Via TPM, it seems this happened on Morning Joe:
”
conservative historian[former intellectual]* Niall Ferguson joined Scarborough to pile on Krugman. Ferguson said that Krugman lacks “humility, honesty and civility.”
“And there’s no accountability,” Ferguson said. “No one seems to edit that blog at the New York Times. And it’s time that somebody called him out. People are afraid of him. I’m not.”
Too much to do today to go all John Foster Dulles on Harvard’s Folly, but I can’t leave this without noting that if Niall’s honestly not scared of Krugman (he is), he should be.
Cases in point here and here and here and here. This isn’t a fair fight. Ferguson has the debate chops and the accent, but nothing else. Krugman has both technical skill and the willingness to engage actual data to gut the Harvard Bully Boy on the actual merits of the argument. That Ferguson plays better on TV is his reason for being, but not a recommendation. (BTW — for a devastating synoptic view of Ferguson’s style and (lack of) substance — and his pure nastiness in the service of the 1%, check out this overview.)
The bottom line: how you know you’re winning? When they talk smack about you from a very, very safe distance.
PS: I also love the Scarborough line about some unnamed editor claiming Krugman’s column is a weekly nightmare for the paper. I suppose it could be true, in the sense that someone might have said that to our Joe. I kinda doubt it, but that’s the thing w. anonymous quotes.
But (a) this is how bubbles seal themselves — Scarborough’s trying to persuade himself (and viewers) that Krugman is wrong because he’s difficult…which leads to you know where. And (b) if Joe is telling the truth, then it’s reasonable to ask the question: what so terrifying Timesfolk about Krugman’s work? Here’s one possible answer. It may be that Krugman’s writing discomforts the comfortable in ways that the NYT might find inconvenient. People in power don’t like being called out; Krugman does that frequently on a very big stage. That might inconvenience fellow cast members. (Beat that metaphor to death, why don’t you? — ed.) Those colleagues might grumble…and Joe Scarborough would run after that parked car like a loping hound.
In any event, I like anyone who makes the right enemies. Krugman does, in spades.
*fix’t
Image: Auguste Delacroix, Shellfishers frightened by the tide, before 1868.
NotMax
You lost me at “Morning Joe.”
Doug Milhous J
The public editor is Daniel Okrent.
rikyrah
OT:
Remember that young student from the HBCU that was at the center of the big North Carolina voter suppression case…he was running for city council and the GOP man tried to have him kicked off the ballot because him being a student didn’t qualify as residency.
Last we checked in…he had won his case at the State Board of Elections in North Carolina, so the next stop was the election..
HE WON the City Council Seat!!!
Here’s the Maddow segment with the update on him.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26315908/vp/53240479#53240501
MattF
Does anyone at the NYT edit Brooks or Friedman? That’s a rhetorical question.
Zifnab25
“Krugman is wrong. But he’s scary. If someone tells him he’s wrong, then Krugman will have that person fired!” And that’s why David Brooks no longer works at the NYT.
the Conster
Boy, I heard that whole segment from the kitchen without knowing who they were kvetching about, and it was embarrassing for both of them. If I had had no idea who any of them were, my spidey sense would have told me that they both had been pantsed by the guy they were whinging on about. Joe told Niall to brace himself for Twitter, so I wasn’t the only one who wanted to call the waaaaahmbulance for him. What a fucking useless piece of shit he is.
virginia
This fellow, NF, has been making a massive ass of himself over at HuffPo for several days now. Beating his head against some imaginary wall. Get lost — you’re so annoying.
The continuing rise of Joe Scarborough is a puzzlement. Don’t believe for one minute that Krugman makes anyone at NYT uncomfortable about anything. For a bunch of tough guys, they certainly are delicate in all kinds of weird places.
cintibud
I want to know what happened to those poor shellfishers!
raven
So that’s who that whiny bitch was.
flukebucket
Scarborough is a hack and an obvious wimp ass. His voice is almost as annoying and the voice of the great one Mark Levin. If both were on a panel that I was forced to listen to I would claw my eardrums out.
