The Economist notices the hypocrisy of Krugman & Co. After eight years of denouncing the “bitterness” and “polarization” and “divisiveness” that supposedly came down the pipeline from 1600 Penn. Ave., Krugman & Co. now want more of it.

The Internet has a long memory and eventually, the electoral worm will turn. When it does, Krugman’s words may well be remembered by those who currently “huff and puff.” Of course, one naturally expects that by then, Krugman will rediscover the sweet, sweet joys of bipartisanship and decry as “bitter,” “polarizing” and “divisive” the Republicans who would act the way he is encouraging the Obama Administration to act now.

I suppose that this kind of hypocrisy must really be blatant if the mainstream media has picked up on it so quickly and is so eager to denounce it. The hypocrites in question are really pieces of work, aren’t they? One almost thinks that they believe Google does not exist and some form of mass contagion has wiped out the memory of just about every person in the country.

“Contraception is a good thing because it will reduce the costs of the state and federal government in providing services.”

No. Really. She said that.

I am not one of these people who thinks that contraception is a sin. Far from it. I just never had it in me to suggest the positively ghoulish idea that providing contraceptives would be desirable so that the state and federal governments can reduce costs in the long term. What’s next? Adoption of the Chinese “one child” policy?

The White House’s Director of the National Economic Council. That’s who.

I keep waiting for our vaunted mainstream media to point out that the stimulus package, as currently constructed, not only defies what history has to teach us concerning the efficacy of Keynesian stimulus, it also goes against what many of the President’s own policymakers have said in the past concerning the implementation of Keynesian stimulus packages. Larry Summers’s verdict on the ideal shape of a Keynesian stimulus package is a lot more sympathetic to Keynes than is mine but the Obama Administration’s plan does not even measure up to Summers’s ideal Keynesian stimulus package.

I admit that a Summers v. Summers debate on the efficacy of the Administration’s economic plan would be an entertaining one. I’d pay good money to watch it. But the mere existence of such a debate should set off alarm bells that perhaps, just perhaps, the Obama Administration’s stimulus plan needs some serious reworking.

Matt Yglesias has a very good post on Robert Barro’s latest.  Brad DeLong seems to agree with Matt.  Paul Krugman uses the word “boneheaded” to describe the Barro piece.

This exchange is a good micro-cosm of how the stimulus debate has proceeded.  A highly respected anti-stimulus economist puts up some anti-stimulus evidence in a highly imperfect test (in Barro’s defense, he did cover more than just WWII).  The anti-stimulus economist is attacked by pro-stimulus economists.  But the pro-stimulus proponents are focused on attack.  They are not putting up comparable empirical evidence of their own for the efficacy of fiscal policy and there is a reason for that, namely that the evidence isn’t really there.

I fully admit that I don’t trust the oft-cited evidence that tax cuts are 4x better stimulus than government spending boosts; I think the result is a mirage from underspecified models.  Overall we simply don’t know how well the proposed stimulus will work — if at all (is aggregate demand always the relevant war?).  It’s a kind of Hail Mary pass, an enduring belief in aggregate demand macroeconomics at the theoretical level, even in light of broken banks, sectoral shifts, and nasty, failing expectations, all mixed in with hard to spend well, slow to come on line, monies.  Yes it could work but our agnosticism should be strong rather than just perfunctory.

–Tyler Cowen. Go to his post for pertinent links. Cowen asks for evidence that the stimulus will work since he assumes that one will pass. I don’t think that he will get it; DeLong, Krugman and all the rest are content to launch calumnies against anyone and everyone who speaks out in any way against the stimulus. It’s a lot easier than putting forth a cogent argument, after all.

(Via Tom Smith.)

So let me make up for it by noting this story, which indicates that the prospects for power-sharing between Robert Mugabe’s murderous little clique and the opposition, headed by Morgan Tsvangirai are . . . well . . . not that good:

Since a power sharing pact was signed on September 15 last year Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, have sat around the negotiating table with Southern African mediators on several occasions without managing to resolve their differences.

