"Stop the War. I don't mean the war in Iraq. I mean the war at home. I mean the partisan war between Republicans and Democrats that rages every day in Washington and produces behavior that would be unacceptable in any other arena of life. I mean the war that poisons our airwaves, clogs up our best-seller lists and stagnates our politics."

He should have stuck with schmoozing teen idols and British royalty. Just check out the Editor's Letter in the December, 2003 issue (unfortunately, there's no online link for it). Carter's so bad at this that he makes Krugman look good.

Carter's entire two-page Letter is a bullet-point list of President Bush's failures. He says, "There's a lot of ground to cover here, so let's do it scorecard style." By that he means shamelessly plagiarizing the style of the famous "Harper's Index," in which pseudo-statistics are ironically juxtaposed with blasé one-liners.

Let's sample some of Carter's "scorecard," focusing on Bush's performance on the economy. Throughout the following, indented and bulleted text is quoted directly and fully from Carter, including emphasis; I have dispensed with quotation marks for convenience.

We'll start with an absolute oh-my-God-what-was-I-thinking howler. Surely by now someone has told Carter of this utterly astounding error he (and his fact checker, if he even has one) has made here: not knowing the difference between a trillion and a quadrillion. He'll never live this one down.

• $6.84 quadrillion (yes, quadrillion) -- Current national debt.
• $9.3 quadrillion -- Estimated national debt by 2008.

This puts Carter off by a factor of 1000. The Office of Management and Budget's Midterm Update for 2004 confirms that it's actually trillion (yes, trillion), which is 1000 times smaller than quadrillion (yes, quadrillion). Quadrillion (yes, quadrillion) means one followed by 15 zeros, while trillion (yes, trillion) means one followed by only 12 zeros.

• $1.58 billion -- Amount on average the national debt increases each day.

If the current national debt really were $6.84 quadrillion (yes, quadrillion), then at $1.58 billion each day the debt would take 4,266 years to grow to $9.3 quadrillion (yes, quadrillion).

• $23,396 -- Amount of each U.S. citizen's share of the national debt as of October 12, 2003.

Again, if the current national debt really were $6.84 quadrillion (yes, quadrillion), that means that the population of the United States would be 292 billion (yes, billion). That's 46 times the entire world population of only 6.3 billion (yes, billion).

• #1 -- This year's deficit will be the biggest in U.S. history.

How many times are we going to have to hear this lie repeated? It's only true -- if you can call it that -- if you don't adjust for inflation, and if you don't adjust for the size of the overall economy. According to OMB statistics, at only 2.8% of gross domestic product, current deficits are lower than they've been in 20 of the last 30 years. Even if we think in terms of the dollar value of deficits, adjusting them for inflation puts them lower now than in 7 of the last 21 years.

• 2.4 million -- Number of Americans who lost their jobs during the first two and a half years of the Bush administration.

Lie. That's just the decline in the number of big-business and government payrolls -- not the number of people who lost their jobs. If you count the self-employed, according to the latest statistics from the Department of Labor, as of October there are more people working than at any time in US history. 168 thousand more people are working than when President Bush took office.

• #1 -- The administration is well on its way to being the first since Herbert Hoover's to preside over an overall loss of jobs during its complete term in office. For Bush to avoid this fate, the economy would have to create jobs over the next 13 months at a rate unprecedented outside of World War II.

Again, Carter is counting payrolls, not jobs. He probably doesn't know the difference, any more than he knows the difference between a trillion and a quadrillion -- but they are not the same thing. But let's let that pass, and examine the frequently heard liberal lie that payrolls would have to grow at "a rate unprecedented" for there to be net payroll gains at the end of Bush's first term.