J
It’s interesting that Niall Ferguson has drawn fire from two of the most eloquent and deeply humane public intellectuals of our era, Paul Krugman and Pankaj Mishra. He–Ferguson–in about a clear a case as one can find of a man who sold his soul for filthy lucre and right wing adulation.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
YES!
Made my morning!
schrodinger's cat
They are trying to gang up on Krugman and drive him out of NYT just like they did Nate Silver. Didn’t Scarborough lead that charge too?
Linda Featheringill
WTF? No one cued up the video of “You can’t handle the truth!”
ETA: Would I make fun of our BJ community?
Pongo
@virginia: I’ve been reading his ‘blog’ at Huffpo with some astonishment that they allowed the guy such a prominent and long-winded platform. I guess Huffpo is the last refuge of the irrelevant who can’t get published in an actual venue ‘of record.’
Bill in Section 147
Thanks for reminding me how much I like Delacroix. So many things have been wonderful about the internet but the easy access to information I care about is what I like best. My local news sources do not keep me apprised of the latest intelligent thing said by Krugman and most often allow a word salad of misunderstanding or a moustache of freedom. Again, bless you internet.
The overview linked article is awesome. I remember the incident but was not aware that their existed such an epic take down.
What are these idiots going to do when the Fox News Angriest Most Ignorant Generation passes? The current attempt at a solution is to control the internet – if you cannot see what they said yesterday then you will have a harder time pulling back the curtain. We must all hope they do not succeed.
SRW1
Dispensing so much piss for no gain in territory? Too much vinegar! Dogs do it better, Niall.
Tiny Tim
Yes it was Okrent and it was a decade ago.
D.N. Nation
“No one seems to edit that blog at the New York Times. And it’s time that somebody called him out.”
OK, I’m not a huge Krugman fan, but if you’re going to toss something out like this, you better back it up. Cite some f’ed up posts, Niall. Show me some fact errors. Chronic misspellings. And on and on. Give me something.
Jockey Full of Malbec
What is it with UK emigrees coming over here to (try to) re-instate the Middle Ages?
azlib
The problem with both Nialls and Joe is simply in their gut do not believe the economics – Krugman must be wrong! So therefore he must be lying and uncivil, etc, etc. As Paul has said numerous times when he takes on the antics of his critics – “show me your model!”
Paul is fact driven – NIalls and Joe, not so much. And Joe’s trick of quoting an unnamed public editor to hide behind shows he is just another coward. And all this whining about civility. Tell that to the millions of unemployed as a result of the unnecessary austerity policies inflicted on them and cheered on by NIalls and Joe.
beth
I saw something about this in James Fallow’s column at the Atlantic yesterday. I guess Ferguson asked Fallows to post his hissy fit rebuttal slamming Krugman. I’m no economic expert but when I read it my thought was that if all you have to criticize Krugman on is that he was wrong on Greece, you got nothing and nobody’s going to care (I don’t know if Krugman was wrong or not).
Punchy
And Scarborough is a weekly nightmare for any and all of his interns.
At least Kruggy hasn’t offed anyone yet.
schrodinger's cat
@Jockey Full of Malbec: They don’t have much of an audience for their BS at home? Or may be they come for $$$.
ETA: Nobody is impressed by their accents and even if they went to fancy schools they can’t break into the highest echelons of English society since they are Scottish (Ferguson) and Irish(Sullivan) respectively. Just my guess though. IDK for sure.
Comrade Jake
I LOLed when I read that. I suppose it’s possible that they receive a lot of hatemail and phone calls from wingers who get the vapors over Krugman’s blog posts, but I sort of doubt it. Their regular subscribers probably agree with 99% of what Krugman writes.
Some editor was probably just sucking up to Joe because he/she wanted to make an appearance on MSNBC.
MomSense
The best part about Morning Joe was that Niall made a point of talking about how the President won’t compromise, won’t engage with them, won’t negotiate, etc. Right after that segment Rep. Van Hollen came on and talked about how they had been trying to negotiate since March but the Republicans kept blocking all attempts and that it is really tough to negotiate with them because no one seems to speak for their caucus. You think you have a deal with the Speaker but he apparently doesn’t really speak for the caucus.
Essentially the Democrats have no one with whom they can negotiate and the Republicans have a constantly changing set of demands that are not shared by the caucus.