Talks between the leaders and Mr Arthur Mutambara, who leads a tiny breakaway faction of the MDC Harare broke up last Monday without progress.

On Friday the ruling Zanu-PF party’s lead negotiator, Mr Patrick Chinamasa said President Mugabe would not accept any of the “new demands” made by the opposition.

With a senior government source describing Monday’s meeting as “a mere formality” and a top MDC politician saying the September agreement has “already effectively collapsed”, both parties are pondering their next steps.

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Money quote from this devastating article concerning the New York Senate appointment fiasco:

. . . One Democratic political consultant, who requested anonymity to candidly assess the governor’s performance, said Mr. Paterson had inadvertently pulled off something staggering: alienating three of the most powerful political families in state and national politics at the same time.

“He’s managed to anger, in one fell swoop, the Kennedys, the Cuomos and the Clintons,” the consultant said, arguing that Ms. Kennedy’s family would be furious at the governor over the leaks against her, Mr. Cuomo at being passed over for the job, and Mrs. Clinton at the governor’s willingness to consider Ms. Kennedy in the first place after she endorsed Barack Obama in the presidential race last year.

“That’s a pretty good trifecta,” the consultant added. (Mr. Cuomo and Mrs. Clinton, it should be said, issued press releases on Friday effusively praising Ms. Gillibrand.)

Is there any doubt that the Governor will be the gift that keeps on giving for the New York State GOP?

What the President’s Executive Order really means:

. . . Contrary to reports, Obama did not shut down Gitmo. Rather, he issued an order saying he will (or, to be precise, he intends to and is willing to commit in advance to) shut down Gitmo in a year’s time. This, to mix a metaphor, is kicking the can as far down the road as he possibly can without being penalized for delay of game. Or, to mix yet another metaphor, Obama is promising to write a popular book in a year’s time and is happy to pocket a sizable advance of good will and commentary now; book to be written later. Until then, however, other actions, like the shuttering of other detention centers, will have an immediate impact.

Read the whole thing for an interesting discussion on nomenclature as well. Interesting that so many people criticized George W. Bush for labeling the struggle against terrorism a “war,” but failed to pipe up when Barack Obama said the same thing in his Inaugural Address. Do they perhaps just think that he doesn’t mean it?

Well, not really:

The Obama administration fell in line with the Bush administration Thursday when it urged a federal judge to set aside a ruling in a closely watched spy case weighing whether a U.S. president may bypass Congress and establish a program of eavesdropping on Americans without warrants.

In a filing in San Francisco federal court, President Barack Obama adopted the same position as his predecessor. With just hours left in office, President George W. Bush late Monday asked U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to stay enforcement of an important Jan. 5 ruling admitting key evidence into the case.

Thursday’s filing by the Obama administration marked the first time it officially lodged a court document in the lawsuit asking the courts to rule on the constitutionality of the Bush administration’s warrantless-eavesdropping program. The former president approved the wiretaps in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

“The Government’s position remains that this case should be stayed,” the Obama administration wrote (.pdf) in a filing that for the first time made clear the new president was on board with the Bush administration’s reasoning in this case.

I am increasingly becoming concerned that the new President may inadvertently choke on a pretzel to complete the resemblance with his predecessor.

Let’s review the bidding: An ill-considered statement from the Treasury Secretary tax delinquent nominee concerning Chinese currency re-evaluation may very well start off a trade war between the United States and China. If that’s not enough, there has been little to no movement whatsoever on the part of Team Obama–stretching from the campaign to the present day–to indicate that there will be any serious effort to revive trade talks like the dormant Doha Round. This, naturally, leads people to think that instead of encouraging trade liberalization, the Obama Administration will seek to put the kibosh on it both through inaction on the trade diplomacy front and through the imposition of tariffs.

Gosh. Good thing that the nation’s economy–not to mention the world’s–is doing so well. Otherwise, stories like this one might cause a lot of concern.