First of all, starting with the September payroll loss number of 2.4 million that Carter cites, Bush has 16 months, not 13 -- but hey, 16... 13... trillion... quadrillion... who the hell knows. To add 2.4 million jobs in a civilian labor force that totals 146.5 million people, we need a job creation rate of 1.65%. Is that "a rate unprecedented"? No -- that's another flat-out lie. Since January, 1948 (when consistent records became available), there have  been 654 overlapping 16 month periods. Of those, 423 -- or 65% of the total -- have seen job growth in excess of the required 1.65%.

In other words, it's not only not "unprecedented" to have that kind of growth -- it's downright typical. And after the last couple of payroll reports from the Department of Labor, it looks like Bush is going to make it without breaking a sweat.

• #1 -- Set record for biggest two-year point drop in the history of the stock market during the first half of a presidential term.

This may be technically true, but the way it is presented makes it essentially a lie. Point drops in the market are not comparable across periods of time, because the level of the market changes so much (so the importance of a point is always changing). The Dow Jones Industrial Average can easily move 100 points in a single day now -- but when Franklin D. Roosevelt first took office in 1933, the level of the whole darn thing was only 60.9! What counts are percentage moves.

Yes, the Dow fell 26.0% in George W. Bush's first two years, and that's not good. But it's not the worst (the worst was the first two years of Richard Nixon's second term -- partially shared with Gerald Ford -- in which the Dow fell 29.6%). And Bush's numbers aren't much different than the 22.1% loss in the first two years of FDR's second term.

Carter is quick to compare the current President Bush's deficit numbers to those of the first President Bush, but he fails to mention whose first two years had the all-time best stock market performance. It was Ronald Reagan, in the first two years of his second term, with 67.7%. Runners up were FDR's first term with 67.0%, Eisenhower's first term with 41.1%, and Truman's first elected term with 38.9%. Clinton's halcyon second term can only boast a tepid-by-comparison 37.4%.

• 1.6 -- Percentage increase in economic growth since Bush took office, the slowest rate of increase over an equivalent period for any administration in 50 years. 

Carter mangles his terms here: he means simply "economic growth," not literally "increase in economic growth" (his cited number of 1.6% makes sense no other way). But even forgiving that lapse of technical terminology, his claim about that 1.6% rate is a flat-out lie. Growth has been lower than 1.6% over an equivalent period many times over the last 50 years, in administrations both Republican and Democratic. In fact growth was negative when Jimmy Carter handed the keys to the White House to Ronald Reagan in the first quarter of 1981.

Carter's list goes on and on, covering every conceivable domain in which Bush can be seen as having done something Carter thinks is wrong or failed to do something he thinks is right, all framed in this "Harper's Index" pseudo-statistical style designed to give opinions the ring of fact. A lot of it centers on how rich everyone in the Bush administration is, but I can't figure out why Carter is complaining about that. Somebody's got to buy all the luxury goods -- the Bulgari watches, the Guess leather, the Belvedere vodka, the Dior underwear -- whose full-color ads surround Carter's Letter.

And of course there's a great deal about the war. A particular favorite:

• 0 -- Number of trips taken to Afghanistan before waging war against that country.
• 0 -- Number of trips to Iraq before waging war against that country.

Observers more charitable than Carter might want to cut President Bush some slack on this one. Taking a quick jaunt to Afghanistan in the days between 9/11 and the US invasion might not have been the best use of his time.

And besides, there's no tradition among American presidents of first visiting countries against whom a president later wages war. I'm hard pressed to think of a single example. Raymond Teichman, supervisory archivist at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park told me that liberal icon FDR never set foot in Germany, Italy or Japan before waging war on them. Well, FDR did visit Germany as a child. Teichman told me, "It was fashionable in the post-Civil War period to go to Germany. His father took the waters at Baden-Baden."

Carter, on the other hand, drinks the Kool-Aid. As both editor and columnist, he gets to make up reality in the little Jonestown that is Vanity Fair. Consider these representative lines from the adoring letters about himself that he chose to publish this month:

"Thank you, Graydon Carter, for being brave enough to tell the truth about this dangerous administration... Those of us who have no money and no influence feel intimidated and don't speak out against the Bush regime."

