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Media Infiltrations: Of Interventions and Conservative Principles  National Review Online September 23, 2008 Quit Doling Out That Bad-Economy Line The Washington Post September 14, 2008
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Chronicle of the Conspiracy
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Saturday, August 07, 2004
KRUGMAN V. O'REILLY ON RUSSERT I'll have a much more detailed commentary later, and I'll post a transcript -- but I just wanted to throw out there that I thought Bill O'Reilly did a very good job against Paul Krugman on Tim Russert's CNBC show tonight. I've never seen or heard O'Reilly before, but have always gotten the impression that he was little more than a right-wing goon. Well, he certainly was heavy-handed at times against Krugman tonight, but I think it was very effective. He called a spade a spade, and fearlessly -- he didn't accord Krugman the false and undeserved respect that everyone else always does. He had his facts straight, and he knew when to focus on details and when to pull back for the big picture. And best of all, he did it all without being a one-dimensional ideologue -- he repeatedly cited things about the Bush administration with which he intensely disagrees, the kind of even-handed approach that Krugman would never dare to use. Krugman was visibly shaken – his hands were visibly trembling several times. Great job, O'Reilly! (I can't wait to see how "Bobby" spins this!)O'Reilly's strong performance, by the way, stands in marked contrast to that of Tucker Carlson, who took on Krugman on his PBS show "Tucker Carlson Unfiltered." Carlson's producer had asked me to supply tough questions to throw at Krugman -- not one of which he used. He threw softballs that Krugman rammed back down his throat effortlessly. I think I'll go back to taking my Tucker Carlson filtered, thank you.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 10:34 PM | link
KRUGMAN'S MINORITY REPORT Paul Krugman continues to bash Bush for sins he hasn't committed yet. In a Buzzflash interview:
"...the stakes are very high for the Bushies, because we all know that there are terrible suppressed scandals. And that was before we even had any hint about Abu Ghraib. They will do anything to win.""We all know"? Who are we? What does it mean to know? Or to put it another way -- where's the evidence for this?
Update... Jack Rosenthal, former senior editor of the New York Times weighs in on a similar theme:
"It is even necessary on occasion to editorialize ahead of the news. Last month, so much was already known about the 9/11 commission report that The Times editorialized about it hours before it was released. Had the editors waited even a day, their views would have been swamped by the torrent of commentary in other media."Huh? "Necessary" to editorialize before all the facts are known, simply to elbow ahead of competitors? I think that's what Times "public editor" Dan Okrent called "the hunger for scoops" when he excoriated the paper's faulty coverage of Iraq's suspected WMDs.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 3:55 PM | link
DON IN THE CHRON It's great to be one of those talking heads in a round-up story on the economy. You talk to a reporter for an hour, give all kinds of insight and nuance (liberals like the San Francisco Chronicle are supposed to love nuance). Then two simplistic sentences come out the other end, geared to what the reporter wanted to write before he even called you. That's the way it works, folks.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 12:58 PM | link
Friday, August 06, 2004
NOW ALL I NEED IS AN ELMYR D'HORY OIL I've finally found the perfect thing to put on my bookshelf next to my personally inscribed copy of Paul Krugman's The Great Unraveling. It's my personally inscribed copy of Burning Down My Master's House by ex-New York Times reporter Jayson Blair.The inscription reads: To Donald, Thanks for your courageous insights and commentary. All the best, Jayson
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 8:23 PM | link
TERESA GETS REALLY UNCIVIL Girl Scouts are involved. I will say no more. Thanks to reader Ashby Foote for the link.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 11:10 AM | link
COMPASSIONATE LIBERALISM On learning that Harvey and Robert Weinstein of Miramax were laying off 200 workers -- days after signing on to a list of "Business Executives for Kerry-Edwards" -- Kerry campaign spokesmen had this to say:
"We had no idea they were laying that many people off... We assumed that with the success of Michael Moore's film, money wouldn't be an issue for them. It's embarrassing, but let's face it. No one is going to complain about a few Hollywood types losing their jobs."Thanks to reader Paul Anderson for the link.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 10:03 AM | link
