But the Economist, like most conservatives who lack honesty on the issue don't admit that one of the first people Bush went to for advice on Social Security was the head of the Cato Institute. What does the Cato Institute want for Social Security? It's elimination, of course. Doubt it? Check it out.

http://www.socialsecurity.org/daily/09-18-00.html

http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj3n2/cj3n2-11.pdf

And in another tribute to Bush's honesty and directness on the issue read this excerpt from an interview he did with the Washington Post after it was decided honesty (as in using the word privatization for privatization) was not the best policy:

" The Post: Will you talk to Senate Democrats about your privatization plan?

THE PRESIDENT: You mean, the personal savings accounts?

The Post: Yes, exactly. Scott has been --

THE PRESIDENT: We don't want to be editorializing, at least in the questions.

The Post: You used partial privatization yourself last year, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes?

The Post: Yes, three times in one sentence. We had to figure this out, because we're in an argument with the RNC [Republican National Committee] about how we should actually word this. [Post staff writer] Mike Allen, the industrious Mike Allen, found it.

THE PRESIDENT: Allen did what now?

The Post: You used partial privatization.

THE PRESIDENT: I did, personally?

The Post: Right.

THE PRESIDENT: When?

The Post: To describe it.

THE PRESIDENT: When, when was it?

The Post: Mike said it was right around the election.

THE PRESIDENT: Seriously?

The Post: It was right around the election. We'll send it over.

THE PRESIDENT: I'm surprised. Maybe I did. It's amazing what happens when you're tired. Anyway, your question was? I'm sorry for interrupting. "

Wha?

Meanwhile, his promises to bring the country together after his re-election have faded away.

Was Dubya really moonbatty enough to make such a promise, or is Econonomist taking something waaay out of context?

trying to "save" the life of Terri Schiavo

Boy, if scare quotes ever belonged anywhere...that session of Congress ostensibly on Terri's behalf was pretend-work if I ever saw it.

And we have long regarded his approach to both fiscal policy

Spending to appease the Democrats (that's sure what it looks like) certainly bothers me.

and civil liberties as reckless: he deserves all the flak he gets over Guantánamo.

At least there aren't any tanks raining CS gas on the detainees.

we have supported...his education reforms

I hope Economist isn't referring to the Kennedyesque education spending. Financing educrats with a track record of incompetence is not the way to go. If Economist may be referring to the school choice measures, then more-or-less good for them. I see vouchers as an interim quick-fix on the road to full privatization, and somehow I doubt Economist supports that drastic a regime change.

"And we have long regarded his approach to both fiscal policy

Spending to appease the Democrats (that's sure what it looks like) certainly bothers me."

Um, no. If he were spending to appease Democrats, he would be spending (i) on projects that Democrats find valuable, and (ii) doing so in a fiscally responsible way. (The fact that Democrats are completely, 100% un-appeased should be a good clue that your hypothesis is completely false.) What he's doing, of course, is spending to buy off various of his own key constituencies, and to keep the economy afloat to keep swing voters from noticing all the damage he's doing to the country.

Rank-and-file members of the GOP need to start stepping up and taking responsibility for the fact that your party has transformed itself into the party of utter fiscal recklessness. It's not too late to transform back, but only if you start doing something to get rid of the Bush, Delay, et al. leadership.

You can get further evidence that the current leadership's fiscal lunacy is entirely its own creation (and, by extension, the creation of the party that allows these jokers to be their leader) by looking at the official social security privatization arguments. (Or, more accurately, 'arguments'.) See, e.g.,
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/06/why_oh_why_cant_7.html
quoting Andrew Samwick, who Delong says is a *Republican economist, on why the case for latest proposal is incoherent, and depends on professional-level fudging about the overall impact of the plan on the budget.

*(I just don't know for myself that he's a Republican, not knowing him & having never read his blog.)

What he's doing, of course, is spending to buy off various of his own key constituencies

Right. That double-digit increase for the NEA's budget was aimed at that key Republican constituency that wants to pay artists to put crucifixes in jars of urine!

It's not too late to transform back, but only if you start doing something to get rid of the Bush, Delay, et al. leadership.

Hey, Democrats! It's not too late to transform back to your roots of being the party of working-class Americans, but only if you start doing something to get rid of the pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, pro-appeasing terrorists leadership of Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and (of course) Robert "Klan-man" Byrd.

Eric

Does name calling back have anything at all to do with the arguments first made?

Is it just me or has Mr. Satterfield proven that he either doesn't read the Economist or is just functionally illiterate?

