Kudos to DailyKos diarist(s) Roosevelt Institute for spotting the article this morning, and succinctly summarizing it, as follows:
Bruce Bartlett explains how he got shunned and excommunicated from the mainstream conservative movement after decades of toeing the party line because he dared to point out that observable economic reality seems to have a strong Keynesian bias.
...
For more than 30 years, I was very comfortable within the conservative wing of the Republican Party. [I worked for or with: Goldwater, Nixon, Young Republicans (during Vietnam), Ron Paul in 1976, Jack Kemp, supply-side economists, Jude Wanniski, Heritage Fdn, Reagan's White House, Gary Bauer, James Baker, Nick Brady, Glenn Hubbard, Cato Institute and NCPA; and wrote conservative editorials for: WSJ, Washington (Moonie) Times, Investor's Business Daily, NY Sun, etc.]
In November 2003, I had an intellectual crisis... The [2004] article is best remembered for his quote from an anonymous White House official dismissing critics like me for being “the reality-based community.” ... I was banned from Fox News... extended throughout Rupert Murdoch’s empire. After careful research [in 2007-08], I came to the annoying conclusion that Keynes had been 100% right in the 1930s. Previously, I had thought the opposite. ... I had previously viewed Krugman as an intellectual enemy and attacked him... For the record, no one has been more correct in his analysis and prescriptions for the economy’s problems than Paul Krugman. The blind hatred for him on the right simply pushed me further away from my old allies and comrades.
The final line for me to cross in complete alienation from the right was my recognition that Obama is not a leftist. In fact, he’s barely a liberal—and only because the political spectrum has moved so far to the right that moderate Republicans from the past are now considered hardcore leftists by right-wing standards today."
Any farther to the right and they'll fall off the edge of the Earth. Happy landings.
No comments:
Post a Comment