So according to the village, it is totes Obama’s fault.
Southern Beale
No one edits the Nobel Prize-winning Paul Krugman, unlike the sage writers at Ghost of Breitbart which are clearly vetted!
LOL.
And Booman has your daily schadenfreude … enjoy!
Tom Levenson
@schrodinger’s cat: Don’t think that Nate was driven out of the Times. He chose to go and they were sorry to lose him.
I had dinner with him last year after he gave a talk at MIT. He made it clear then that he was weighing his options. Didn’t get the impression at all that he felt pressured…he had all the leverage.
Shinobi (@shinobi42)
You know how I know Paul Krugman is in fact awesome? This. That some fact based arguing right there, and I think that is WAY more compelling evidence than some anonymous quote.
El Cid
But if the debate is about who can more stirringly invoke nostalgia for the high glory days of the British Empire, Ferguson will wipe the floor with Krugman.
MattF
@MomSense: I’m pleased to say that Van Hollen is my rep. He beat Connie Morella for the seat. Morella was probably the very last liberal Republican in the House and very popular in the district– but it was time for her to go.
patrick II
But Naill has both a Harvard professorship and an english accent — so he just exudes authority. How could he possibly be wrong?
SRW1
OMG, that ‘Regions of Derpistan’ Krugman post is a thing of transcendent beauty. Kind of understandable that Ferguson feels he has been through the shredder. Nontheless, asking for an encore wouldn’t appear the smartes move.
PurpleGirl
@rikyrah: Thanks for keeping track of the fellow and for updating us. Congratulations to him, may this be his first victory of a long line of electoral victories.
MomSense
@MattF:
I like Van Hollen. He was really effective this morning because Joe didn’t even try to respond.
dmsilev
I’ll just leave this link here.
Warren Terra
No. An unnamed public editor allegedly made this claim. The word I’ve added makes all the difference, and explains what’s going on here. That word means: someone whose job it is to handle complaints from the public, an ombudsman. This public editor supposedly complained that when Krugman writes a column he/she is deluged by whole brigades of flying monkeys that start flinging their poo in an outraged fashion. It is the job of a columnist to say things that inspire a meaningful response, including an outraged response from the other side. It’s hard to imagine that most of the columnists at the Times could jolt a reader into sufficient motion to rattle their teacup; Krugman says things that get under the skins of the people who are threatening to destroy this country, and the public editor is tired of having to do his/her job and field their complaints.
On Ferguson more generally, this is what I wrote recently at Crooked Timber:
priscianus jr
I have no problem believing that someone at the Times told Scarborough that Krugman’s columns makes them uncomfortable. A lot of people work for the Times, and some of them are schmucks. But I strongly doubt that the still fairly new editor, Jill Abramson, is one of these people. I am sure she understands that Krugman’s column is one of the most popular features of the Times Op Ed page, and why it is.
Suffern ACE
@beth: Yes, I’m sure Greece’s under 30 unemployment has fallen from 50% to 49.9% and will fall further as the greek youth leave the country. Proving that this all works splendidly.
Shakezula
Yers, yers. That Krugman fella speakin’ out again’ those dear chappies who just want to crash the economy into the sun and leave everyone to starve. How very rude he is. And what sort of name is Krugman anyway? Some sort of scholarship boy, needs to be shown his place, eh what?
dance around in your bones
Haha! Krugman scares them
Good on ya, mate!
catclub
@cintibud: I figure the Kraken is making an appearance.
Southern Beale
Hey kids, who wants to go through this whole thing again in six weeks? Sound like a plan?
PurpleGirl
@Zifnab25:
It’s too early in the morning to tease us so.
Face
This says Boehner is going to short-term cave. Dont think he’ll get R support and may have to go at it with Dems, but doesn’t this just make this fight happen all over again in a matter of a few months (weeks?)? What’s the friggin point?
Edit: scooped by SB…and she’s got better commentary.
flukebucket
@cintibud:
Also, how did they manage to get themselves into such a mess in the first place? First time at the beach?
schrodinger's cat
@Tom Levenson: Good to know. As for Ferguson, he wants to return to the glory days of the Empire when he could have ordered “coolies” around.
