As you may know, Bruce Bartlett has a new book out about the Bush presidency entitled “Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy” which is making quite a stir. If you don’t know who Bruce Bartlett is, let me excerpt this passage from The Economist‘s book review (which rather absurdly […]

All I could say when I read Kevin Drum today on single-payer health care was “YES”: [F]or tactical political reasons, [prominent Democratic politicians] think it’s more effective to talk about incremental solutions. I disagree. …The alternative, I think, is to continue supporting improvements to the current system but to make it absolutely clear that our […]

George Will has decided the former Senator John Edwards has an old paradigm of what causes poverty in America: Edwards has a 1930s paradigm of poverty: Poor people are like everyone else; they just lack goods and services (housing, transportation, training, etc.) that government knows how to deliver. Hence he calls for a higher minimum […]

Paul Krugman’s internet stalker is posting addendum after addendum to his The Abramoff Math Scandal, which he first ran on February 24. His only point, however, was already covered on January 28 by Kevin – who has more here: Bottom line: as everyone knows, Abramoff was a lifelong Republican operative and steered the vast bulk […]

This morning the BEA released its second estimate of fourth quarter GDP. The estimate for GDP growth was revised up substantially, but the level was still very low, and the upward revision was no more than most observers had hoped for. Comparing to the BEA’s first estimate: The preliminary estimate of the fourth-quarter increase in […]

William Buckley says It Didn’t Work: One can’t doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed. The same edition of the paper quotes a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Reuel Marc Gerecht backed the American intervention. He now speaks of the bombing of the especially sacred Shiite mosque in Samara and what […]

Bill Polley responds to my critique of Michael Darda: China made a decision over a decade ago to fix its currency to the dollar. This was before the massive explosion of growth and before the Asian financial crisis. They have managed one of the most successful hard pegs in the region, and it probably saved […]

Perhaps you may recall the greymail tactics of Scooter Libby’s defense team. When Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald called the defense team on these tactics, the defense attorneys accused Mr. Fitzgerald of lying and were insulted by the allegation – even though the allegation is clearly true. The latest tactic from the defense team seems to […]

Arnold Kling writes: If the oil company executives want to put money on their “working assumption of $15-$30 per barrel,” then they should go short in the futures market. But if their goal is to maximize shareholder wealth, then they should make long-term investment planning decisions based on the futures price of about $60 a […]

Kevin Drum is hoping Senator Roberts does the right thing: Apparently Roberts now feels not only that his committee should be briefed, but that the program itself should be overseen by the FISA court. If Roberts follows up on this, then good for him. On both scores, I have my doubts. CNN is still suggesting […]