Remember that George W. Bush got excoriated for this kind of thing:

On Wednesday, the president met with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen and Central Command commander four-star Gen. David Petraeus. Gates, supported by Mullen and Petraeus, vigorously argued that the president should back away from his campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat forces from Iraq within the next 16 months and space out the withdrawal over a longer period of time. However, the president instructed the three officials to prepare a plan that would still implement the 16-month withdrawal period, Pentagon sources said.

The discussion between the president and the three officials was friendly and respectful. However, the president’s determination to implement his stated policy took the officials by surprise, one of the sources told UPI. Petraeus, in particular, had expected the recommendation to extend the period of the withdrawal timetable to be accepted, several sources said.

Evidently, no amount of expertise arguing contrary to campaign promises that were meant to win votes among the hard-core Democratic base will suffice in overturning those promises, no matter what the dangers to American national security might be. The President shows no sign whatsoever of being prepared to observe conditions on the ground and implement a withdrawal plan that is based on those on-the-ground conditions, rather than the artificial timetable that he propagated throughout the Presidential campaign. In doing so, he places the success of the Iraq reconstruction program at risk.

I would respect this stance a whole lot more if the Administration would tell us what conditions and circumstances might cause it to alter its 16-month withdrawal plan. However, mum’s the word on that issue. Apparently, President Obama does not think that anything could possibly occur that would justify amending the withdrawal plan.

And they said that George W. Bush was stubborn. To the extent that any of the caricatures of the Bush Administration resemble reality, the Obama Administration will ensure that the phrase “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” gets a lot of play from a lot of people in the coming months and years.

Link:

Instantly opening a rift among New York Democrats, Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand – a little-known, pro-gun Democrat from a rural Republican district – won appointment Friday to the Senate seat left vacant by Hillary Rodham Clinton. Gov. David Paterson announced his choice a day after presumed front-runner Caroline Kennedy – a woman with considerably more star power but less experience – mysteriously dropped out of contention in an embarrassing turn of events that touched off sniping between the governor and the Kennedy camp.

Gillibrand, at 42, will be the youngest member of the Senate and one of 17 women in the chamber. The second-term congresswoman will assume the seat once held by Kennedy’s uncle Robert F. Kennedy as well as by Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

“For many in New York state, this is the first time you’ve heard my name and you don’t know much about me,” said Gillibrand (pronounced JILL-ih-brand). “Over the next two years, you will get to know me. And, more importantly, I will get to know you.”

Before the governor even took the podium to introduce Gillibrand, anti-gun crusader Rep. Carolyn McCarthy said she would challenge Gillibrand in the Democratic primary next year, or find someone who would. Gillibrand has a 100 percent voting record with the National Rifle Association.

McCarthy, a Long Island Democrat who ran for Congress after her husband was shot to death and her son wounded in the 1993 Long Island Rail Road massacre, said someone with such a record should not be the next senator from New York.

“The majority of New Yorkers believe in trying to reduce gun violence,” she said.

Her complaint was echoed by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent who has been one of the nation’s most vocal gun control advocates. In a statement, the mayor noted his “strong disagreement with one area of her record as a member of Congress: illegal guns.”

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Barney Frank, Luis Gutierrez, and Danny Davis are all using the TARP program to intervene on behalf of constituent banks and get them aid, even when the individual financial situation of those banks does not justify any grant of aid whatsoever. What’s more: These champions of “progressive” government regulation are also trying to ensure that regulators don’t come calling on their constituent banks.

Money quote:

Politicians’ efforts to intervene on behalf of specific banks during the current crisis recall the savings and loan turmoil of the late 1980s, when members of Congress pressured the government to go easy on struggling thrift institutions. . . .

“This is a disturbing parallel to precisely some of those things that made the savings-and-loan debacle into a political scandal as well as a financial scandal,” said William Black, an associate professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, who was a bank regulator in the S&L crisis.