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Thanks to reader Martin Shimp for the link.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 9:23 AM | link
Thursday, August 05, 2004
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Kerry also described...for the Boston Herald his vivid memories of his Christmas Eve spent in Cambodia:I remember spending Christmas Eve of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real...Even without minimal investigation, a critical press should have been able to spot the story as a total fabrication: Richard Nixon did not become president of the United States until twenty-six days after John Kerry’s Christmas in Cambodia.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 7:23 PM | link
UNFIT FOR COMMAND See a chilling video about John Kerry featuring the Vietnam vets who know him best, from Swiftboat Veterans for Truth. Be sure to click on the link below the video to order a free sample chapter of the upcoming book on Kerry, Unfit for Command. Or better yet, pre-order you copy of the book by clicking here.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 3:40 PM | link
SO IT'S ALL ABOUT MONEY AFTER ALL Paul Krugman in an interview with MediaChannel:
In any event, Krugman says his bosses at The New York Times "are pretty happy with me at this point...after having been 'rattled' in the immediate aftermath of the Iraq War."Their belief at the time was that the left wasn't a commercially viable force, and that liberals, for example, wouldn't buy books!" he says with a best-seller's smile.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 2:05 PM | link
ANOTHER DUBIOUS PLOY, NO DOUBT Reader Adrian Day comments on Paul Krugman's "accusation" that CNN won't give DNC chair Terry McAuliffe the same chance to rebut George Bush's nomination acceptance speech that it gave to RNC chair Ed Gillespie to rebut John Kerry's:
Will McAuliffe have equal time? The answer is a probable "yes". It may not be on CNN, but rather on FOX where he was given a nice chunk of air-time and treated very well during the Democratic National Convention, by Bill O'Reilly no less. They'll have him on in a heartbeat, if he's available. All arrangements will be handled by their Dubious Ploys and Policies Department.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 1:44 PM | link
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How's that again? For all of John Kerry's tough talk about "Benedict Arnold CEOs," higher taxes on "the rich" and the need for more government regulation, one wouldn't expect a lot of business executives to endorse him. Indeed, it makes about as much sense as for deer to endorse the National Rifle Association.
For some of the names on the list, the self-interest is clear. It's no surprise to see Robert Rubin there -- nominally an executive of Citigroup, but in reality Kerry's Federal Reserve chairman-in-waiting. And no one should be shocked to see Harvey and Michael Weinstein on the list, the co-chairs of Miramax Films and executive producers of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9-11."
And some number of names are sheer padding. Former Clinton economic advisor Laura D'Andrea Tyson may be the dean of the London Business School, but does that make her a "business executive"? And Lisa Caputo is listed mysteriously as only a "senior financial executive." Turns out she's Hillary Clinton's former press secretary.
But the closer you look at the list of execs backing Kerry, the weirder it gets. For example, there are two names associated with the Carlyle Group. That's right -- the same Carlyle Group demonized by Michael Moore, Paul Krugman and all the other leftist shock-pundits as the clearinghouse for corrupt self-dealing defense contracts in both Bush administrations. Be that as it may, William Kennard (Clinton's FCC chief and Carlyle's managing director) and Arthur Levitt, Jr. (Clinton's SEC chief and a Carlyle "senior advisor") are on Kerry's list.
And here's a shocker. Peter Chernin, president and COO of News
Corporation and chairman and CEO of Fox
Group in on the list. That's right -- the same News Corporation run by the
evil Australian reactionary Rupert Murdoch, and the same Fox whose
cable news channel stole the 2000 Florida election from Al Gore (according
to Michael Moore). Kerry's press release even quotes Chernin at length, sounding
like a fire hose spouting pro-Kerry feel-good platitudes:
"The Kerry-Edwards plan for America is exactly what is needed to jumpstart businesses and get America working again. It will lower healthcare costs and cut taxes on corporations and small businesses to strengthen our economy today and invest in education, science and innovation to help us stay competitive in the economy of tomorrow."
Has Chernin lost his mind? Is he a pro-Bush mole in the Kerry campaign? Or is it time to re-evaluate the constant litany of lies from the left to the effect that Fox News is, as Paul Krugman recently put it, "a G.O.P. propaganda agency"?