Roger Moore
@Shinobi (@shinobi42):
Which is the root of the problem. Reality has a well known liberal bias, so anyone who uses facts to make their points is deeply suspect.
catclub
@Southern Beale: You know when Obama says we can’t just go from crisis to crisis? There are other people who are quite happy with that mode.
1. Nobody ( but me) brings up the immigration bill.
2. Looking at long term trends is forgotten. Also any long term planning.
Also any long term spending plans – like for infrastructure. So it is all good for the do-nothing side.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Of course Krugman is scary. He’s right. Given the track record of most pundits at the NYT and elsewhere, someone who knows what they’re talking about would be most terrifying.
Belafon
@Face: If there’s one sliver of anything good that might come out of this, is it will divide the Republicans even further. But no, having the same fight in the middle of Christmas shopping season won’t go over well at all.
dance around in your bones
@dance around in your bones: Dang, dmsilev beat me to it :(
Mark B.
Krugman probably should stick to writing. He’s a little too much of an egghead to come off well debating dunces like Scarborough. He’s used to addressing serious arguments and complete arglebargle tends to throw him off his game.
Josie
I happened to hear Niall making the point that, because the progressive wing of the party influenced the president’s choice of Yellen over Summers, Democratic party discipline had broken down; hence, party discipline was broken on both sides of the aisle, and that is the reason for the current impasse. I guess they don’t teach observation and logic at Harvard, or something. What was really telling was the arrogant smirk on his face as he thought he had made a point on Robert Gibbs. Gibbs was hard put not to laugh in his face.
dmsilev
Reading Robert Costa’s Twitter feed will destroy what lingering traces of faith in humanity that you might have. For instance,
We are now at a point where the approval of RedState matters on a issue of national import.
MattF
@Southern Beale: I think it qualifies as unconditional surrender. Of course I’d like single-payer health care as part of the deal, but I’ll settle for splitting the Republican party in half.
pseudonymous in nc
Is that the Niall Ferguson who has farmed out his book research to students for decades, in exchange for finding them jobs in academia and journalism?
Someone should go and piss in his car. It won’t be the first time.
virginia
Robert Costa has become Judy Garland in “A Star is Born.” His twitters are amazing. Like prison wall morse code tapping. From Capitol Hill — tap tap pause tap tap tap. Surprised someone hasn’t slipped him a ricin cup.
Part of Ferg’s problem is that right now no one gives a shit and, two, brevity is the new gold standard. And, I dunno, Bitch! It’s impossible to get into this kind of dumb pissing match when your worried about making your car payment and paying your mortgage.
Charlie Rose and Joe Smuggest just aren’t a winning combo either.
amk
@Mark B.: Yup. Don’t get into a fight with a pig and all that.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
If Mr. Ferguson and Boring Joe could project harder, they’d be working in a movie theater.
@Mark B.:
But that’s more an indictment of what passes for ‘debate’ these days than anything particular with Krugman. It happens with scientists too, who get flummoxed when logic fails to penetrate through a solid wall of bullshit and irrationality.
Patricia Kayden
@NotMax: Aye aye! I only watch Joe once in a blue moon in bits and pieces. I cannot imagine watching both Joe (shut up Mika) and Niall Ferguson together. Too much for any morning.
By the way, whatever happened to free speech? Why are Joe and Niall advocating the censoring of Mr. Krugman just because they don’t like his arguments? Funny how with rightwingers, it’s always free speech for me but not for thee.
Jebediah, RBG
Well, if anyone is going to take on Krugman, it should be someone of comparable intellect. In which discipline was Ferguson’s Nobel? I can’t seem to recall…
El Cid
@pseudonymous in nc:
I’ve never really thought about somebody doing that as an intentional prank, but that’s funny.
(I know of people who hid a sardine in a car interior, making the whole car soon smell of rotting fish.)
El Cid
Principled conservatives are very angry when liberals are so uncouth, venomous, and vengeful as to use the wrongness of one’s argument against him.
