Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Hmmm. John Kerry has been - shall we say - adequate as a Senator. John Kerry runs for President with a lackluster campaign and gets nowhere. John Kerry changes his part of his staff and his tone, and starts appearing on stage with war comrades. Electoral success follows.
Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, but here it just matches up really well.
The John Kerry story sounds like the story of Norman Grant from James Michener's novel Space. Grant has integrity but not much else. He is recruited to run for the Senate, and his campaign is failing. A flashy manager convinces him to invite his buddies from the Battle of Leyte Gulf on stage with him. Electoral success follows.
It gets better! Norman Grant has a goofy wife who gets involved in bizarre issues that threaten his political career. And ... Norman Grant ends up being marginalized, more or less like John Kerry will be by the end of the year.
Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, but here it just matches up really well.
The John Kerry story sounds like the story of Norman Grant from James Michener's novel Space. Grant has integrity but not much else. He is recruited to run for the Senate, and his campaign is failing. A flashy manager convinces him to invite his buddies from the Battle of Leyte Gulf on stage with him. Electoral success follows.
It gets better! Norman Grant has a goofy wife who gets involved in bizarre issues that threaten his political career. And ... Norman Grant ends up being marginalized, more or less like John Kerry will be by the end of the year.
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Bob Bartley also passed away in December. Most people don't even know what he was responsible for.
Starting in the early 1970's Bartley was the editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal. So, he wrote many of the pieces that appeared there, hired many of the people who wrote the other pieces, and set the general tone for the newspaper. This is important because there was essentially no conservative or liberterian political movement in this country when Bartley took that position. Yet by the 1990's many of "liberal" President Clinton's policies were to the right of those pursued by the "conservative" Nixon - the political center of the country had moved that far.
So, why should I care? Like most teenagers I was very liberal (I even fantasized about being an anarchist). In 1980 I wasn't old enough to vote, but I was pretty sure that President Carter was one of those people who is so well educated that they've even succeeded in convincing themselves that they're not stupid. He had to go, but, the alternatives were Ronald Reagan and John Anderson. I was pragmatic enough to dismiss the latter, but I bought the line that Reagan was a dumb, reactionary, washed up bad actor who wasn't fit to be president. After he was elected, I graduated from high school, started college, and decided that he seemed tolerable.
In the spring semester of 1983 I was required to subscribe to The Wall Street Journal for a class about monetary economics. It didn't change my life. I don't even think I realized it was conservative. My subscription expired.
The next semester I spent abroad on an exchange program in London. One day a friend told me that the newspapers in England had political viewpoints that they were known for, and that some of them were conservative. This was a new thing for me - most cities in the U.S. don't have newspapers with competing political positions that you can choose from. So, I took up reading a bunch of them.
I'm not sure when the change took place, but I can remember telling a friend in Italy in the summer of 1984 that there were certain newspapers I didn't bother to read any more because I didn't agree with their non-conservative positions. A year later I had my first apartment by myself and soon after a subscription to The Wall Street Journal.
It would be fair to say that I probably haven't missed an edition since late 1985. The editorial page of that paper still speaks to me in a way that no other publication does. I have small kids now, and I don't have much time to read anything, but I still find time for that paper.
And, as the years went by I came to realize that the person communicating to me from the paper was Bob Bartley.
Twenty years ago a movement towards a defense against missles was often viewed as a bad idea. Now, people seriously discuss whether a defense against terrorists is a good idea. Are these people kidding me?
Talk to anyone younger than their early 30's. They have no recollection of the period from 1966 to 1983. None of the items on this list seems real to them. Do you understand how wonderful that is? Yes, it is a problem if they make bad decisions because they haven't been exposed to the consequences ... but that is secondary. Our society has done an amazing thing in raising a generation with no exposure to those problems.
Uh ... yeah. What took so long.
How does this question make you feel about Howard Dean?