Perhaps most remarkable of all, though, is the number of business executives on the list who are full-fledged, living, breathing Benedict Arnold CEOs. Forty executives on Kerry's list work for companies that appear on Lou Dobbs' "Exporting America" list -- a hall of shame for companies that (according to Dobbs) are sending American jobs overseas.
And for all of Kerry's talk about improving labor standards at home and abroad, some of the executives endorsing him are closely tied to sweat-shop operations. Kerry's list member Donna Karan has faced a class action suit by Manhattan garment workers alleging "workers toiled seven days a week, 11 hours each weekday and eight to 10 hours on the weekends...and did not earn the minimum wage," according to the New York Daily News. And the liberal magazine The Nation reported that Esprit, the garment firm of Kerry's list member Susie Tompkins Buell, used sweat-shops in San Francisco that were raided by the Department of Labor.
It's not surprising to see the unprincipled Kerry accept the endorsement of the very people he demonizes. Maybe it's not unprincipled at all -- it's just "nuanced."
But once you filter out the hacks and the revolving-door political hopefuls from the list, it remains a mystery why capitalists smart enough to have achieved business success are stupid enough to endorse John Kerry. Yes, Lenin said that capitalists will sell you the rope you will use to hang them. But this seems like a case of capitalists simply hanging themselves.
Thanks to Bruce Bartlett and reader Jill Olson for their inputs.
Correction 8/6/2004... As originally posted I incorrectly referred to Miramax Films as the distributor of "Fahrenheit 911." The file was distributed by Lion's Gate Films. The Weinsteins were the executive producers of the film.
Correction 8/7/2004... As originally posted I incorrectly referred to Laura D'Andrea Tyson as the dean of the London School of Economics. She is identifed by the Kerry list as the dean of the London Business School.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 1:37 PM | link
JOKE OF THE DAY Lance Armstrong stripped of his Tour win??
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 9:55 AM | link
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"The Kerry-Edwards plan for America is exactly what is needed to jumpstart businesses and get America working again. It will lower healthcare costs and cut taxes on corporations and small businesses to strengthen our economy today and invest in education, science and innovation to help us stay competitive in the economy of tomorrow."Thanks to Bruce Bartlett for the catch.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 8:26 AM | link
DOONESBURY NAILS KERRY IN 1971 Counterpunch notes this 1971 Doonesbury cartoon. Kind of says it all, doesn't it?
Thanks to Bruce Bartlett for the link.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 8:08 AM | link
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
THE LAFFER CURVE LIVES IN THE HEART OF JOHN KERRY! Bruce Bartlett points out a Knight-Ridder report, saying "Kerry and his aides say his election would herald a stronger economy that would generate more revenue and thus help reduce the deficit." Bartlett notes that "Democrats used to call this 'voodoo economics' when Republicans said the same thing."Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 11:46 PM | link
THAT CONSERVATIVE CBS NEWS COVERAGE Tom Maguire of the Just One Minute blog writes in with a link to Howard Kurtz's Washington Post column referred to in the angry letter to Paul Krugman from Dan Rather's executive producer. It seems to prove that CBS did, in fact, give detailed coverage to Kerry's health care proposals -- and in a way that was distinctly liberally biased, too.
It seems that Rather showed Kerry's health plan in the best possible light, including an interview with "a woman with an immune disease who needs intravenous antibiotics to stay alive and whose monthly health insurance bill has rocketed from $212 to $4,419," who said on camera "I believe that Mr. Bush doesn't give a damn about me." The Bush administration is quoted saying the Kerry plan would "break the bank," and according to the Post, the report "left the implication" that the woman "would die under the Bush approach."
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 10:06 AM | link
SCHULTZ ON THE ECONOMY, SHORT AND SWEET In what may be the shortest op-ed ever published by the New York Times, former Secretary of State George Schultz lays out the evidence about the economy and presents an astonishing compelling graph. The bottom line:
When you look at the record, a quick summary is this: President Clinton inherited prosperity; President Clinton bequeathed recession. ...the recession President Clinton left behind has turned into prosperity under George W. Bush.Thanks to reader Chad Snee for the link.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 9:39 AM | link
CAPITALISTS WITH SUICIDAL TENDENCIES Here's the list of businessmen lining up for the gas chamber by supporting Kerry and his campaign against Benedict Arnold CEOS and low taxes (makes you wonder how they got so rich). Of course Robert Rubin and Robert Hormats are on the list.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 9:33 AM | link
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Or is it?