Belafon
@Josie: I wonder if that’s part of our problem: We’ve decided that openly laughing at someone else’s stupidity, especially those in power, is not socially acceptable.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Belafon:
I think the problem is more how easily we’ve let stupidity not only pass for intelligence, but how actual intelligence being dismissed as the height of stupidity. It’s Dunning-Kruger on a national scale.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
“econoderpitude” –my new favorite word, and the concept can be used in so many other ways….love me some KThug
catclub
@Belafon: The war on Christmas will be better than ever this year!
RSA
@azlib:
Given that Joe “this race is a toss-up” Scarborough doesn’t even understand basic probability and statistics, it’s not surprising that he doesn’t believe in economics.
beth
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: It’s the Isaac Asimov quote come to life:
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”
JPL
Boehner is half way unconditionally surrendering.
JPL
Now they are saying the government still is shut down but they will pass a six week debt ceiling increase.
The rest of the speeches are this wasn’t our fault. Boehner is not puting anything on the table or anything off the table. wtf.
Corner Stone
“A conservation that leads to a negotiation that begins to solve these problems”
Now *that’s* leadership Speaker Boehner!!
dmsilev
@JPL: I can’t understand the reasoning that Boehner’s working with. He and his caucus were and are getting absolutely hammered over both the debt ceiling and the government shutdown. So, what does he do? He proposes coming back to the same issue a month from now. I guess the logic, so to speak, is that he’s dealing with a bunch of outright maniacs and needs to buy some time to convince them that they’re being really really stupid.
IowaOldLady
@virginia: I expect to see Costa exiled to Steve Schmidt-land as a traitor to the Stupid Nation.
dmsilev
@Corner Stone: Can we convene a blue-ribbon panel to assess the conversation first?
Joel
@beth: That letter was the saddest example of blog whoring that I’ve ever seen.
Corner Stone
It is completely unsurprising that these smug faced fucks just all stood up and lied through their teeth.
JPL
@dmsilev: Boehner is being really, really stupid. He has the votes for a clean CR and clean debt ceiling but refuses to bring it to the floor.
Now he’s not putting anything on the table or off the table.
I wish the meeting was on live tv and the President should demand that the negotiation be televised.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
No. We are at the point where RedState claims their approval matters, but we’ve been there for as long as there’s been a RedState. This is just bozos tooting their own horns.
Corner Stone
@dmsilev: Now, now. Let’s not be hasty! It’s not like there’s anything pressing going on.
How about we have a complete sham of a farce of a soundbyte presser, that brings about a supercommittee that we can winnow down to an Elite Committee that can then convene the much sought after blue ribbon panel.
MattF
@JPL: I’d say that Boehner is taking the debt limit off the table. I can’t see how it could be brought up as a threat six weeks from now. And he’s not getting anything for doing that.
Mark B.
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: I think that’s part of what makes ignorant people think he’s arrogant, when he just dismisses nonsense as nonsense instead of treating it as a serious argument.
JPL
@MattF: He was left with no choice once the Koch brothers bailed on him.
Anoniminous
@dmsilev:
Boehner is an alcoholic. There’s no point trying to analyze his actions and motivations rationally or in relation to reality.
Corner Stone
@MattF: There is no reason to believe he can get that through his caucus at this point.
This is another bald faced lie of an attempt to save face to the nation by saying they went to the WH in “good faith” (a term all four of them used). And then when The Islamic Shock stones them they will all pout their way back to a microphone and sadly, very sadly, lament that they never wanted any of this but that mean black man just wants to hurt the US.
“There’s nothing more we can do!!”
Corner Stone
@JPL: I’m not saying that the Koch brothers *can’t* find people more crazy than the ones they currently propped into the House, but if you’re one of the TP faithful can you imagine they look into the mirror and conceive of someone more righteous than themselves?
Joey Maloney
@virginia: The continuing rise of Joe Scarborough is a puzzlement.
Hey, he’s already killed one person who was in his way.
Frankensteinbeck
While they certainly don’t like that, I think it’s a side issue. They don’t like Krugman the way they don’t like Silver. They’re experts who know what they’re talking about. This is incredibly offensive to the Punditariat. Their lives are based around speculative bullshitting and Village gossip. More importantly, their egos are based on that process. This speculation and gossip process makes them feel like geniuses. It has convinced them that they’re true sages who guide America’s thought. Using facts, math, science, expertise – these things are a slap in the face to a Village Pundit. To call them on their bullshit amplifies that injury tenfold.
