, misdirect, and obfuscate.
Wouldn’t be surprised if her bonus is calculated on words of progressive blogs spent refuting her nonsense instead of working on selling progressive solutions on issues. She’s a decoy, a nuisance attracting fire of the enemy allowing the real evil doers to sneak through another door or draw less fire than they should be getting.
trollhattan
@JonathanW:
Maybe out of reflex, or habit, but after Sully went Beasty he “heh-indeed”ied McMegan, answering that question once and for all for me. I’ve not clicked him since.
I think we’re both the better for it.
mai naem
Bigtime OT, but I really couldn’t give a sheet about Megan McCurdle. Anyhoo, I’ve been watching the Gagnam Style video cuz it’s cute and amusing. Just wondering if anybody thinks of the Mittster when they see the part where he’s in the horse stable walking past all the horses. So that got me thinking that Mitt actually would dress like the guy and be dweeby like the guy if he was trying to be kool and all. Also too, the guy in the elevator doing the pelvic thrusts totally reminds me of Paul Ryan, you know, trying to prove his manhood. I think I am following politics way too much.
Sly
I don’t think there is a group in America among whom the notion of the nobility of wealth-accumulation at all costs is more pervasive than New York City GCs. I’d also posit that there are few groups in America who deserve the acclamation less than they do.
Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker
I don’t care enough to check, but doesn’t McMegs claim to have started and/or run a business?
bago
MBA’s are trained to only think 2 or three hops into the decision graph, and if the hops are weighted by time, well, that makes the quarter and we can always go bankrupt.
I mean, as much as I hate fungible inheritance, the name, the branding promotes responsible corporate behavior. You knew Jobs and Gates weren’t going to sell out their baby like Fiorina. Hell, you know what you’re getting with Trump, multiple bankruptcies and model wives.
People like Jamie Dimon, who hop from American Express to Commercial Credit to Bank One to Citigroup… you know they don’t care about the product. They care about the profit.
Comrade Jake
I’m just surprised there wasn’t a massive takedown here on BJ of her Newsweek article discouraging people from going to college.
Her tweets are like post-it-notes from an idiot. Take this one, for example:
Only in wingnut-land does laughter and open mockery correlate to outrage.
ChrisB
Your best work? Other than thread titles, you mean?
Villago Delenda Est
@ericblair:
Basically, it’s a license for adults to behave like three year olds yelling “MINE! MINE! MINE!“
NonyNony
@bago:
They’re mercenaries. Actually, they’re worse than mercenaries because mercenaries actually have to win battles to keep their reputation. Somehow the corporate pirates in the top CEO positions fail upwards – it doesn’t seem to matter if they do good work or not. Their bank accounts get fatter and they land in another cushy job eventually.
Roger Moore
@SamR:
That’s part of the shtick. Bullshitters often have a thin skin when somebody calls them on their BS. The idea is to counter-attack vigorously enough to make the person who called her on the BS miserable. Maybe they’ll give up rather put up with the attacks, in which case outside observers who don’t know who’s right will assume that the BSer is right and the person who corrected them is wrong. In any case, it makes trying to correct the BSer enough work to drive people away, especially if the BSer keeps going back to the same BS a little while later and the whole thing gets recycled. It’s one more variant on the idea that the person who shouts loudest is correct.
dp
That article raises a serious question. Is it possible that McMegan is actually not a gigantic idiot, but is instead just a gigantic whore?
We may never know.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
You know what the most disappointing things about adulthood is? Realizing just how few people actually follow all that “maturity” and “responsibility” and “learning to be a grown up” shit your parents beat into you, and the extent to which society is run by people with the emotional and intellectual development of a five year old.
Liberty60
I confront and engage libertarians often, since i honestly believe that it is more dangerous than movement conservatism.
Libertarianism gives the sheen of intellectual respectability and moral shelter that many totebaggers (thanks DougJ!) crave; its the perfect moral theory for the affluent educated to concern troll the working class with.
Chris
@Chris:
Actually, scratch that first part; it’s not that there are so few people who believe in acting like a grown up, it’s more the sheer number of those who don’t who manage to climb the ladder to the top.
@Liberty60:
I’m still not clear on what the distinction between one and the other is. They may be theoretically supposed to be different, but in practice libertarians just seem to be a subset of MCs or a more hip-sounding name for them.
Mark S.
@mai naem:
You might enjoy this.
Shawn in ShowMe
Hey, it’s done wonders for Ann Romney’s disposition. I feel warm all over when I look into her eyes. Of course the guys who looked at Drew Barrymore in Firestarter felt a similar warmth shortly before bursting into flames.
Pongo
I don’t think the point was to shame McArdle–it would be a herculean task to outshame the shame she already brings upon herself on a regular basis. I think the point is to shame the media outlets that continue to provide cover for her as a ‘legitimate’ economic intellectual* (ai-yi-yi) despite the clear evidence that she is a hopelessly incompetent ideologue.
*Hereditary intellectual, according to herself. She apparently believes that being raised by academics who were ‘intellectually intimidating, actually’ means her own intellect is a force to be reckoned with, genetically speaking, regardless of whether she can do basic math or not.
Steeplejack
@Bittybops:
No, the important thing is that apparently she is taking wingnut money, which for a journalist/pundit is a no-no, or at least demands full disclosure.
Steeplejack
@JonathanW:
I thought she was on hiatus writing a book, so there wouldn’t be much of anything to link to. But maybe I’m wrong.
