Krugman steps a bridge too far

The hopes of Cleveland rest on crafty veteran Paul Byrd tonight, as he takes on the vaunted Yankees. Hopefully, they can slap the Yankees' Wang around again.

I always read Paul Krugman; he gets on my nerves but he's smart and hard to argue with. He went a bridge too far today:

People claim to be shocked by Mr. Bush’s general fiscal irresponsibility. But conservative intellectuals, by their own account, abandoned fiscal responsibility 30 years ago. Here’s how Irving Kristol, then the editor of The Public Interest, explained his embrace of supply-side economics in the 1970s: He had a “rather cavalier attitude toward the budget deficit and other monetary or fiscal problems” because “the task, as I saw it, was to create a new majority, which evidently would mean a conservative majority, which came to mean, in turn, a Republican majority — so political effectiveness was the priority, not the accounting deficiencies of government.”

"People claim to be shocked by the Bush administration’s general incompetence. But disinterest in good government has long been a principle of modern conservatism. In “The Conscience of a Conservative,” published in 1960, Barry Goldwater wrote that “I have little interest in streamlining government or making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size.”

Let's review, shall we? Bush is:

1. the heir to a movement that is really uninterested in decreasing the size of government, that is only using that claim as a hammer to win elections


2. the heir to a movement that is not interested in good government, only in decreasing its size

People claim to be shocked at the Bush administration’s attempts to equate dissent with treason.

As opposed to moveon.org equating non-dissent with treason, or an attempt at enforcement of fiscal responsibility as an active preference for keeping children without health care? I don't always the support the tone of the Bush administration, but blaming one side for the political discourse that has been endemic for years, and , indeed, is on display in this very column is disingenuous at best.

Oh, and if you think Iran-Contra was a rogue operation, rather than something done with the full knowledge and approval of people at the top — who were then protected by a careful cover-up, including convenient presidential pardons — I’ve got a letter from Niger you might want to buy.

Do you really honestly think that if there was any "there" there, Lawrence Walsh wouldn't have found it? How much was spent on that investigation?

You keep that flame of hate alive, Paul.

First Monday

Here come the Supremes -- and as we turn to the month on the calendar where eight (well, nine, until tonight anyway) cities are focused more on other groups of nine contesting the baseball playoffs, the Supreme Court will begin its session today. Many big cases are on tap; for the best coverage anywhere, take a leap past Linda Greenhouse at the NYT and go straight to the recently redesigned SCOTUS blog. If the law is as interesting to you as it is to me, you'll enjoy the read.

Which brings me to my main point for today. I have no brief for the current crop of Republican presidential candidates, except for McCain, who probably won't win. In fact, if it ends up being

Giuliani vs. HRC, there isn't much difference on policy positions and on intangibles I would probably prefer Hillary.

But, I would have to vote for Rudy in that case. The most important difference is that Rudy will appoint justices to the Supreme Court who will respect the Constitution and the other branches of government for the next 20 years. Hillary will appoint justices who will rewrite the constitution to achieve their policy objectives. That is more important than anything else, in my opinion.