A response to Waight and Luskin

My post on The Note's criticism of Paul Krugman has generated a couple of responses that I should address -- one from Ken Waight of Lying in Ponds and one from obsessive Krugman critic Don Luskin.

First, let me deal with Waight. He's a good guy who was always extremely supportive of Spinsanity (including this post last week), and I admire his site. Here's his response to my post, which was clearly written in good faith:

I believe that [Nyhan] falls victim here to a very common misconception of Paul Krugman's work. Because Mr. Krugman is an award-winning economist, had shown some willingness to criticize Democrats in the 1990's, and because he doesn't generate the dripping vitriol of Ann Coulter or the lengthy record of deception of Robert Scheer, his writing is erroneously assumed to be free of "partisan hackery".

The only way to discover that his more recent writing has been precisely anti-Republican rather than anti-Bush, and that he has carefully failed to find fault with all Democrats rather than with liberals, is to carefully analyze the entire record of 450+ New York Times columns, and I'm the only person who's been curious enough, or perhaps weird enough, to do that. As I've described in excruciating detail, each of the alternative theories which have been offered for Mr. Krugman's one-sided punditry fail when tested against the data. He doesn't simply criticize those in power -- he wrote over 100 columns during the Clinton administration with almost no Democratic criticism, omitting any mention of the Marc Rich pardon, for example. He doesn't merely dislike the Bush administration -- his 30-1 ratio of negative to positive Republican references this year does not include more gentle treatment of moderates like John McCain (compare Thomas Oliphant or E.J. Dionne). He doesn't simply write about economic issues -- even columns about elections in France have been used to bash Republicans. His columns break down more perfectly along partisan lines than any other Democratic columnist I've examined, including Robert Scheer, Molly Ivins and Joe Conason -- no small feat. Paul Krugman's five years of NYT columns have been exceptionally partisan; it's just not a close call.

Ken and I don't actually disagree; we're talking about two different things. My post was a critique of the way that the Note dismissed Krugman's substantive concerns and ridiculed him for being predictable. The point was (1) that Krugman often has something substantively important to contribute in his columns and (2) that his writing is often "dismissed as partisan hackery even when it's not" because he is seen as predictable and not counter-intuitive. I never said he doesn't frequently criticize conservatives/Republicans; in fact, I specifically said Krugman is "consistently anti-Bush." Nor did I say his writing is never partisan hackery; sometimes it is.

Ken's point is that Krugman's writing is by definition partisan because he writes so many negative things about Republicans. But again, we're not disagreeing -- we just have different definitions of the word "partisan." According to Waight, a writer is partisan if he consistenly offers negative portrayals of one side of the political debate, and positive or non-existent references to the other side.

My definition is different. As I wrote, "there's nothing wrong in principle with being a forceful and consistent advocate for your views." I don't object in principle to polemicists who make good arguments and refrain from outlandish spin. Krugman often has something useful to contribute to the debate. I'm not concerned about how much he balances his writing with positive references to Republicans or negative references to Democrats. The key distinction for me is between, say, Krugman, and the other members of Waight's top 3, Ann Coulter and Robert Scheer, who are ridiculous partisan hacks. There's a crucial difference.

Now for Luskin's silly attack on me, which is titled "Why I hate pretentious leftist twerps." There are so many problems with it that it's hard to know where to begin, but let's start with this response to my statement that "elite journalism prizes being unpredictable above all else":

Apparently for Brendan Nyhan, elite journalism is anything he disagrees with. Because as Waight proves beyond the shadow of a scintilla of a doubt in a rigorous and amusing response to Nyhan, Paul Krugman is Pauly One-Note -- and with a vengeance. So to Nyhan, I suppose Waight must be a member of elite journalism, too.

This is a classic logical fallacy that Luskin just attributes to me. It's nonsensical.

Then he utterly misconstrues my criticism of Slate, which I ridiculed for its obsesssion with being counter-intuitive, by writing, "Don't be fooled by Nyhan's groveling brown-nosing of Slate (hoping for a gig, no doubt -- I mean, has Slate ever taken an unpredictable opinion on any issue, ever?)." This is followed by a series of ad hominems:

The elitist here is Nyhan himself -- someone who hasn't earned the slightest shred of eminence, and yet condescends to share how "sad" he is, how full of "pity" -- as if anyone other than his mother cares -- about the press's "level of understanding of Social Security."

Luskin subsequently makes up more claims about me with no supporting evidence:

Where does Nyhan get his understanding [about Social Security]? Why, from Paul Krugman, of course -- "one of the top economists alive." Maybe so -- and maybe Noam Chomsky is "one of the top semanticists alive," but I wouldn't trust Chomsky's whacko interpretation of the semantics of media manipulation any more than I'd trust Krugman's partisan interpretation of Social Security. Check out that "nice primer" that Nyhan probably hasn't even read. Sure, it looks on the surface like its published in a respectable peer-reviewed economics journal -- it uses the same kind of typeface and page layout as real journals -- but does Nyhan realize that The Economists' Voice is actually a political rag run by three ultra-liberal economists including Krugman crony Brad DeLong? Does Nyhan think it's appropriate for this "primer" from "one of the top economists alive" to feature such subjective non-economic statements as:

The right has always disliked Social Security; it has always been looking for some reason to dismantle it. Now, with a window of opportunity created by the public’s rally-around-the-flag response after 9/11, the Republican leadership is making a full-court press for privatization, using any arguments at hand.

