Look who is # 1!

In a possible sign that my opinions are becoming more mainstream a new website named Mediaite, in its rankings of the most influential print/online columnists, ranked two of my favorites in the top 10. Paul Krugman is #1 and Glenn Greenwald #10.

An economist's take on the GOP

Check out Nobel Laureate economist Paul Krugman's analysis of the positions and leadership of the Republican Party in his column in today's New York Times.

Who wants to hang with Rush Limbaugh?

On the American Prospect blog Sarah Posner reports:

In his CPAC speech, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell insisted that conservatives are more "interesting" and "fun" than liberals. Here's his proof: "who wants to hang out with guys like Paul Krugman and Robert Reich when you can be with Rush Limbaugh?"

McConnell's comment causes me to suspect that the chasm between liberals and conservatives in this country is immense and unbridgeable. I find it hard to imagine anyone preferring the company of Rush Limbaugh to either Paul Krugman or Robert Reich.

Trend setting Professor Krugman

Just now, as I write this, on the Rachel Maddows show guest host Alison Stewart started her interview with Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman by thanking him for coming on the show. Professor Krugman responded, ‘Sure.’

That caught my attention because a few weeks ago someone wrote into either Dear Abby or Ann Landers complaining that some young people today have no manners because they do not respond to ‘Thank you’ with the polite and proper response of ‘Your welcome.’ That got me thinking about why that is the only correct response. There is no objective reason why the words ‘your’ and ‘welcome’ are any more appropriate a response to a statement of thanks than any other word or phrase. It is just something we have all agreed to. There is no reason we couldn’t or shouldn’t undo that agreement and agree on something else.

For reasons that I cannot explain I would love for ‘You betcha’ to become the new polite and correct response to ‘Thank you.’ But if Nobel Prize winners are going around responding ‘Sure,’ then I suppose that response has the best chance of being adopted as the new standard . Oh well.

The Politics of Resentment

Once again Paul Krugman, in his column in today's New York Times, gets to the heart of the matter:

What struck me as I watched the convention speeches, however, is how much of the anger on the right is based not on the claim that Democrats have done bad things, but on the perception — generally based on no evidence whatsoever — that Democrats look down their noses at regular people.

Thus Mr. Giuliani asserted that Wasilla, Alaska, isn't "flashy enough" for Mr. Obama, who never said any such thing. And Ms. Palin asserted that Democrats "look down" on small-town mayors — again, without any evidence.

What the G.O.P. is selling, in other words, is the pure politics of resentment; you're supposed to vote Republican to stick it to an elite that thinks it's better than you. Or to put it another way, the G.O.P. is still the party of Nixon.

Read the entire article.

Of course, the fact that the Republicans have selected the politics of resentment, left-over hatreds of the of cool and popular cliques in high school, as the focus of their convention and campaign does not necessarily mean that their analysis, polls and focus groups tell them that is a winning strategy this year. They may be going with it because it is all they have.

Is Ignorance Republican Party Policy?

Check out Paul Krugman's column in this morning's New York Times:

...know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”

I guess I am a little more optimistic than Paul Krugman. He thinks this appeal to ignorance and stupidity may well win for John McCain. I have hopes that the images of people dying in the aftermath of Katrina because the government was not there when they needed it had enough of an effect that when people go into that voting booth they will vote as if their lives depended on having competent, thinking people in the federal government.

Some questions for those over the age of 35

Have you been reading about the financial crisis caused by the home mortgage debacle? Here is what Paul Krugman has to say about it. Thinking about it has raised some questions in my mind.

Anyone over the age of 35 or so knows very well the basic rules for making safe home mortgages – ones that will likely not go into foreclosure. They were the rules in place when we were young. A sound and safe home mortgage is based on an accurate appraisal of the value of the property, does not exceed 80% of the property’s value, and is made to someone for whom the mortgage payments are no more than one third of their take-home income.

So, if you are over the age of 35, have alarm bells been going off in your head over the last 15 years or so about what has been happening with home loans? If you have investments have you been avoiding ones that involve pools of residential mortgages? Have you said no to second and third mortgages and variable rate mortgages? If not, why not? Did you think that the need for the old rules were figments of our parent’s imaginations? Or did you think that something had changed so that the old rules did not apply any more? If so, what did you think had changed?

If you considered yourself a conservative at any time during the last 15 years did being a conservative make you more or less likely to think that throwing out the rules for how to write home mortgages was a problem? What exactly have conservatives been conserving?

Republican Values

According to the Yeas & Nays blog at www.examiner.com written by Jeff Dufour and Patrick Gavin:

DeLay told Yeas & Nays that Republicans in Congress are "looking for something to believe in" and "they're not getting it out of this Republican leadership. … The leadership just isn't getting it."

"They're looking for some backbone,"

Presumably demonstrating the kind of backbone he thinks Congressional Republicans need Tom Delay said of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, "I'd like to bitch-slap him."

Read the entire article.

Tom Delay is an example of the kind of politicians the so-called "Values Voters" have been supporting. What values do you think he was demonstrating in that interview?

Conservatives Are Such Jokers

Be sure to check out Paul Krugman's column in today's New York Times (no longer requires a subscription).

Mark Crispin Miller, the author of “The Bush Dyslexicon,” once made a striking observation: all of the famous Bush malapropisms — “I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family,” and so on — have involved occasions when Mr. Bush was trying to sound caring and compassionate.

By contrast, Mr. Bush is articulate and even grammatical when he talks about punishing people; that’s when he’s speaking from the heart. The only animation Mr. Bush showed during the flooding of New Orleans was when he declared “zero tolerance of people breaking the law,” even those breaking into abandoned stores in search of the food and water they weren’t getting from his administration.

Read the entire article