"In my small East Texas community, we have started a political group which is growing daily. We meet once a month, and the first thing I do is read the editorial by Mr. Carter."

Carter's flirtation with Bush-bashing may be comically incompetent and self-aggrandizing, but it's not without wider meaning. Carter is a reliable compass that always points true north in the realm of celebrity culture. For this poseur to be striking this particular pose tells us that visceral loathing of the Bush administration in the media is a wave that has yet to crest. I'll feel a lot more comfortable when Carter goes back to what he's really good at -- analyzing such things as the deep cultural significance of Madonna kissing Britney Spears.

Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 12:05 AM | link  

Wednesday, November 12, 2003

The prosecutor brutally badgered the witness appearing under subpoena before the grand jury:

"Mr. Krugman, are you now or have you ever been in violation of your newspaper's code of ethics? Isn't it true, Mr. Krugman, that at a lecture in San Diego you exhorted the audience to vote Democratic? Isn't it true?"

The beleaguered witness, Paul Krugman, America's most dangerous liberal pundit, showed courage. He didn't take the Fifth -- although it was his right to do so. Instead, starting brazenly into the camera for national television, he said:

"No, I didn't say that. But it doesn't matter. In any case, the, the point is, I mean, I'm not allowed. I mean, I couldn't have said that because…I'm not allowed."

But what Krugman didn't know is that there was evidence. That's right... concealed in a pumpkin patch in Princeton, New Jersey, hidden by moss and black squirrel droppings, was a roll of microfilm. Taken with a contraband camcorder, the film was scratchy and hard to make out, but it was still intact. It revealed Krugman standing before that San Diego audience, reveling in the public adulation being heaped upon his best-selling Bush-bashing self, flagrantly delivering coded partisan signals. At great personal risk, we were able to obtain key frames from the incriminating microfilm for exclusive revelation to the readers of this website.

	[Reading from card, grinning] "If your argument is true that President Bush has failed us [31:27:08],  how will I participate in the effort to replace him?"
	[Serious tone] "Um, as a New York Times columnist, I can't do endorsements [31:34:02]. In fact I'm rigorously non-partisan."
	[Looks down] "[31:36:02] I can't tell you which party I support in the next election, uh…"
	[Puts hand to forehead in a pantomime of I shouldn't have said that [31:37:04]. Loud laughter from audience.]
	[Laughter from audience continues. Looks up, with big open-mouth grin [31:39:15].]
	[Serious tone again] "...This is actually a good one. [Reading from card] If, if Bush has radicalized me [31:55:25], he's also radicalized other people. What can those of us who have been radicalized do?"
	"I think, look, obviously, vote [32:03:06]."

We have also learned that, stuffed inside a pumpkin, barely readable for being covered with seeds and all that awful slimy stringy stuff, were key passages torn from the New York Times' Code of Conduct for the News and Editorial Departments. Forensic research conducted by this website has been able to restore the original text:

"Journalists have no place on the playing fields of politics. Staff members are entitled to vote, but they must do nothing that might raise questions about their professional neutrality or that of The Times. In particular, they may not campaign for, demonstrate for, or endorse candidates, ballot causes or efforts to enact legislation...

"Staff members...should avoid expressing views that go beyond what they would be allowed to say in the paper. Op-Ed columnists and editorial writers enjoy more leeway than others in speaking publicly because their business is expressing opinions. The Times nevertheless expects them to...protect the standards and impartiality of the newspaper as a whole."

A spokesman for the grand jury told this website that it regarded this to be a "bigger and better and more important" Krugman Gotcha than anything in Mickey Kaus' Krugman Gotcha Contest -- even the second place entry submitted by Stephen Kirchner, Dr. Manhattan, and another web-stalker unidentified at this time. He added that he felt that Krugman's violation of his paper's code of ethics "heaven forbid, is awful."