I think it's also relevant that I wasn't name calling at all, but more or less just stating facts. Or does anyone on this blog want to actually deny that our current fiscal policy is both (i) entirely set by the GOP leadership, and (ii) utterly reckless? Does anyone here actually like the GOP's current fiscal irresponsibility?

I guess I could also point out to Eric that the NEA itself is a drop in rounding error in a jot of the federal budget, and certainly isn't even close to being a serious factor in the vast federal deficit; that most of its funding goes to things like operas and museums which, yes, are enjoyed by key GOP constituencies, and moreover by key swing voter blocs; that it's simply ludicrous & bizarre to accuse any of those people listed as "pro-appeasing terrorists" (btw, which party is it that's currently having high-level discussions with the terrorists in Iraq? oh, right....) and clearly off the mark to call Reid either "pro-abortion" or "pro-homosexual" (though I'm not sure I know what "pro-homosexual" means -- I'm charitably interpreting it as "pro-gay-marriage"); and indeed that it's still a huge net political plus in this country to be pro-choice; and that the question was one of explaining the GOP's patently bad fiscal policy, given that most rank-and-file members don't like it, and so the entire proposed analogy was not just intemperate but moreover simply besides the point. But I suspect that to bother pointing all that out would be to think through Eric's knee-jerk response (which can be more or less paraphrased as, "Oh, yeah? Well, um, some of your guys suck too, ok? Huh? Huh?") more seriously than he himself did.

To the humor-impaired: The first half of my previous comment was a sarcastic way of pointing out that Bush (over)spent on priorities of both the left and right during his first term. In other words, he simply gave Congress a blank check. The second half was satire of someone who opposes a political party purporting to give them "advice" by saying all their leaders are crooks or cretins.

Oh, that was supposed to be funny? Um, ok. I hadn't thought at all that Eric believed the stuff he wrote, but I thought it was meant as a serious parallel. But I'm sorry if, given recent odious statements by a senior member of the WH staff who is currently the most important political operative in the GOP, I simply fail to be much amused by assertions that the Democratic leadership is somehow pro-terrorist. Yes, the intended humor escaped me; but that was because humor usually involves actually being, like, funny. (At least it does for Democrats; maybe Republicans get an exemption from that rule these days. It's hard to tell.)

On reflection, I guess there was a teensy bit of humor in there, in that the first half of Eric's previous comment simply fell laughably short of making the point he now says he wanted it to make. Pointing out a nice-sized boost in one teensy-tiny program that is just as much a priority of some key GOP groups & swing voters as it is of some key Dem groups, is hardly to say that he "spent on priorities of both left and right." And it's equally laughable to suggest that the fact that Bush gave Congress -- an overwhelmingly Republican Congress, of course -- carte blanche somehow excuses him from blame here, and obviously fails to excuse the Congressional leadership. So it's not at all clear what even Eric's non-humor-intended comment has to do with, well, anything.

Also, as I think my response made clear, there's a pretty important asymmetry here between my initial argument, and Eric's spurious screed: (i) the accusations I was lodging against the current GOP leadership with regard to fiscal mismanagement are patently true, and (ii) the accusations he was making up are (as I demonstrated) patently false. Isn't that difference in factual basis at least a little important here?

Finally, and really most importantly of all, and as I noted earlier, the issue here is why the GOP leadership has put forward & continued to promulgate a set of policies which its own rank-and-file generally don't approve of. That was, remember, the nature of Alan's comment, so desperately attempting to pass blame off to the Dems, to which I was responding. The policies (other than terrorism appeasement, which is favored by only a very small number of people, the vast majority of whom do not vote Democrat) which Eric's silly response was pretending to attack are ones favored by large parts of the Democratic constituency. So there's no question here as to why some Democratic leaders support those policies. (Indeed, a more relevant question would be: why have the Democrats made Reid their Senate leader, given that he is well to the right of most of them on several big issues?) But there is a question here as to why the GOP rank-and-file continues to enable its leadership to do such a bad job in managing our finances, when their own values would dictate that it is in fact a bad job. That's why I asked whether anyone actually likes the current fiscal policies -- if you do, then the thing to do is to offer a substantive defense of those policies, not go off on some weird and silly tangent. As I said, and which Eric apparently still doesn't get: it's about facts, not name-calling. Yes, I suppose I called the GOP leadership "jokers" at one point, but note that that attribution was well-grounded in the completely non-name-calling arguments I had made up to that point; your nonsensical response was nothing but name-calling. (I hope everyone here still retains the ability to tell the difference between the two.)