I was just becoming cognizant of the world around me when it was "in the process of becoming unglued". I hated the summer of 1973 - all the good television shows were pre-empted because of Congressional hearings full of people frowning. I remember waking up my parents that autumn because I knew it was wrong that a bunch of countries had made a sneak attack on another one. The next summer, the first president I ever knew by name snuck out the metaphorical back door. Lots of people made fun of the new President, and even kids know there is a problem when the insults don't stop. My parents talked about gas all the time, which didn't seem fun. Our house got pretty cold in the winter before the furnace came on, and my thicker clothes were not as comfortable. The next President was one of the first adults I was aware of who seemed clueless. My Dad started to talk seriously about putting all of our money into gold. Almost a thousand Americans moved out of the country together, and then drank poisoned Kool-Aid together too. A government and a society were overthrown in a place called Nicaragua, and a friend of the family who had no trouble saying that was a good idea announced that she was also glad she didn't live in a little African country like that. A Thanksgiving came where people who had committed no crime were held hostage because they were American. And while the glow of Christmas was still upon our house the Soviets just brazenly fly troop filled cargo planes onto the runway at a place called Kabul and announce they are taking over; and the President's response was to announce that our athletes could compete in the Olympics on our soil, but that they are not free to go compete on Soviet soil. A loon shoots the President to impress a teenage actress, a hired gun shoots the Pope over politics not religion, and Anwar Sadat gets machine gunned during a parade - all on television in the family room. Unglued is an awfully subtle word for this, but it feels right to me.
And it still does...
Starting in the early 1970's Bartley was the editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal. So, he wrote many of the pieces that appeared there, hired many of the people who wrote the other pieces, and set the general tone for the newspaper. This is important because there was essentially no conservative or liberterian political movement in this country when Bartley took that position. Yet by the 1990's many of "liberal" President Clinton's policies were to the right of those pursued by the "conservative" Nixon - the political center of the country had moved that far.
So, why should I care? Like most teenagers I was very liberal (I even fantasized about being an anarchist). In 1980 I wasn't old enough to vote, but I was pretty sure that President Carter was one of those people who is so well educated that they've even succeeded in convincing themselves that they're not stupid. He had to go, but, the alternatives were Ronald Reagan and John Anderson. I was pragmatic enough to dismiss the latter, but I bought the line that Reagan was a dumb, reactionary, washed up bad actor who wasn't fit to be president. After he was elected, I graduated from high school, started college, and decided that he seemed tolerable.
In the spring semester of 1983 I was required to subscribe to The Wall Street Journal for a class about monetary economics. It didn't change my life. I don't even think I realized it was conservative. My subscription expired.
The next semester I spent abroad on an exchange program in London. One day a friend told me that the newspapers in England had political viewpoints that they were known for, and that some of them were conservative. This was a new thing for me - most cities in the U.S. don't have newspapers with competing political positions that you can choose from. So, I took up reading a bunch of them.
I'm not sure when the change took place, but I can remember telling a friend in Italy in the summer of 1984 that there were certain newspapers I didn't bother to read any more because I didn't agree with their non-conservative positions. A year later I had my first apartment by myself and soon after a subscription to The Wall Street Journal.
It would be fair to say that I probably haven't missed an edition since late 1985. The editorial page of that paper still speaks to me in a way that no other publication does. I have small kids now, and I don't have much time to read anything, but I still find time for that paper.
And, as the years went by I came to realize that the person communicating to me from the paper was Bob Bartley.
"...the underlying philosophy that has dominated our strategic deployments and arms-negotiating strategies for a generation -- the notion that defense is bad ..." (The Wall Street Journal, June 25, 1984)
Twenty years ago a movement towards a defense against missles was often viewed as a bad idea. Now, people seriously discuss whether a defense against terrorists is a good idea. Are these people kidding me?
"Not the least of Mr. Reagan's accomplishments is how much the nation has forgotten. He took office
in the very shadow of a hostage crisis, remember? Remember gasoline lines? Remember double-digit
inflation and interest rates twice today's?" (The Wall Street Journal, January 19, 1989)
Talk to anyone younger than their early 30's. They have no recollection of the period from 1966 to 1983. None of the items on this list seems real to them. Do you understand how wonderful that is? Yes, it is a problem if they make bad decisions because they haven't been exposed to the consequences ... but that is secondary. Our society has done an amazing thing in raising a generation with no exposure to those problems.
"The only logical conclusion of events so far is that Saddam must go." (The Wall Street Journal, February 21, 1991)
Uh ... yeah. What took so long.
"So once again it comes to this: Is there any real reason to trust an unknown Governor when he says he's different?" (The Wall Street Journal, March, 12, 1992)
How does this question make you feel about Howard Dean?
