Legal Commentary

The Wonk Deficit

By Big Tent Democrat

Krugman writes:

I don’t think [the wonk gap] this is unique to health care, or especially unusual. Monetary policy, fiscal policy, you name it, there’s a gap, although not quite as large as on health. [. . .] I’m surprised that Chait doesn’t refer to Upton Sinclair’s principle: it’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. In fact, in general right-wing think tanks prefer people who genuinely can’t understand the issues — it makes them more reliable.

[. . .] Wouldn’t the right be better served by better wonks? No. For one thing, they’d be unreliable — they might start making sense at an inappropriate moment. And, crucially, the media generally can’t tell the difference.

(Emphasis supplied.) Is this really so hard to understand? Yet there is this pretend world of "wonk debates" which legitimizes for the clueless Media the very dishonesty Krugman describes. And then Ezra Klein thinks Dems are going to win the health bill debate this time around. There is more than one deficit being described here. Which reminds me of this 2006 post.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 18, 2011 (boomark / email).