So, Eric, why don't you back up & attempt a non-silly response to my arguments? Those arguments are substantive, and were offered seriously, and moreover it should now be clear that your attempt to brush them aside with, um, 'humor' simply missed the target altogether.

Sorry, phil, I don't think there's anything substantive or serious about your calling the GOP "the party of utter fiscal recklessness." All of us here at ITA have criticized the increases in non-military, non-homeland security spending during Bush's first term. I'm not going to dignify your political hackery with a more detailed response. Goodbye.

First of all, I very clearly have not merely "called" the GOP such a thing, I have in fact argued for that conclusion, based on the (I would think undeniable) facts that the GOP is in complete charge of fiscal policy these days, and that fiscal policy sucks very, very badly. The premises are well-substantiated, and given those premises, I don't see how to avoid the inference to that conclusion. That's not hackery: that's logic, and I think you bloody well know it. Take issue with a premise if you dare, or (more promisingly) challenge the inference -- but don't make the silly assumption that, just because you've only engaged in name-calling thus far in this exchange, somehow that's all I've done as well. It's simply untrue, and unworthy of ITA's intellectual standards to pretend that someone hasn't made an argument when they quite clearly have.

Now, let me perhaps clarify that I don't mean for the GOP's current status as, indeed, the party of fiscal recklessness to mean anything about the past, or especially future status of the party in that regard. Moreover, my argument is clearly committed to a distinction between the leadership (all too willing to be reckless) and the rank-and-file (don't like the recklessness, but not, I contend, doing enough about it). So I'm definitely not at all, not even slightly, trying to suggest that all or even most Republicans are themselves in favor of this lunacy. I think your current leadership has gotten beyond bad to dangerous on this issue -- and that they count as having done so by the traditional standards of your party -- and I can't understand why there's not some sort of organized intra-party revolt against it. I would truly love for the GOP to go back to being the party of smaller-but-always-responsible governance. I think the government we'd get as a result of such a GOP squaring off against a Democratic party of larger-but-always-responsible governance, could be a truly great government.

Let's take a moment to talk about hackery, b/c I'm a bit vexed at having been accused of it when I try very hard to uphold a high standard of argument, and indeed much of what I try to do on these boards is call foul against people who are themselves arguing in a silly and/or hackish way.

Now, I take it that we can define hackery as, to a good first approximation, arguing in an intellectually irresponsible way for partisan purposes. This definition would need ultimately to be tightened up somewhat, to distinguish true hackery from merely accidentally messing up while arguing for partisan purposes; perhaps one could add a clause about making such arguments when one knows them to be irresponsible, or perhaps as part of a pattern of such arguments. But this will do for my purposes here.

So, what does it mean to argue irresponsibly? I think there are three basic categories here, though I am open to being shown others:
1. Making assertions that for which there is substantial counterevidence which the assertor could be expected to be aware that such evidence of falsity exists.
Examples: the recent WSJ editorial on global warming (see http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=167 ); the recent case of hackery in the Economist's reporting on liberal ideas, which was linked to previously (but put aside the issue of the "trend", please!); the various lefties who love to assert that the invasion of Iraq was primarily about oil.
Note that the importance of an expectation of the assertor's awareness of the counterevidence -- this will not apply evenly between blogs and paid journalists, where the latter may often be held to a higher degree of expectation. Many bloggers make bad mistakes of this sort but are merely a bit underinformed & operating outside their realm of expertise, and not really hacks per se.

2. Arguing in a glaringly fallacious manner, such that one's premises do not even begin to provide evidence for one's conclusions.
Example: the version of the 'chickenhawk' argument that entails that those who are not or have not been in the military cannot advocate for war; inferring from Durbin's recent comments that he was asserting a 'moral equivalence' between our country on the whole and the Third Reich.

3. Deploying an argument againt the other side/for your own side that you would not apply the other way around.
Examples: holding an entire political wing of the country responsible for the behavior of its marginal elements (such as the small number of KKK-types on the right, or the small handful of actual cultural relativists on the left).

So, my challenge to Eric -- or anyone else, for that matter -- is to show that I have clearly violated one of those rules, or some other rule that should reasonably be added to the definition of hackery. I have already contended that I have argued well within the bounds of 1. and 2. -- again, unless someone wants to defend the nation's current fiscal policy. And as for 3., I think the only relevant principle I might have been relying on is that a party as an entity can generally be held responsible for the concerted, considered policies & actions of its leadership. And I am certainly willing to abide by that rule as applied back to the Democratic party.

So, again, I just do not think any accusation of hackery here is even remotely justified. I may have argued snarkily, yes; but hackily, no.