There’s No Such Thing as Bad Publicity
In response to a Wonk Room hit piece on young people trying to make a change in the world for the better–and if that’s not a hit piece, I’m not sure what would be worthy of such a description–I was first going to use my rapier-like wit to issue a stinging rebuke. But then I counted to 500 and decided to go Rodney King on everybody. (Meaning “can’t we all get along,” not “I bet you pigs can’t catch me.”) Here are the last three paragraphs from my Kumbaya blog post:
Now that I’m preaching, let me generalize it a bit: Earlier I mocked Paul Krugman for actually claiming that senior citizens were rioting. But since then, I’ve come to realize that Krugman really doesn’t understand the people at these Town Hall meetings, or the tea parties. After all, Krugman doesn’t get goosebumps thinking about property rights or checks on government power. So when he sees a bunch of angry people mouthing such concerns, he is suspicious and thinks they’re either a bunch of racists or paid stooges of the health insurers.
So, by symmetry, I think people on “our side” should realize that the great masses of Americans who are for health care reform and climate legislation (and it pains me to not put scare quotes around those phrases) aren’t actually closet socialists who want to bring America to its knees. Don’t get me wrong, it is still perfectly consistent to think the elites in Washington are power-hungry liars. I’m just saying that, as ridiculous as Krugman’s paranoia over old people is, that’s how ridiculous some of our side’s rants against Obama fans must seem to people who know that they are really just trying to stem abuses they perceive in the health care system and so forth. They know they’re not socialists, just like we know “our guys” aren’t Nazis.
Ah, and the ultimate irony is that actual socialists (and the particular offshoot of Nazism) were real, and actually did seize control of governments and kill millions of people. Isn’t life funny.
The author of the original hit piece, Brad Johnson, cross-posted it at Grist, and then added an update in light of my own post. He drew an excerpt from what I’ve reproduced above. Here is how Brad presented the new development to Grist’s readers:
UPDATE: At Free Advice, Institute for Energy Research economist Bob Murphy writes that Paul Krugman doesn’t understand tea party protesters because he doesn’t care about checks on government power like they do, and continues:
So, by symmetry, I think people on “our side” should realize that the great masses of Americans who are for health care reform and climate legislation (and it pains me to not put scare quotes around those phrases) aren’t actually closet socialists who want to bring America to its knees.
Hmm, I’m not so sure that’s fully in context. (That’s what I told the IER CEO when his Google Alerts on “AEA” tipped him off and he emailed me saying, “Grist is linking to Free Advice.”)
I’m curious to see how many hits that Grist link draws in, though. If it’s pretty big, maybe I will go the Bruce Bartlett route. I see the light! Sure we can trust the DC politicians with saving the planet! They’ve done such a knock-up job on inner city poverty and Afghanistan.
NOTE: I am not accusing Brad Johnson of anything dishonest with his link to my post. I’m just saying, it was rather misleading.