(Disclaimer: Krugman is a wiz with economics, which give him an excellent view of what sensible policy should be. His political process coverage is no better than anybody else’s.)
Alex
And Nate Silver was supposedly difficult too.
Which, of course, means he was wrong and Dickie Morris, Niall Ferguson, or whatever Right Wing Hack disagreed with Silver was right, and Mitt Romney is President.
MattF
@Corner Stone: The Bachmann supports it:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bachmann-suggests-openness-to-short-term-debt-limit-increase
…and when she says something marginally rational… it’s “Anything can happen” day.
dww44
@rikyrah: great news. I didn’t know this.
Churchlady
@rikyrah: Wow – that is EXCELLENT! Take THAT corrupt county elections official!
dww44
@flukebucket: On Matthews’ show last evening, Scarborough characterized himself as a Club for Growth, Wall St. Kind of Republican, which, these days does count for a bit of sanity.
In all fairness, though, I do remember in 2005 that he was among the first Republicans to visibly break with the Bushes Admin on Katrina relief. Given that he lives on the Fla Gulf Coast, he and his wife had first hand experience with hurricaines and undertook their own personal relief action in Mississippi.
Corner Stone
@MattF: I agree, on the face of it it’s terrifying she could say something that seems rational.
I’ll be curious to see what happens but at this point I remain dubious anything “clean” gets to the floor for a vote.
And by using scare quotes I’ll accept any of the tiniest face saving crumbs Obama can give in on.
I wish he would not offer anything at all, but at this point if he can offer them week old bread to get a deal then let’s do it.
Nothing of substance is acceptable.
sherparick
Basically the background for this is that Niall Ferguson wrote a column for the WSJ last week that was spectacularly disingenuous even for Ferguson and WSJ editorial page. In it he alleged that CBO (before it was shutdown with the rest of Government) was now reporting a growth in the structural deficit 25 years from now from 52% of GDP to 80% of GDP and stated it was due to “uncontrolled spending on entitlements (Medicare and Social Security), when in fact it was due to the Obama-Bush tax cuts on the first $400,000 of income becoming permanent. Many people pointed this out, and Krugman only reference to the comment, and really made no “ad hominem” comments about NF except to say “Brad DeLong catches Niall Ferguson in making another whoopsie” and actually assumes good faith on NF’s mistake, that he just did not know how to read a CBO report, rather than dissembling about it. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/07/on-knowing-what-you-dont-know/ In response NF has completely gone off on Krugman (ignoring DeLong, Dean Baker, and many others because, next to to Obama, no one creates a better “hatefest” among the Right and the Deficit Scolds then Krugman, thereby generating hits, traffic, and revenue. It is always in the end about the Grift.
Apparently Arianna Huffington, despite her so called liberalism shares a fair amount of Krugman hate with Scarborough and Ferguson since she has given Ferguson a week long platform to lie about and misrepresent Krugman on the Huffington Post without rebuttal or counter statement.
dww44
@Bill in Section 147: Not to worry or celebrate;there’s a generation-in-waiting ready to step up and assume the role being vacated by those of mine who will pass from the scene. My congressperson, with a 14 year old whose future he worries about, given all our debt, is one of them.
Chris
There’s something funny about that “no accountability at the New York Times” bitching. Krugman is one of very precious few people keeping the MSM honest and dissenting from an ocean of “both sides do it but Republicans are probably right” bullshit that the media’s been spewing for ages.
MattF
Speaking of Krugman, he notes here that going past the debt limit prevents automatic ‘safety net’ stabilizers from going into effect:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/10/automatic-destabilizers/
So, yes, it really would be a catastrophe.
liberal
LOL. How about accountability for slandering someone with unnamed sources?
Jeezus, what a scumbag.
liberal
@Corner Stone:
Agreed.
jl
Krugman is sweet pussycat compared to a lot of economists, including those working the side of good. I can think of half a dozen who think like Krugman, who would be honest in their analysis and with their data, who would chop people like Fergie and Mornin’ Joe like a paper shredder.
