*David Brooks Discovers That A Perfectly Creased Pant Is Not Necessarily
A Sign Of Economic Policy Competence: *Early in Obama's campaign for the
presidency, the /New York Times/ columnist set himself up for almost
permanent ridicule <http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/the-courtship>:
In the spring of 2005, New York Times columnist David Brooks arrived
at then-Senator Barack Obama's office for a chat. Brooks, a
conservative writer who joined the Times in 2003 from The Weekly
Standard, had never met Obama before. But, as they chewed over the
finer points of Edmund Burke, it didn't take long for the two men to
click. "I don't want to sound like I'm bragging," Brooks recently
told me, "but usually when I talk to senators, while they may know a
policy area better than me, they generally don't know political
philosophy better than me. I got the sense he knew both better than
me."
That first encounter is still vivid in Brooks's mind. "I remember
distinctly an image of--we were sitting on his couches, and I was
looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pant," Brooks
says, "and I'm thinking, a) he's going to be president and b) he'll
be a very good president." In the fall of 2006, two days after
Obama's The Audacity of Hope hit bookstores, Brooks published a
glowing Times column. The headline was "Run, Barack, Run."
(Everyone has been laughing at that "perfectly creased pant" line ever
since. Some, including me, suspect that Obama conned Brooks in that
encounter by pretending a knowledge of Burke that he does not have.)
Today, without specifically blaming Obama, Brooks concludes,
tentatively, that the man with the "perfectly creased pant" has chosen a
poor set of economic policies. Brooks comes to this conclusion in a
traditionally conservative way; he looks at which policies have
succeeded, and which policies have, so far, failed
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/opinion/27brooks.html>.
During the first half of this year, German and American political
leaders engaged in an epic debate. American leaders argued that
the economic crisis was so bad, governments should borrow billions
to stimulate growth. German leaders argued that a little short-term
stimulus was sensible, but anything more was near-sighted. What was
needed was not more debt, but measures to balance budgets and
restore confidence.
. . .
This divergence created a natural experiment. Who was right?
The early returns suggest the Germans were. The American stimulus
package was supposed to create a "summer of recovery," according to
Obama administration officials. Job growth was supposed to be
surging at up to 500,000 a month. Instead, the U.S. economy is
scuffling along.
The German economy, on the other hand, is growing at a sizzling (and
obviously unsustainable) 9 percent annual rate. Unemployment in
Germany has come down to pre-crisis levels.
So Brooks has taken a first step in his escape from that fascination
with that "perfectly pressed pant" leg. But he still has far to go. He
compares the two nations over the the "last decade", which ignores the
sharp break in policy after the 2006 election, a break that can be seen
in any chart of spending or deficits. (And ignores the solid
productivity gains during most of Bush's presidency.)
Still, a first step is better than none, and we can hope that Brooks
takes a few more, soon. (And even if he doesn't we can take a little
pleasure in knowing that this column will infuriate Brooks' companion on
the editorial pages, Paul Krugman.)
(It may seem odd to praise, however faintly, a journalist for learning
from experience. But that happens less often than I would like, and so
I don't mind praising one for doing what all of them ought to do,
routinely.)
- 8:12 AM, 27 August 2010 [link]
<http://www.seanet.com/%7Ejimxc/Politics/August2010_4.html#jrm9086>
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