Reached for comment at press-time, a Krugman spokesperson would only say that it's "your call".

Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 1:19 AM | link  

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Tuesday, November 11, 2003

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MORE UNRAVELING, MORE SLANDER    Reality is beginning to take its toll on America's most dangerous liberal pundit. His New York Times columns are degenerating into idiot-fringe political analysis tinged with an ever-so-slight odor of racism. And to silence his most persistent critic -- moi -- he continues to smear me with the false accusation that I "stalked" him "personally," now peddling that odious lie to no less than The New Yorker magazine.

How quickly the wheels have come off. Just shy of three months ago Krugman was still playing the condescending economic know-it-all in his New York Times column, declaring,

"For about 20 months the U.S. economy has been operating in a twilight zone: growing too fast to meet the classic definition of a recession, but too slowly to meet the usual criteria for economic recovery. There's nothing particularly mysterious about our situation." [Emphasis added]

Then, as 2003's phenomenal third quarter started to take shape, the haughty professor found himself transformed into a deer in the headlights on NPR's "Marketplace":

"…something is wrong. I -- I -- I have to say, we -- all of us who watch this sort of thing -- and this is -- this is wearing my professor hat...are just scratching their heads and saying, 'Is there something wrong with the data? And if so, which part of the data?' …We seem to have gone into the Twilight Zone. We don't know quite what's going on." [Emphasis added]

Now, of course, he knows. What's going on is what Jerry Bowyer has christened The Bush Boom. And it's turned Krugman from a deer in the headlights into a stunned veal calf. So now it seems he's got nothing left to do but play the race card.

In last Friday's Times column, he used the occasion of Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean's regrettable statement that he wants "to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks" to claim that -- yes -- Republicans only managed to win governorships in Mississippi and Kentucky last week thanks to "coded appeals to racism." The evidence? None.

The best Krugman could come up with was to point out that poor southerners got less of a break under Bush's tax-cuts than their richer northern neighbors, and that "the right" wants to dismantle all the New Deal and Great Society programs that he claims disproportionately benefit poor southerners. So, Krugman concludes, the only possible explanation for those two Republican governorships last week is "coded appeals to racism."

Krugman even went to far as to let Howard Dean off the hook for his remarks about the Confederate flag on behalf of African-Americans everywhere:

"Mr. Dean wasn't suggesting that his party adopt the G.O.P. strategy of coded racial signals, and by and large African-Americans — my wife included — understand that."

I must say, it strikes me racism for anyone to presume to know what African-Americans by and large understand, regardless of whom one happens to be married to. Does it not reflect deep prejudice to assert without solid evidence that any group of people feel only one particular way about anything? Be that as it may, after Krugman's close encounter with anti-Semitism a couple weeks ago, you'd think sheer self-preservation would cause him to take more care. But with the Bush Boom rocking Paul Krugman's world, this is the kind of thing he's left with.

At the same time, our relentless efforts to catch Krugman in every lie, error, distortion, and misquotation are finally starting to work. Our November 5 posting, nailing Krugman for shamelessly misquoting Republican congressman George Nethercutt, has shamed him into running a correction in his Times column today. Well -- not a correction exactly. It's what we Times-watchers call a "stealth correction," in which the correct version is referred to en passant without acknowledging that an incorrect version preceded it (Maureen Dowd got away with the same thing in her notorious ellipsis-gate scandal). Here's Krugman today:

"Some say that Representative George Nethercutt's remark that progress in Iraq is a more important story than deaths of American soldiers was redeemed by his postscript, 'which, heaven forbid, is awful.' Your call."

Stealthy, yes. But still intensely embarrassing for America's most dangerous liberal pundit, for whom credibility is a sine qua non, and who knows that by the time you read this, his correction -- stealthy or not -- will be sprayed all over the web in a thousand blogs of light.