“Most ethical Congress in history,” according to Nancy Pelosi. And these people have gotten more TARP funds released with which to play. If that doesn’t keep one up at night, I don’t know what will.

More Cabinet vacancies than any President since George Bush the Elder. Even Clinton’s disastrous transition process went faster than this. Read it and weep.

Of course, the delays are justified when it comes to Tim Geithner’s tax shenanigans, Hilda Solis’s lack of transparency concerning her position in card check legislation, Tom Daschle’s potential conflicts of interest, and Team Obama’s general attempt to steamroll Republicans during the course of the confirmation process.

I do not for a moment underestimate the savvy and toughness of Barack Obama’s political shop. But they are not ten feet tall and it appears that they are slipping. Meanwhile, a reduced cadre of Senate Republicans is showing unexpected toughness in taking on the new President’s Cabinet appointees. Here’s hoping that the same attitude extends to the President’s policies.

More people are noticing that our Vice President is . . . well . . . unique amongst men:

How many vice presidents does it take to shoot from the lip?

Ask Vice President Joe Biden, who this week experienced a sweat-inducing “did I really say that?” moment after he lamely tried to turn U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts into a punch line while standing next to the president of the United States.

Instead, Biden found himself the target of an arctic blast of reaction from President Obama.

Ouch. Not only did his line about “my memory is not as good as Justice Roberts” – a reference to Roberts flubbing the words to the oath of office when he administered it to Obama Tuesday – earn him groans from the crowd of White House staffers he was swearing in Wednesday. It earned him a YouTube moment – and a firm put-a lid-on-it presidential grip on Biden’s arm.

It’s nothing new. “Shoot from the lip” Biden hasn’t exactly been a stranger to the gaffe-o-meter this week.

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That’s about the only way I can summarize the Obama Administration’s Janus-faced position on having lobbyists working for it:

Two days after introducing what he heralded as the most sweeping ethics rules in American history — ones that would “close the revolving door that lets lobbyists come into government freely” — President Barack Obama today waived those rules for his nominee for Deputy Secretary of Defense,William Lynn.

Until last fall, Lynn was a registered lobbyist for the defense contractor Raytheon.

“After consultation with counsel to the president,” said Director of the Office of Management of Budget Peter Orszag in a statement, “I hereby waive the requirements of Paragraphs 2 and 3 of the Ethics Pledge of Mr. William Lynn. I have determined that it is in the public interest to grant the waiver given Mr. Lynn’s qualifications for his position and the current national security situation. I understand that Mr. Lynn will otherwise comply with the remainder of the pledge and with all preexisting government ethics rules.”

So much then for one of the most hyped campaign promises Team Obama made during the 2008 election cycle. The HopeAndChange Administration, which promised us that it would clean up the ways of Washington and which touted its candidate’s manifest inexperience as proof that he has not been co-opted by the dirty ways of the nation’s capital has now made clear that contrary to its brand and public assurances, its motto will be “Business As Usual” on a whole host of matters.

Do the Obamaphiles feel betrayed yet? Do they at the very least hear the footsteps of impending betrayal sneaking up on them? Or is it no longer necessary to pretend to be pure as the driven snow now that there isn’t an election to contest in the near term?

Let’s play our favorite game: What do you think the popular reaction would be if President George W. Bush tried to stare down a reporter and intimidate him out of asking a tough question, had his Administration stiff-arm the media concerning the coverage of important events–thus undermining transparency, and had his press office bungle a key off-the-record briefing?

I think it is safe to say there would be a fair amount of outrage. Now, to be sure, there appears to be at least some outrage among the chattering classes given the fact that tous ces faux pas have been committed by the Obama Administration. But there hasn’t been nearly the amount of derision, sneering, contempt and incandescent fury that would have existed if all of this occurred during the previous Administration’s watch.

Yeah, I get that we are still in a honeymoon period. But the last Administration didn’t get much of a honeymoon and the press helped lead the way towards cutting any honeymoon short. If the Obama Administration wants to act outright as if the press is its lapdog, it deserves the same treatment in response.

