Many or even most Congressmen are conscientious after a fashion. However, the most important skill set for re-election is not wonky immersion in policy details, but the ability to walk into a crowded room and create an immediate rapport with constituents. While some politicians nurture core beliefs or at least dispositions, they often rely on aides and especially a few fellow Congressmen who have the aptitude and the seriousness to study policies in detail. Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI), now Chair of the House Budget Committee, is one of the followed Congressmen.
This afternoon, Paul Gigot, Chief of the Editorial Board of the the Wall Street Journal interviewed Congressman Ryan at the National Press Club in a forum sponsored by E21.com and the Manhattan Institute
The reader can obtain their own impression of the exchange by viewing the interview on C-SPAN. However, it was clear that Representative Ryan believes that substantive budget discipline can only be obtained if President Obama compromises. This is in not likely to happen. Hence, much of the work of this Congress will be to set the stage for Americans to make a choice in 2012.
The first real test between the President and Congress will occur when the debt ceiling has to be increased this spring. While it is clear that no one wants the US to default on its debt, Ryan says that Congress will not be a rubber stamp. There will not be a naked debt ceiling increase bill. Any bill that increases the debt ceiling will include as many spending concessions as Congress is able to negotiate
Gigot reminded Ryan of the fact the government shuthown in 1995 backfired on the Republican Congress and in large measure guaranteed the election of President Bill Clinto. Doesnt this mean that Congress is likely to blink in any budget showdown. Perhaps the one bit of news this afternoon, is that Ryan suggested that Congress willl pass a debt ceiling increase bill with budget cuts and try to arrange it so that President Obama will either have to sign the ceiling increase or he will shut down the government. Unlike 1995, Ryan believes people understand that budget discipline is needed now to forestall greater austerity in the future as the Baby Boob generation retires.
If experience ins any lesson, Ryan and Congress will not be able to phrase the budget question to their benefit. The press will be happy to make it appear that it is Congress that is holding the government hostage. The best the Republican Congress can hope for is to make it clear that Obama refuses to cut the budget.
Krugman Deconstruction
Sunday, January 16th, 2011We can mark the specific time when the political controversy surrounding the “Tragedy in Tucson began. Just a couple of hours after the news broke, Dr. Paul Krugman posted a blog blaming the attack in Tucson on a climate of hate presumably perpetrated by the Right.
Krugmans accusations were soon undermined by the facts, though Krugmans own grandiosity makes him incapable of conceding an error. The alleged perpetrator, Jared Loughner, apparently suffers from severe mental disturbances. There is no political connection to any group. Loughner is profoundly delusional. The cause of his actions arise entirely from his intensely disturbed mind.
Charles Krauthammer recently wrote the definitive piece describing the Lefts predisposition to leap to accusation with little proof and with less thought, especially when Conservatives are a convenient target. Nonetheless, if only out of intellectual curiosity, it is of some interest to deconstruct further Krugmans instant analysis.
Krugman concedes that there are extreme and intemperate voices on all sides of the political spectrum, but “Lets not make a false pretense of balance: its coming, overwhelmingly, from the [R]ight.
From the standpoint of argumentative effectiveness, we would expect the clever Krugman to offer the clearest and most persuasive example of a prominent Conservative or a Republican inciting violence. This is what Krugman managed to conjure up: “Its hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be `armed and dangerous without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.
Perhaps, Krugman was ill-informed, but his example is terribly weak. It turns out that if one looks at the entire quote and not the three words carefully excised by Krugman, Bachman wanted her constituents to be armed with information with which to make their cases. —Oops. And this was presumably the sharpest arrow in Krugmans rhetorical quiver. Is that too martial a metaphor?
Much more subtly, Krugman speaks of those on the Right of using “eliminationist rhetoric to de-legitimize political opposition. The word “eliminationist is not a common term and its use by Krugman is curious and revealing. The term was coined in 1996 by Daniel Goldhagen in his book Hitler’s Willing Executioners, referring to deep-seated anti-Semistism of pre-War Germany and its exploitation by Nazi propaganda to make the German people accomplices to the Holocaust. Later is was used by David Neiwert in his book The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right to draw a connection between Nazis and the American RIght.
Krugman borrows this association of the Right in the US with Nazi behavior by the deliberate use of the term “eliminationist. It is is a skillful way of demonizing and de-legitimizing his political adversaries, precisely the same acts of bad faith he accuses the Right of. Perhaps this is rank hypocrisy or perhaps something more.
With the tragic events of the last week, we are all becoming more familiar with psychological terminology than we care to be. I am sure that Krugman is a fine fellow who appreciates beauty, basks in the aroma of flowers, and enjoys the sound of children at play and the softness of puppies. However, his impromptu blog last week probably says more about Krugman than it did about the situation in Tucson. When speaking of the Right, Krugmans political mania is touched, and he reverts to the mechanism of “projection.
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