Brad DeLong had a bad experience, recounted at Every Time I Try to Crawl Out, They Pull Me Back in!
Sample:
I trot over to the J-School TV studio as part of the sober, sensible, bipartisan consensus, intending to carry water for Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson.
And what do I find also on BBC/Newsnight when I get there?
I FIND THAT I AM ON WITH GROVER-FRACKING-NORQUIST!! I FIND THAT I AM ON WITH GROVER-FRACKING-NORQUIST!!! WHO HAS THREE POINTS HE WANTS TO MAKE:
- Barack Obama wants to take your money by raising your taxes and pay it to the Communist Chinese.
- Oil prices are high today and the economy is in a near recession because of Nancy Pelosi: before Nancy Pelosi became speaker economic growth was fine—and she is responsible for high oil prices too.
- Economic growth is stalling because congress has not extended the Bush tax cuts. Congress needs to extend the Bush tax cuts, and if it does then that will fix the economy, and if it doesn't then the economy cannot recover.
Brad says he has to be medicated better to deal with this nonsense. (“OK. Calm down. Adjust my meds…”)
Or, it seems, being an economist, instead of being better medicated, he could just be better paid….
I am not paid enough to deal with this lying bullshit. I am not paid enough to deal with Grover Norquist and his willful stream of defecation into the global information pool.
It is is amazing how few liberal equivalents to Fred Barnes, Grover Norquist and that whole merry crew exist. Or maybe they exist and don't get media time. I'm not saying there's no one, but there's few and they're not on nearly as often.
Then again, on these issues, there probably are not a lot of responsible conservative economists willing to attack Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson right now.