Well, yes. He did.

But here’s a newsflash: The opposition still has the right to oppose and still has the right to press for its own agenda.

Perhaps someone should let the White House know about that. In particular, if the “reality-based community,” who hated declarations of victory and electoral dominance when George W. Bush was riding high, could take the lead in informing the White House that it should not be surprised that the duty of the opposition is to oppose, that would be helpful. In addition, someone could remind the White House that the President promised to reach across the aisle and work with Republicans to bring the country together after “bitter partisanship” supposedly tore it apart. Wasn’t that supposed to be in keeping with the President’s Inaugural Address, by the way? Weren’t we told that “we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics”? That “the time has come to set aside childish things”?

I do believe that we were told that. But apparently, the President has forgotten his own Inaugural Address–proving, perhaps, that while he is much enamored with the power of his own oratory, the effect of that oratory is mayfly-ish in its transience.

And perhaps–just perhaps–certain of Our New Overlords never even heard the speech in the first place:

. . . In a week in which Democrats have played down the importance of winning substantial Republican support for the stimulus, House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) went even further in suggesting Democrats won’t need GOP help to get their package passed.

“We are trying to be as bipartisan as we can,” he said in an interview that will air over the weekend on C-SPAN.

“We had an election on November 4, and the American people voted overwhelmingly for the approach being offered by the Democrats,” Clyburn said. “And I think my Republican friends ought to respect that.”

He added: “If we respond to the American people and that fails, then they [the Republicans] will have all the fodder they need going into the next election to try it their way…” Obama “was elected and we ought to do it his way, and we’ll look at the Republicans’ way after the next election, maybe.”

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The new Administration has undertaken the implementation of a whole host of Executive Orders concerning detention and interrogation procedures. I can see that the orders have done their job in getting media attention, but their implementation may well be a lot more complicated than the Administration hopes, as I argue here.

And it would appear that my arguments are being somewhat reinforced:

President Barack Obama’s choice for top U.S. spy declined on Thursday to call waterboarding “torture,” only days after his attorney general nominee condemned the interrogation practice as precisely that.

Retired Adm. Dennis Blair replied cautiously when pressed on the waterboarding question at a hearing on his nomination to be director of national intelligence, of which the CIA is a part.

The caution reflected a public debate over whether to prosecute CIA employees who used the simulated drowning technique. Torture is banned by U.S. and international laws.

“There will be no waterboarding on my watch. There will be no torture on my watch,” Blair said, refusing to go further.

In contrast, attorney general nominee Eric Holder flatly told his confirmation hearing last week, “Waterboarding is torture.” The statement was a break from years in which Bush administration officials rejected that characterization.

Michigan Democratic Sen Carl Levin told Blair, “If the attorney general designee can answer it, you can too,”

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Maybe not yet. But the fact that things are somewhat fractious between the White House and the White house Press Corps can’t help the Obama Administration’s efforts to keep the media satiated and at bay. Eventually, one can expect that if they remain unhappy, the members of the White House Press Corps, will tell enough unflattering stories about the way they are treated to their colleagues in other segments of the press corps. Given the tribal sensibilities of the press corps in general, it may not take long before the press to turn completely against the new Administration.

To be sure, the new Administration will likely find its sea legs to some extent and become more fleet of foot in dealing with the media. It can’t be denied that these early days are somewhat disorienting. But having written that, it’s increasingly becoming clear that those in the media who waxed ecstatic about the rise of the new Administration to power are now casting a critical eye towards it.

The Obama Administration’s political operations team is now under the spotlight. We’ll see if they are any better at responding to the challenges before them–and the atmospherics attendant to those challenges–than they have been.

But try telling that to some people.

Again, recall the media outcries concerning the alleged Bushian cult of personality. To the extent that it existed, it had nothing on the deification currently going on.

Which makes the media’s silence all the more peculiar, of course.