When to Stop Reading a “Non-Fiction” Article

(cross-posted from Skippy the Bush Kangaroo)

Mark Thoma sends us to Benjamin M. Friedman. Given that imprimatur, one expects precise analysis. (Mark, after all, is an econometrician by trade.)

So it was surprising to stop reading so early. Specifically, I gave up on this cretinous piece of garbage at:

especially during the president’s first year in office, when the Democrats held a filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate

Just so you know I’m not pulling from context:

The most pressing among [other economic problems than that “roughly one in six Americans — 50 million in a population of 307 million — had no health insurance”] was, and remains, financial reform. Rather than advance its own set of proposals — especially during the president’s first year in office, when the Democrats held a filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate — the administration largely left the matter to Congress.

So this is the usual argument. The stimulus had been passed, so “the Obama domestic agenda shifted to health care.” I consider this horseshit*, but your mileage may vary.

What is clearly horseshit though, except in the most technical of senses, is the claim that “the Democrats held a filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate” as if that were for the entire first year of Obama’s presidency, not just from 07 July 2009 (when Al Franken was finally sworn in as the 60th Democrat) to 25 August 2009 (when Ted Kennedy died).

Less than two months isn’t even close to a year, and “a lie is a very poor way to say hello.”** It’s an even poorer way to premise the rest of your “but Obama didn’t try to deal with MY problems” article—especially when he did.

Billmon was correct ten years ago; the Washington Post should have been destroyed with fire and sword. (Indeed, Billmon just neglected to mention the need to salt the earth at 1150 15th street NW.) Jeff Bezos appears determined to continue the tradition.***

*The Administration did, after all, continue to support and argue for “financial reform”–the Consumer Financial Protection Board was founded on 21 July 2011.

***This is datapoint number 1,000,000 or so in favor of that.