According to Krugman -- America's most dangerous liberal pundit -- all those conservative TV news programs haven't been reporting on the substance of John Kerry's policy proposals. He says,
"I've been reading 60 days' worth of transcripts from the places four out of five Americans cite as where they usually get their news: the major cable and broadcast TV networks. Never mind the details - I couldn't even find a clear statement that Mr. Kerry wants to roll back recent high-income tax cuts and use the money to cover most of the uninsured."
Except that's not the way CBS's famously liberal prime-time anchorman Dan Rather sees it. The Dan's executive producer Frank Murphy wrote an open letter saying,
"The entire staff of the 'CBS Evening News with Dan Rather' was pretty miffed... He must have missed the SIXTEEN different 'issues' pieces we did over a four week period during that time, part of a series that will continue until the election... The Washington Post's media critic found the series so intriguing amid all the debate over campaign coverage he actually wrote an article about it. How can anyone take an editorialist's arguments seriously when he ignores some FACTS completely?"
And besides, it's not as though the Kerry campaign even wants coverage of its specific proposals. That's because there deliberately aren't any, especially when it comes to raising taxes to pay for Kerry's big-government spending ambitions. As Robert Rubin -- Clinton's "legendary" Treasury secretary and currently a Kerry intimate -- told BusinessWeek,
"I don't think you can make proposals...until you've gotten elected and until you've organized effectively across both parties and both houses. If you start to put out proposals now, they would be vigorously attacked, and they would in effect become tainted so they couldn't be used."
What other signs of conservative bias does Krugman see? He claims that cable news follows a "script" -- "a story line that shapes coverage, often in the teeth of the evidence." One example is the economy. Krugman says,
"...last summer, when growth briefly broke into a gallop, cable news decided that the economy was booming. The gallop soon slowed to a trot, and then to a walk. But judging from the mail I recently got after writing about the slowing economy, the script never changed; many readers angrily insisted that my numbers disagreed with everything they had seen on TV."
I suspect that what Krugman's readers were really thinking about was the "teeth of the evidence" that the economy has expanded since President Bush's tax cuts at the fastest rate in almost 20 years. Or perhaps they were just recalling Krugman's own belated admission just two months ago that "Over the last few months, the recovery has finally started to look like the real thing."
Here's another Krugman "script." He claims "many people watched the convention on cable news channels -- and what they saw was shaped by a script portraying Democrats as angry Bush-haters who disdain the military." Yet just four paragraphs later, he notes the presence on television of "all those admirals, generals and decorated veterans."
Krugman's most absurd evidence of conservative bias comes from gazing into the future. As Krugman Truth Squad member Tom Maguire points out on his Just One Minute blog, "Do not let it be said that he lacks imagination -- Paul Krugman opens a new front in the 'biased media' war by criticizing CNN for coverage they haven't aired yet. No, I'm serious."
Maguire's right. Krugman says,
"CNN used to be different, but Campaign Desk, which is run by The Columbia Journalism Review, concluded after reviewing convention coverage that CNN 'has stooped to slavish imitation of Fox's most dubious ploys and policies.' Seconds after John Kerry's speech, CNN gave Ed Gillespie, the Republican Party's chairman, the opportunity to bash the candidate. Will Terry McAuliffe be given the same opportunity right after President Bush speaks?"
Since when is it a "dubious ploy" to allow the opposition to comment on a major speech? And as to whether McAuliffe will have the opportunity to do the same thing, we can be sure that if he does Krugman's subsequent column won't acknowledge the fact except to repeat his talking points.
Why is Krugman stooping to all these "dubious ploys" of his own to make it seem as though coverage of the campaign and Democratic National Convention has been conservatively biased? Because bias is the only explanation he dares to contemplate for the fact that John Kerry is slipping in the polls, just when he was supposed to get a big "bounce." If you're not a big enough man to admit you're losing, what's left except to whine that it's not a fair game?