And then there are folks like Summers.
Let them whine. People will notice who is right and who is wrong most often in their predictions. Krugman and his allies have and I think will continue to have a better record than others.
Frankensteinbeck
For irony, I will now offer some speculation as to how we got here. It’s been said repeatedly that there isn’t enough news to justify 24 hour news channels. I suggest that this is the main cause of the news leaning increasingly conservative.
When you don’t have enough actual information on a major story, the pundit who will best handle that situation isn’t a hard working researcher (who will explain the whole thing in five minutes) but a bullshitter who can speculate on the basis of nothing to fill an entire hour. The better the pundit was at that, the more likely they got a major television role. This system became entrenched, with bullshitters being the high ranking people who hired other bullshitters to support them. It creates a bullshit culture.
Now, that process started in the 80s. That was also the period where the Republican Party began increasingly abandoning facts in favor of truthiness. Republicans rely on bullshit speculation. They hate facts, and concentrate on arguments that satisfy the gut after being proven untrue. As pundits go the same way, those two groups are drawn to admire and associate with each other. Further, those bullshit arguments are convincing to pundits, because those pundits think in the same terms. Bush went down the memory hole because his failures made bullshit speculation look bad. Reagan was the great master of selling the public on bullshit speculation, and they look back on his reign as a golden age.
What do you think?
Original Lee
@Frankensteinbeck: Your hypothesis has legs, I think.
Elizabelle
@Zifnab25:
Is David Brooks on book leave?
Funny I had not noticed the absence of his fatuous columns.
But you’re right. He hasn’t had a NYT column up since September 30.
Happily for Driftglass, the Suicide Caucus of the GOP has taken up the slack.
rj
@Doug Milhous J:
While heading out the door, Okrant was was shouting “He uses numbers”.
catclub
@sherparick:Ah! So Niall never learned that first rule when you find yourself in a hole.
JustRuss
Help me out here, shouldn’t “weekly nightmare” refer to Brooks’ column? I don’t wander over to the Times very often, but when I do I see mostly thoughtful, rational replies to Krugman, while Brooks just gets (deservedly)piled on for his latest venture into mendastic stupidity. Is that usually not the case?
schrodinger's cat
@Elizabelle: More like suicide bomber caucus. BTW who buys books written by David Brooks?
billgerat
Boehner offers to give a short debt ceiling hike on the condition that Obama agrees to talks on cutting the budget, without re-opening government? That’s not what Obama told them. The deal is an acceptable short term debt ceiling hike AND re-open the government first, THEN he will negotiate anything with them, just not only budget cutting. The President needs to say no deal, that half-way measures are not going to work.
Joy
Krugman lacks “humility, honesty and civility.” I’m gobsmacked. I’m surprised those words enter into Ferguson’s vocabularly. He certainly lacks the traits.
pseudonymous in nc
@sherparick:
I imagine it’s because Niall invites Arianna to his dinner parties. He is nothing if not a media schmoozer.
LanceThruster
This.
Krugman has no problem drinking Niall’s milkshake.
LanceThruster
@Joy:
Classic case of projection.
Nethead Jay
@Frankensteinbeck: I’d say you’re on to something there.
mclaren
Great post. That Delacroix painting seals it. Absolutely perfectamundo.
McJulie
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yes. The 24-hour cable news channels have in fact ruined the news as we used to know it, and I hate them with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns. I hate them ALL, not just Fox, although I hate Fox the most.
Most of their coverage is speculation before the fact, and they become instantly bored with anything the moment it actually happens, unless that thing is a celebrity death. They set narratives without putting anything into perspective. They are lazy, content-free, sensationalistic, not to mention loud and annoying. And watching cable as your primary news source leaves you tragically underinformed about whatever is going on in your own city, county, and state.
I really can’t say enough bad things about 24-hour cable news.
Brian R.
If Niall Ferguson thinks you’re doing something wrong, you’re doing everything right.
Fuck that asshat.
Ahh says fywp
rock on ! @rikyrah:
cokane
BUT BUT Ferguson can’t be homophobic. Sullivan said the two had catechism together and therefore there’s just no way!