"Let me take you back to January 1972, when I took the editorial helm. This wasn't merely a troubled society, but one in the process of coming unglued. Crime rates and out-of-wedlock births were rising, and we had experienced a "long hot summer" of riots. Abroad, America was mired in Vietnam and the Communist empire was on the march. conomically, we were on the cusp of a new and dispiriting era. Huge legal and constitutional controversy lurked ahead. My career has consisted of watching these dire trends unfold, and watching this remarkable society overcome them." ((The Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2002)
I was just becoming cognizant of the world around me when it was "in the process of becoming unglued". I hated the summer of 1973 - all the good television shows were pre-empted because of Congressional hearings full of people frowning. I remember waking up my parents that autumn because I knew it was wrong that a bunch of countries had made a sneak attack on another one. The next summer, the first president I ever knew by name snuck out the metaphorical back door. Lots of people made fun of the new President, and even kids know there is a problem when the insults don't stop. My parents talked about gas all the time, which didn't seem fun. Our house got pretty cold in the winter before the furnace came on, and my thicker clothes were not as comfortable. The next President was one of the first adults I was aware of who seemed clueless. My Dad started to talk seriously about putting all of our money into gold. Almost a thousand Americans moved out of the country together, and then drank poisoned Kool-Aid together too. A government and a society were overthrown in a place called Nicaragua, and a friend of the family who had no trouble saying that was a good idea announced that she was also glad she didn't live in a little African country like that. A Thanksgiving came where people who had committed no crime were held hostage because they were American. And while the glow of Christmas was still upon our house the Soviets just brazenly fly troop filled cargo planes onto the runway at a place called Kabul and announce they are taking over; and the President's response was to announce that our athletes could compete in the Olympics on our soil, but that they are not free to go compete on Soviet soil. A loon shoots the President to impress a teenage actress, a hired gun shoots the Pope over politics not religion, and Anwar Sadat gets machine gunned during a parade - all on television in the family room. Unglued is an awfully subtle word for this, but it feels right to me.
"Journalistically, my proudest boast is that I've run the only editorial page in the country that actually
sells newspapers." (The Wall Street Journal, December 30, 2002)
And it still does...
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
It's January, and time to discuss two people who passed away last year. Actually, late last year - my memory is as short as anyone.
The easiest is former Delaware Senator William Roth. Reagan is often credited for both reducing taxes, and creating an environment in which tax cuts were always on the table. Today, we talk of "Reagan's tax cuts". Those tax cuts were the idea of William Roth and Jack Kemp - the proposal had floated around Congress for four years before it could be passed and signed by Reagan. I think William Roth may be the biggest unsung political-economic hero of the last 25 years.
The obituarires for former Illinois Senator and presidential candidate Paul Simon ticked me off. Those who've been paying attention for the last couple of decades know that Senator Simon was a "journalist" before he went to Washington. Working journalists seemed to love to slip that bit of trivia in; as if it made Simon's ideas better. Perhaps it did. What frosts me is that it wasn't until he died that every major publication published an obituary noting his service as owner, editor, and reported of a small town newspaper from 1948 to 1954. After that he was elected to the Illinois legislature, and spent over forty years in government positions. Does this mean that all of us who have successful careers will be judged by what we did from age 19 to 26? Gee, I was a graduate student and pizza deliverer during that time - is that what I'm going to be known as when I'm in my 70's? I don't think so. The upshot here is that if journalists think a senator is special because he was also a journalist once upon a time, what does that say about the values used by those journalists to filter the news before passing it on to us? (By the way, as an economist, I still reserve the right to claim that the Rolling Stones are great because Mick Jagger once attended the London School of Economics).
The easiest is former Delaware Senator William Roth. Reagan is often credited for both reducing taxes, and creating an environment in which tax cuts were always on the table. Today, we talk of "Reagan's tax cuts". Those tax cuts were the idea of William Roth and Jack Kemp - the proposal had floated around Congress for four years before it could be passed and signed by Reagan. I think William Roth may be the biggest unsung political-economic hero of the last 25 years.
The obituarires for former Illinois Senator and presidential candidate Paul Simon ticked me off. Those who've been paying attention for the last couple of decades know that Senator Simon was a "journalist" before he went to Washington. Working journalists seemed to love to slip that bit of trivia in; as if it made Simon's ideas better. Perhaps it did. What frosts me is that it wasn't until he died that every major publication published an obituary noting his service as owner, editor, and reported of a small town newspaper from 1948 to 1954. After that he was elected to the Illinois legislature, and spent over forty years in government positions. Does this mean that all of us who have successful careers will be judged by what we did from age 19 to 26? Gee, I was a graduate student and pizza deliverer during that time - is that what I'm going to be known as when I'm in my 70's? I don't think so. The upshot here is that if journalists think a senator is special because he was also a journalist once upon a time, what does that say about the values used by those journalists to filter the news before passing it on to us? (By the way, as an economist, I still reserve the right to claim that the Rolling Stones are great because Mick Jagger once attended the London School of Economics).
Here we go.