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 1:27 AM | link
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
"KERRY CAMPAIGNED FOR McGOVERN!" More stream-of-consciousness political beat poetry from our friend James Crystal:...I predict that as the truth-telling Republican campaign ads really roll out with the best nuggets from Kerry's past, people will start to have fantastic rushes of experiences from their own past that will cause them to get beyond mere WORDS. This leads me to my NUB, from today---Kerry campaigned for McGovern!
Go ahead and meditate on THAT! Actually RE-LIVE that election, if you were an adult at the time, and FEEL what it felt like.
...I can just picture those daily debates, say between Ann Coulter and a spokesman for the Kerry campaign, with Ann repeatedly saying "Kerry worked for McGovern." Let the leftist mouthpieces try to deflect that FACT with 'happy warrior' tracking polls that 'prove' he's ahead by such and such points. Every time, like trying to teach a child that one plus one is two, keep repeating, "Kerry worked for McGovern".
...We're used to the FACT that for a Democrat the WORD "Liberal" has become a dirty word. But, man oh man! To point out the FACT that Kerry committed the horrendous political CRIME of supporting the socialist dove, George McGovern, has to be the WEAPON of MASS DESTRUCTION, politically.
Kerry is a McGovenite!
Isn't that WONDERFUL!
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 7:44 PM | link
GRETCHEN WORDEN, RIP From our friend Irwin Chusid:
Gretchen Worden, longtime director of College of Physicians of Philadephia's Mutter Museum, passed away August 2 at the age of 56, after a brief illness. Quite a gal. Quite a museum. If you know anything about Mutter, try to imagine a director who had a sense of humor about her job -- that was Gretchen. She worked amid "terrifying beauty": corpses with mutant appendages, specimens displaying unthinkable physical aberrations, deformed skeletons, preserved fetuses -- and she was on a first-name basis with them all. But Gretchen was also a consummate professional about the administration of her duties. She came to the museum in 1975, and was named director in 1988. Though she had no medical degree, Gretchen's work on behalf of the museum has contributed much to medical understanding. She also created a photo book about the museum.Don't know if there'll be much press coverage, tho Gretchen certainly deserves it. If anyone comes across an obit, please forward. If you work for the media, write one.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 12:19 PM | link
WALL STREET JUST LOVES KERRY! Or at least that's what this numbingly partisan report from Reuters would have you believe. How is it possible? Simple -- just get quotes from Goldman Sachs' always reliable Bush-basher Robert Hormats.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 10:40 AM | link
MORE ANTITRUST ANTI-PROGRESS Bad news from our antitrust guru Skip Oliva of Citizens for Voluntary Trade. It's another reminder that George Bush is no Ronald Reagan when it comes to deregulation.
Last week the president recess-appointed two people to the five-member Federal Trade Commission. The president's nominee for chair, Deborah Majoras, drew the ire of Oregon senator Ron Wyden (who's up for reelection), who said the FTC hasn't intervened enough in the market to keep gas prices down. What's telling is that the departing FTC chair, Tim Muris, responded by pointing out several times where the FTC did disregard the free market and intervened. Wyden wasn't placated. He practically demanded the FTC nationalize the oil companies.The standoff leaves us with Majoras as the recess-appointed chair. She's a bad choice. Until last year, she was the second-in-command at the DOJ's antitrust division, where she supervised two cases of note. The first was the prosecution of a physician group in North Carolina for "price-fixing". The group settled quickly to avoid criminal charges, but the DOJ has yet to publicly release any evidence the group broke the law. In fact, I spent months researching the case, and concluded the evidence didn't exist. When I challenged the DOJ to prove their claims, Majoras and her cronies said they don't have to provide proof of antitrust violations under the law.
The second case involved a challenge to a swap of newspaper assets by Village Voice Media and New Times Media. The DOJ said the deal created monopolies for "alternative newsweeklies" in two cities, depriving readers of the "right" to receive "alternative viewpoints." This is a completely new antitrust theory unsupported by case law. The two newspapers knew this, but settled anyway (again, to avoid the possibility of criminal prosecution). Majoras was behind this effort, a naked attack on the First Amendment. I guess that's why she's a darling of the White House.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 8:50 AM | link
RATHER IN A LATHER WITH KRUGMAN Apparently The Dan isn't happy with Paul Krugman, whose recent columns (here and here) have taken TV news to task for not being liberal enough. CBS disagrees emphatically.