In fact, I didn't get my understanding of Social Security from Paul Krugman; I read the article in question (PDF); I know who edits The Economist's Voice; and I'm aware that Krugman's article expresses his subjective views (what an insight!). And if Luskin actually bothered to do research before attacking real scholars, he might notice that TEV has now published articles by Hoover Institution fellow Edward Lazear; former Bush economic adviser Gregory Mankiw; and conservative judge/scholar Richard Posner in addition to Hoover fellow Michael Boskin, who Luskin previously ridiculed as playing "the Stepin Fetchit role of token conservative."

Next, Luskin dismisses my claim that "numerous reporters can't even understand the percentage of income that would be diverted into private accounts" using another logical fallacy, attacking the source, before simply asserting that I am wrong:

And follow Nyhan's link to support his point that "numerous reporters can't even understand the percentage of income that would be diverted into private accounts." You'll be taken to the pages of Media Matters, a George Soros-funded leftist attack site. And you'll see that all Media Matters has to say on the subject is that some reporters use the expressions "percent" and "percentage points" interchangeably -- but none of their examples even begins to suggest that this semantic error either arises from or causes any misunderstanding.

I stand behind my point - reporters who can't correctly explain how private accounts would work don't understand the math very well. And it's implausible that these frequent mistakes do not cause any misunderstanding among the public.

Finally, Luskin concludes with this winner: "It took me this long to write this response because, frankly, superficial wannabe twerps like Nyhan depress me and sometimes I'd just rather pretend they don't exist."

Sorry for spending so long on Luskin, but I can't let this kind of idiocy pass.

PS For those wondering about his grasp on facts and figures, don't miss this blunder on Social Security financing, which is all too typical.

Update 1/26: Waight has published a response to this post and Luskin's.

Comments

[Ben]

Here's my question: How does a man who sells t-shirts and tote bags touting wearers and carriers as part of the "Krugman Truth Squad" -- as if anyone besides their mother wouldn't immediately beat the geek up upon seeing it -- get to describe someone else as "one note?"

Of note: In the post above the one calling my friend Brendan a "pretentious leftist twerp" (we all know he's a twerp, but "pretentious" is so gratuitious), Luskin argues that the Social Security "crisis" starts the day the annual trust fund surplus begins to decline from its high point around 2012. Can the term actually be defined down any more?

I guess being a pretentious leftist twerp isn't as bad as being a dishonest right-wing hack.

[ron]

I'd say that congrats are in order!...anyone who can be the subject of attack by one of the more one sided, unobjective "writers" and projectionists as Mr L can't be all bad. I always enjoyed your old site but had to syop reading Luskin's some time ago. As said by Ben..talk about an obsessed " one note Charley"...He is interesting when he writes about the "markets" but his blogging is, in the words of that sage Casey Kassum,..." Ponderous man,.. F'n ponderous."

[rone]

I eagerly await Mr. Luskin's carefully thought-out response to your criticism. I am sure that he will upgrade you from "pretentious leftist twerp" to "elitist commie twit".

[Joe]

Gee, if Bush has shaped all policy the last 4 years why is it surprising that Krugman writes about Bush every week?

[JT]

Brendan, you truly have command of the obvious in discovering that even a polemicist can make a factually based and logical argument. I am a lawyer. In litigation, expert witnesses are commonly hired by each side to present evidence in support of their case. Each are biased in favor of the side that hires them. However, that does not automatically mean that the evidence they provide is somehow false or incorrect. A prudent person would merely take what they say with a grain of salt and scrutinize their testimony with with contrary evidence.

Mr. Krugman's clear bias by itself doesn't automatically disqualify everything he says. Unfortunately, as exhaustively pointed out by Mr. Luskin on his website, his regular and repeated misstatements of fact do. I am not giving you specifics because all you have to do is review Mr. Luskin's website. He has thoroughly exposed the hundreds of false statements made by Mr. Krugman in his NYTimes column. Luskin has links to data and websites that substatntiate his arguments.

Krugman may be an academic economist at a prestigious school, but he has regulary compromised his credibility in his newspaper column, not just because he is a shrill partisan, but because he regulary makes false and misleading statements to attack anything associated with Republicans or Republican policy. You compromise your credibility when you try to deny that fact. I believe that Krugman is more concerned with the federal government losing a source of its power (i.e. dependence on the government in retirement) than he is with the sovency of social security.