That's probably why Krugman continues to try to discredit me with false accusations that I "stalked" him "personally" -- a charge he first made on Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes" on October 17. The latest smear was last week, when Ben McGrath, a reporter for The New Yorker was researching his "Talk of the Town" feature on Krugman and me that appears in this week's issue. By the way, McGrath's column is generally a very balanced portrait of our rivalry -- something I must say I never expected from the left-leaning New Yorker [see Update, below]. I give McGrath a lot of credit, even if he did invent a few unfactual factoids about me to lend a little color to his portrayal of my encounter with Krugman at a San Diego lecture -- little stuff that somehow slipped through the near-proctological rigors of the New Yorker's legendary fact-checking process.

When McGrath was interviewing me for the article, he asked me to comment on three things told to him by "a Krugman spokesperson." First, the Krugman spokesperson told McGrath that I entered the San Diego lecture hall under false pretenses, by giving a false name or no name [fact: I paid for my ticket with my credit card, and signed in at the door under my true name]. Second, the Krugman spokesperson told McGrath that I recorded the lecture with a camcorder, in violation of law [fact: there is no such law]. And third, the Krugman spokesperson told McGrath that over the summer I had revealed that Krugman was vacationing in France, something I had no legitimate way to know [fact: I guessed as much, based on Krugman's own statements about his vacation habits].

McGrath quotes Krugman himself saying: "I mean, yes, he’s not a literal stalker, in the sense that he’s going to stick a knife in my back or anything." But at the same time as Krugman himself was giving that oh-so-reasonable statement, his spokesperson was feeding the same reporter false evidence to lend credence to charge that I indeed "stalked" Krugman "personally."

McGrath, for one reason or another, chose not to mention the Krugman spokesperson's false accusations. In one sense I'm glad he didn't -- I've been smeared enough. But I'm telling the whole story here because, at this point, I want the full and ugly truth of this affair to be known. McGrath used his judgment, apparently, to discard information that he felt was without merit -- and he was right about that. But the unintended consequence was to effectively cover up for Krugman, and conceal his attempt to once again smear me with false accusations of having committed a serious felony.

Once again: I demand a full retraction and apology. 

>>Update... Historically The New Yorker has been fawningly supportive of Krugman. Remember last May, when the "Talk of the Town" column uncritically repeated (without attribution -- I guess I should say, "uncritically plagiarized") Krugman's infamous "divide by ten" lie? And who could forget that boot-licking review of The Great Unraveling two months ago?

Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 1:00 AM | link  

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Monday, November 10, 2003

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KRUGMAN CORRECTS THE NETHERCUTT QUOTE    Paul Krugman does a stealth correction. Buried in the penultimate paragraph of tomorrow's Times column:

"Some say that Representative George Nethercutt's remark that progress in Iraq is a more important story than deaths of American soldiers was redeemed by his postscript, 'which, heaven forbid, is awful.' Your call."

Calling Daniel Okrent!

Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 11:22 PM | link  

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INFLATION, HIGHER INTEREST RATES... PLEASE, GOD, LET SOMETHING GO WRONG!    The lead editorial in Sunday's New York Times was, on the surface, an appeal to Alan Greenspan to raise interest rates. But as Robert Musil suggests, it was more an appeal to God to please let something go wrong with the US economy before the next presidential election. I happen to agree with the Times that the Fed should raise rates, and so does does Treasury secretary John Snow -- but neither Snow nor I think it will hurt Bush's chances of re-election. Quite the contrary. Bruce Bartlett agrees that the Fed should raise rates, but sees the Times' motives like this:

"By forcing an early Fed tightening, the Times hopes to slow economic growth and raise concerns about high interest rates that can be channeled into politically effective attacks on the budget deficit and, of course, tax cuts. The goal is to prepare the ground for Democrats to adopt a Ross Perot-like obsession with fiscal responsibility that could undercut President Bush's support among swing voters. It will also serve to soften the left-wing image of Howard Dean, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, by giving him a conservative issue to run on."

Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 12:51 AM | link  

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