Steeplejack
@Lev:
Krugman does take swipes at Brooks on a regular basis, just without using his name. He has had many a blog post that comes out in suspicious proximity to a Brooks piece and eviscerates it.
Joel
@Howard Beale IV: The Daily Beast barely registers a blip on Sullivan’s site. He’s getting paid and you can barely see the signature of his web-host. So why move?
James E. Powell
McArdle continues to conceal the extent of her deeply conflicted relationships with the Koch influence-peddling machine.
And it turns out she is as good at this as she is at everything else.
Liberty60
@Chris:
The libertarians I argue with are ideologically pure and distinct from contemporary conservatives, in that they advocate sexual freedom and criticize business subsidies.
However, in practice, their similarities with conservatives (lower taxes and a redeuced social safety net) are far more powerful than their differences.
So in practice they caucus with Republicans, as Ron Paul does.
Bob2
@Donald:
Donald, did you read her arguments? She’d read less than half the book before writing a post declaring it awful because declaring humans are not like bonobos just because she said so.
Then she criticized them for not including something she thought was pertinent, except it was covered in a chapter she hadn’t read yet.
It got worse from there.
Howard Beale IV
@ranchandsyrup: At least there may be some redemption possible-but I have my doubts.
@Joel: Sadly, with his comrade-in-arms Niall Ferguson and the it-should-be-dead-already NewSpeak, it may take a while until the tide turns and his renumeration (page hits) starts to tank if the GOP becomes victorious across the board.
Bob2
@Steeplejack:
There are some running theories that The Atlantic wanted to phase her out so she was allowed to go on book leave to write “Permission to Suck,” which I suspect we will see in stores as soon as we see her Elizabeth Warren Part II takedown at this point.
PurpleGirl
@bago: People like Jamie Dimon, who hop from American Express to Commercial Credit to Bank One to Citigroup…
Actually he was at Citigroup and when Sanford Weill passed him over as his successor, Dimon went to Bank One in Chicago and began the work to combine Bank One with J.P. Morgan Chase (with himself as the CEO and back in NY). He and his wife never gave up their NYC apartment while in Chicago.
Bill Arnold
@Eljai:
I haven’t heard her for a long while on marketplace. Still listen to it if driving when it’s on; it’s the least wingnutty business news show in the U.S. that I know of, excepting foreign channels on cable TV.
MikeJ
@Bill Arnold: Every time they follow a story like “Ford laid off 50,000 workers today” with “We’re in the Money” to announce the DJIA went up I want to kick Kai Ryssdal in the balls.
Howard Beale IV
@PurpleGirl: Indeed-but he had to prove himself at Bank One before he could do the JPM deal. It was Bank One’s credit card group (First USA under Dick Vague) that tanked the post-merged Bank One/First Chicago NBD in 1998/1999, and they hired Dimon to straighten out the mess in 2000.
grayguy
I haven’t seen Matt Yglesias linking to McArdle much, lately. But he used to point to her “stuff” a lot. Young guy, finding his way.
Howard Beale IV
I Just got visited by a pol running for state office. He also had a handout for a state senator also running. Neither one of their handouts stated their political party affiliation.
Turns out they’re both Republicans. Fancy that.
KrisWV
@Lev: His economics are awful but I have no doubt that Radley Balko cares about criminal justice issues more than most elected Dems. And those are really the issues that dominate his writing now that he’s left Reason.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Mark S.:
If you want to easily spot her bullshit then just wait until Blenderella pulls out her calculator.
Bill Arnold
@MikeJ:
It’s helpful to think of the markets as the collective wisdom of a large number of competing monomaniacal profit-maximizers. That is, the markets are the wisdom of a differently moral crowd. Some (i.e. the automation) aren’t even human.
Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker
@MikeJ: a few weeks ago, they did a story about environmental regulation, and they kept talking about balancing the environment with ‘jobs’. “profit” was never mentioned.
Narcissus
Project Shame ought to target all pundits.
Frankensteinbeck
@Liberty60:
This would be the well known ‘I Got Mine, Fuck You’ crowd.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Frankensteinbeck:
Unless they’re a Koch type, then it’s “I got mine and now I want yours”.
Corner Store Operator
@MikeJ: Thank god somebody finally said this.
Donald
“Donald, did you read her arguments? ”
I didn’t intend that to sound like a defense. It was just that the article said she rejected evolutionary biology when she actually rejected evolutionary psychology. Again, she’s in good company. That her own arguments stink even when she might be right–well, yeah. That’s our Megan.
Pseudonym
DougJ: As a math guy, you must be somewhat familiar with the intelligent, well-educated glibertarian type. I know more than my fair share in the CS area. What scares me about them is that I can feel the emotional appeal of their philosophy of a simple well-ordered system (praxeology) that accounts for human action in a way that’s structurally resistant to counterargument. McMegan isn’t smart enough to be taken too seriously, though we all appreciate your takedowns. But somehow nutjobs like Lew Rockwell (and Ron Paul of course) are still gaining a lot of traction within my intellectual community.
What I’m trying to say is that McMegan is beneath you. Sure, she
getsgot a lot of coverage and respect at The Atlantic, but I don’t think many intelligent and/or potentially dangerous people took her too seriously. Too many of my friends and coworkers think that fractional reserve banking and fiat currency (much less Keynesian fiscal stimulus) is a scam and QEIII is going to destroy the western world. Can’t you aim your ample firepower in that direction for a bit?Zak44
@JonathanW: Blenderella is no longer at the Monthly? I’m taking the magazine more seriously already.