Clearly the real reason for Bush's downfall was that he had been artificially propped up by 9/11. His numbers actually drift pretty consistently downward except for some key events realted to foreign policy. However, if we have to pick a tipping point, I think all of you policy and political wonks are severely under estimating Cindy Sheehan. For the first time since 9/11 she took control of the media cycle, and that was the beginning of more accurate stories about what had been going on, as opposed to stories so impressed with how well Bush had managed the media.

Posted at December 28, 2006 5:44 AM in response to The Presidency as Ruined Hedge Fund

... budget surpluses... which logically clash... with the entrepreneur fable for those few paying close attention.

While this is true in a vacuum, I am not sure it is true in the context of the Clinton era -- a period bookended by runaway budgets, and ever increasing and yet to paid off debt.

Posted at October 1, 2006 9:11 AM in response to CHINA SYNDROME

I think it is a mistake to relate this communist kitsch to Stalin. It is hard to avoid Hitler when talking about Hitler's Cross. I think a restaurant named Stalin's Gulag and Grog would be offensive in a way that KGB bar is not.

Analyzing just the kinds of artifacts that would decorate the two restaurants, would also point to a difference (although I agree that there is something cultural about the threat of the Soviets for the entire cold war that makes adds to the acceptability.) If you were to analyze Nazi propaganda, the goal is generally racial. For communist propaganda, in general, the goal is to aggrandize workers. Despite the similar results of the two ideologies, the actual propaganda that supports them is not equivalent.

Posted at August 26, 2006 12:36 PM in response to Hitler's Cross

Second what LaFollette Prog... says.

Mickey's tedious (his words) response pretty well clarifies that he did not understand the basic point of this Yglesias post.

The research angle is both real and a canard. Assuming no change to the way research is funded this would be a significant problem, but as Dean Baker has shown, this is a ridiculously inefficient way to fund research (also see John Quiggin).
I assume that if this avenue of research funding dried up, it would make it much easier to pursue more efficient and sensible ways of funding research.

Posted at August 24, 2006 9:24 AM in response to What Price Health Care?

I was thinking very similarly over at DeLong's a while back (at least about that last paragraph).

Samwick sounds so embarassing here that either he, I or both are not understanding Samwick and or Krugman. It reminds me of the old Dawkins/Gould fueds, actually, and not unlike the nature/nurture battles - a false dichotomy.

Posted at August 22, 2006 6:53 PM in response to More Inequality

I agree. And one of the things that would really help would be if even the liberal pundits would not hold views like:

"a move to universal health care would be very expensive and likely to result in "a larger tax burden than citizens are willing to bear."

Of course, liberal pundits should be free to express their actual beliefs. But it is just a plainly wrong view, and terribly unhelpful. I hear Mickey did great work once upon a time, but that is no longer the case.

Posted at August 21, 2006 1:25 PM in response to What Price Health Care?

check out a9.com - amazon's little experiemtns - you can do a bunch of different type of searches (including google)

Posted at August 15, 2006 2:00 PM in response to To Google or not to Google

I think it goes like this.

George W. Bush freed from the demands of the Presidency is able to pursue his passions. Really more of an energy man, than the oil-only man he is labeled, George comes up with the first workable cold fusion reactors rapidly improving the quality of life for everyone on the planet. George then goes to work on a pony machine.

Posted at August 15, 2006 1:39 PM in response to Gore Means War

I think you can note with all my hemming and hawing at the beginning that I pretty much agree with you. Except I think there is value in pointing out how far astray the rhetoric can get from the ideal (the very reasonable Matthew Yglesias implying that the position that is obvious in the abstract is motivated by antisemitism).

Posted at August 10, 2006 11:48 AM in response to Racists Among Us

Al,

Can you detail for me the justifications for the Iraq war?

Posted at August 9, 2006 9:49 AM in response to Counting the Dead