Thanks to several readers who pointed out this link.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 8:41 AM | link
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Where Rubin might add value to the Fed is in the communications department. He's so smooth, he might actually help the Fed sharpen its communication skills and increase its transparency. When it comes to the implementation of monetary policy, just the idea of a Rubin Fed would keep me up at night. Someone who thinks raising taxes stimulates the economy is apt to think raising interest rates will produce the same result.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 8:23 AM | link
STRUCK SPEECHLESS Paul Krugman thought John Kerry's speech at the Democratic National Convention last week was really good. And if you didn't, well... you've just "stooped to slavish imitation of Fox's most dubious ploys and policies." Of course, then again, Krugman recommends MediaMatters as a "media watch site."
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 12:23 AM | link
OH, HELL... Seems like we may have been a party to the perpetuation of a web-borne urban legend. We reported:
The St. Louis Fed studies the impact of religion on whether countries are rich or poor. Among the interesting ideas cited:An anonymous reader says:In a paper last year, economists Robert Barro and Rachel McCleary provided evidence that church attendance and economic growth are negatively related, but a belief in hell—their measure of religious beliefs—was positively related to increased economic growth.
The study by the St. Louis Fed claiming a negative correlation between belief in hell and the degree of corruption contained a major error. As a result the analysis has been removed from their web site, although without a proper explanation.The mistake was made when the researchers ranked the nation's level of corruption from 1 to 35 but ranked belief in hell from 35 to 1, in reverse order. (They used data for 35 countries.) As a result the correlation showed up as negative, when in fact it should have been positive. In other words, the more a nation believes in hell, the more corrupt and poorer it is likely to be, all other things being equal, contrary to what the researchers thought at first.
Nevertheless, this story has now gone around the www and is now seen as fact. You can find it referred to proudly on dozens of religious web sites. As that great economist, Paul Simon said, "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.."
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 12:13 AM | link
Sunday, August 01, 2004
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"Edwards and his wife had hearty meals of burgers and fries and shared a chocolate Frosty. Teresa Heinz Kerry pointed at a picture of chili on the menu and asked the cashier what it was before ordering a bowl."From the New York Times:
"The Edwardses each ordered a cheeseburger, fries and a diet Coke, and shared a Frosty for dessert. The Kerrys ordered a bowl of chili each. 'It's good chili,' Mrs. Heinz Kerry said. 'It could even be made by Heinz.'"Thanks to The Zoogler for the links.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 11:48 PM | link
OKRENT'S REALITY DISTORTION FIELD New York Times "public editor" Dan Okrent has published a selection of reader letters commenting on his column last week, "Is the New York Times a Liberal Paper?" Not a single letter represents my view that his column was a cop-out -- that it answered "Of course it is" to a dumbed-down definition of liberal that virtually sidestepped the whole subject. No, every single letter just criticizes Okrent for daring to call the fair-and-balanced Times liberal at all. This reveals the kind of reality distortion field that Okrent lives in. With readers and colleagues all around him every day telling him the Times is impartial, or even not liberal enough, Dan's never going to come clean.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 11:42 PM | link
WHAT POLICIES? Paul Krugman's Times column last Friday:
"Mr. Kerry proposes spending $650 billion extending health insurance to lower- and middle-income families. Whether you approve or not, you can't say he hasn't addressed the issue. Why hasn't this voter heard about it? ...I couldn't even find a clear statement that Mr. Kerry wants to roll back recent high-income tax cuts and use the money to cover most of the uninsured... Somewhere along the line, TV news stopped reporting on candidates' policies, and turned instead to trivia that supposedly reveal their personalities. We hear about Mr. Kerry's haircuts, not his health care proposals... The failure of TV news to inform the public about the policy proposals of this year's presidential candidates is, in its own way, as serious a journalistic betrayal as the failure to raise questions about the rush to invade Iraq.""Legendary" Clinton Treasury secretary Robert Rubin, a Kerry advisor, in this week's Business Week:
"I don't think you can make proposals to try to dig out of this hole until you've gotten elected ...If you start to put out proposals now, they would be vigorously attacked and they would in effect become tainted so they couldn't be used."Thanks to reader Noel Sheppard for the link.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 11:28 PM | link