This Week at TPMCafe: The Big Con and Charlie Savage
As if there wasn't enough to follow this week with Petraeus and Crocker hitting up Capital Hill for political support and cash, we've got two amazing features here at TPMCafe.
In the Book Club, we've assembled a pretty incredible group of folks to debate Jon Chait new book The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics. Joining Chait will be Paul Krugman of Princeton and the NYTs, Stephen Moore of the WSJ and formerly of the Club for Growth, Ezra Klein of the American Prospect, Will Wilkinson of the Cato Institute, and Megan McArdle and Ross Douthat both of the Atlantic Monthly. It's a brilliant and intellectually diverse group from which we expect some entertaining fireworks.
At the Table for One, we're thrilled to have Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charlie Savage here to talk about his new book, Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy. Savage won his Pulitzer for being one of the only major American journalists to, as Glenn Greenwald put it, simply "look at the public record of what the White House was doing, figure out what it meant, and report what the government was doing." As his editor put it, "he covers what the White House does, not just what it says."
Enjoy both of them, we're proud to have them. And let me know what you'd like to see in the future and we'll work with you to make it happen.
You've got one of the tabs misdirecting at present (Reader Blogs).
Interesting decision to have a balance of respondents to Chait, including more than one from the extreme right. I'm not sure what to say. Perhaps I should wait to see how enlightening it is, as opposed to a Sunday morning TV shout fest of pundit fabrications.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
September 10, 2007 7:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fixed the link there, thanks for the heads up.
In terms of the balance, I think it'll be interesting to watch. Frankly, I think Jon's argument is so strong that to some extent a non-ideologically balanced panel would have just been a series of "I agree" posts. Jon, Krugman and Klein bring a lot of intellectual firepower from the left, so I'm not terribly worried about them.
September 10, 2007 8:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's quite a Book Club. Krugman versus Moore is like a celebrity death match within the dismal science.
September 10, 2007 8:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just when I thought I could break my internet addiction. Diabolical. That's what this line up is. Simply diabolical. :-))
September 10, 2007 8:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Awesome line up!!!!!
Thanks so much.
I'd like to see you guys get Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker. His reporting has been bang on.
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September 10, 2007 8:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Balance is great, but shouldn't your panelists actually read the book they're discussing?
Here's Megan McArdle blogging about Chait today:
Of course, the organizer of a panel is not wholly responsible for the panelists' doing their homework. But in the case of McArdle, this kind of thing is pretty predictable.
No favors are done to either the left or the right by providing platforms to bloggers from either side who've made a virtual career out of writing research-free posts on subjects about which they both know nothing and seem utterly uninterested in actually learning anything.
September 10, 2007 12:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Robert Parry of Consortiumnews.com is flogging his new book Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush (Parry and sons) and would be a great guest.
September 10, 2007 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Michael Klare as a regular at America Abroad.
A discussion on the topic of where the United States now does--and should--support military bases around the world. Chalmers Johnson has been here before, I know, and has tried to dig up the numbers and other facts. He would be terrific. I don't know if he has offered a specific proposal on where he thinks the US should disband its bases. If there is someone who has done their homework who is making such an argument I would like to see someone make that case, with invited respondents commenting from a range of well-informed perspectives as to likely consequences of various scenarios.
This discussion might get into some discussion of military planning contingencies, not a usual topic for this or other liberal sites, but one I would like to know more about, as well as see discussed in a well informed, critical way.
September 11, 2007 12:18 AM | Reply | Permalink