This just in... the New York Times agrees to a voluntary commitment for its entire editorial staff, checking into the Massachusetts Home for the Permanently Bewildered.

Their confession was posted today on their opinion page:

To our minds, it is not remotely a verdict on Mr. Obama’s presidency, nor does it amount to a national referendum on health care reform — even though it has upended the effort to pass a reform bill, which Mr. Obama made the centerpiece of his first year.

Scott Brown gave himself the nickname “41” indicating his desire to block Obama’s health care bill in the Senate. He didn’t hide from it, he ran on it. Everyone, except the NYT-wits, seems to know this.

Does any other NY newspaper get it? Why, yes.

The Village Voice sums it up well:

Scott Brown Wins Mass. Race, Giving GOP 41-59 Majority in the Senate

Update [1/20/2010]... This is exactly what I was talking about in the replay, when I said I feared the worst in Republican populism. I mention the word "protectionism," and this crazy hate-mail appears this morning:

I heard you say that trade barriers, "tariffs" and such, are a really bad thing on Kudlow yesterday (01-19-10). You disgust me! Article I., Sec. 8., Cl. 1., "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States(.)" Who are you and those like you kidding. You are robbing the United States. I allege that you and other free traders conspire to operate a Ponzi scheme against the United States and call it free trade. Literally trading away our wealth in exchange for debt. Making profits off our accumulation of debt. That is not the worst of it. This system only works, allegedly, because the Fed is backing up the Ponzi scheme with unlimited amounts of counterfeit money and debt creation. The Constitution does not permit any of this. Art. I., Sec. 8., Cl. 6.

So far you have gotten away with it. But time is running out. The people are waking up to what people like you have been doing to the country and they will seek justice for what you and people like you have done to the United States. To be sure you, I allege, are a conspirator. The big cheeses made it possible for the little cheeses like you to make money robbing the American people. Next time you get into a car with folks on their way to commit crimes, think twice before going along. This is the first or second lesson my dad ever taught me. YOUR RIDE IS JUST ABOUT OVER! You and your kind, the wheeler-dealers with American wealth, go beyond the pale of decency and lawful conduct.

Go to http://speechcommon.net/wordpress to see why I would say what I have said and what follows--to put my words into context. Our nation is failing and people like you made it happen. Can it be saved? Probably not without putting people like you in jail at some point.

You and I suspect "the Club for Growth" crowd have destroyed the United States of America. WHERE'S THE GROWTH??? I SEE THE MOUNTING DEBT!!!

But for a miracle, that would be so morally and physically compelling that hundreds of people like you might wind up in jail, some charged with treason, the evidence for this is mounting with every passing day, war crimes trials follow massive harm done to a large number of people, the United States will fall. That is where this nation is headed thanks to people like you. I don't offer advice. People should have enough sense to be more cautious about advocating free trade "when a criminal conspiracy clearly, allegedly, underlies it." This E-mail comes from someone who actually knows what he is talking about or, at least, in any event, is not actively engaged in treasonous activity.

This nation has been taken over by Big banks doing the dirty work for a global arisitocracy that has overthrown the Constitution and legitimate government. As far as I am concerned you have no qualms about lending "aid and comfort" to the activities of such persons by advocating foreign investment in China at the peril of the United States and American people. Spies make money selling secrets. You are making money or trying to selling out our national economic order: its technology and manufacturing base. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO ADVANCE THE STATE OF THE CHINESE ECONOMY OVER THAT OF THE U.S. ECONOMY as is currently being done, nor, I believe, to advocate such activity as a player in the field. That a crony capitalist government, some of whose leaders have walked way out on a limb themselves, has facilitated your activity in this arena, to the extent you are engaged in financing the Communist Regime in China, with your actions and investments, is your concern not mine.

I did not say that I have knowledge that you have supplied money to the Communist Chinese government through foreign direct or other investment in China. You have or your haven't. What I do know is that you lend aid and comfort to those who do by advocating that the United States should be sold out for pennies on the dollar to foreign interests hostile to the United States, like China, by not protecting ourselves with reasonable weapons of national interest in foreign trade arena when those weapons are necessary to maintain the standard of living of Americans and the power of the United States. If you cannot make an honest living don't ask me to worry about you.

There are some people who laugh at the truth if they cannot put it in a bottle and seal it there. You might even get upset that anyone would challenge your business activities or speech; that I consider hostile to the United States and the American people. I really don't care what you think. Just be thankful that I am unable to prosecute a citizens arrest for what I believe you are doing!

One more thing. You have no idea what kind of social science is coming. I do. I will be leading the charge!

A copy of this E-mail is going to the Federal Crisis Inquiry Commission. I have been writing them. [A second Cc: to Kudlow.]

Ervin Kreutter
Xophe LLC

So you don’t accept the view, which Paul Krugman, Larry Summers, and others have put forward, that what has happened represents a rehabilitation of government action—that the government prevented a catastrophe?

Krugman wants to be the czar of the world. There are no economists that he likes. (Laughs)

And Larry Summers?

What other position could he take and still have a job? And he likes the job.

...Thanks very much. Finally, before I go, what about Paul Krugman’s recent piece in the New York Times Magazine, in which he attacked Chicago economics and the efficient markets hypothesis. What did you think of it?

(Laughs) My attitude is this: if you are getting attacked by Krugman, you must be doing something right.

Despite the fact that Bostonians love to call their town “the Hub,” to most Americans, it’s hardly the center of attention. More like a forgotten snow tire than a hub. See this headline from today’s Boston Globe:

Pulling out all the stops

Obama, in Hub, says he needs Coakley; Brown swipes at ‘machine politicians’

Every politician in America, not just The O, is paying attention to Massachusetts these days. So, let ole Mick tell you what he sees:

* So many people turned out to a Scott Brown rally that police had to close the streets.

* President Obama headlined a rally in Boston for Martha Coakley and drew 1500. You are the President of the United States, you have every union on red alert and the single best Democratic party grassroots activist — nicknamed “the Wizard” — lives in Boston. You’re on a college campus with an enrollment of 15,585. You only draw 1500? The NU Chess Club could probably draw 1500.

* The Boston Globe reports: “Obama also cast the Massachusetts election in stark terms regarding the future of the Democratic agenda, including the health care reform plan, which Coakley supports and Brown does not.” Umm, Mr. President, I think they know that and that’s why Brown is doing so well.

* Brown had help drawing that spillover crowd in Worchester as his rally had some real “A-List” stars such as the Red Sox champion pitcher Curt Shilling (whom Martha Coakley misidentified as a Yankees fan) and Boston College legendary quarterback Doug Flutie. Sports heroes in Massachusetts are like movie stars in Hollywood. If you can’t turn out the A list, don’t bother. If you can, you start looking A list yourself.

* Polls are said to be all over the place. Well, true, but let’s look closely at the latest one by the Public Policy Polling which says: “Scott Brown leads Martha Coakley 51-46 in Public Policy Polling’s final survey of the Massachusetts Senate special election, an advantage within the poll’s margin of error.”

* Democrats will hang onto that “margin of error” as a lifeline of hope. Trouble is that this very PPP poll oversamples Democrats as the poll’s sample of 1,231 likely voters was 44% independents and 39% Democrats. Independents are over 50% of likely voters in Massachusetts and headed higher.

* Any other polls out there with a higher percentage of independents? Yeah, try this one with 48% independents. It shows Brown with a lead of 9.6%:

* Last word to the real money bettors at Intrade: 63 to 36 Brown.

Say goodnight, Martha.

Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 8:17 PM | link