Henry Farrell has written the definitive Megan McArdle put-down piece. He lists several examples of where she lied or volubly heh-indeeded some other wingers’ lies and failed to correct herself when she was caught out on it. And he makes a good general point:
While I believe that there is an excellent case for intellectual charity when one is dealing with someone whom one does not know, or who usually seems straightforward, intelligent and honest, I also believe that it is positively harmful to intellectual life to extend such charity to people who engage in persistent obfuscation and shoddy argument over a period of years.
If people don’t want to be mocked as pernicious charlatans, they should strive to be more accurate. And I say the same thing about the epic level of VSP whining about the Colbert-Stewart rallies: if media/political elites don’t want to be seen as buffoons, they should stop acting like buffoons.
elmo
You know, back in the day, I used to read Instapundit a whole lot. And being part of that echo-chamber, I really didn’t understand the level of vitriol and rage he seemed to inspire in otherwise pretty cheerful lefty bloggers.
I am deeply, deeply ashamed of myself for taking so long to figure it out, and Farrell is doing a valuable public service for calling out another one just like Reynolds.
chopper
oof, brutal. i do love it when intellectual lightweights start demanding ‘more intellectual charity’. it’s like ‘be nice, i don’t know what i’m talking about’.
BR
And yet she marches on. And the stupidity marches on.
I don’t know why we waste our time debunking her. I tried a while back (posted thanks to Doug) and I realized it’s a pointless exercise:
https://balloon-juice.com/2010/07/30/proof-by-exhaustion/
arguingwithsignposts
So when do you take back your moniker as business and economics editor of Balloon Juice, DougJ?
JPL
OT..If you haven’t already, read Roubini’s piece in the Financial Times.
Sign up is free and easy.
Megan should read it but won’t because reading is hard work.
ed
…until the next one.
It’s ridiculously easy to ridicule Ms. McArdle. One should never have to bother eviscerating (too graphic?) her poorly constructed thoughts let alone ever read her “work”, but she is a Very Serious Person writing for a Very Serious Publication. The occasional–METAPHORICAL!!!–curb-stomping of such an insidiously self-absorbed and consistently wrong pseudo-libertarian authoritarian is a necessary and good thing. Fun to read, too.
Martin
VSP? You’re wrapping insider terms within insider terms now. As your editor for the next 4 seconds, you’re only going to lose new and loosely attached readers doing that. Stick with the better know ‘very serious person’/’villager’ construct.
But yes, I now secretly hope that Raese wins in WVA so that we have a reasonable chance that a rogue band of radical economists will seize control of the Death Cloud and begin restoring some honor to the discipline.
ed
McMegan is the Anti-Krugman.
BGinCHI
Like Juan Williams being outraged that he’d said something on O’Reilly. It’s O’Reilly! You were getting paid!
He acted like he was in his living room and the NPR brown shirts broke in and fired him for having a private thought.
All part of Fox’s new fall lineup: The Irresponsible Victim Unit.
MikeJ
I wonder if ol’ Johnny Sunshine will be a little more Gunshy before writing another Mesmerizing-ly stupid attempt to Explain it To Me.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: I thought he said VSOP and said to myself, “Sure, it’s a little early in the day to start drinking, but what the hell.”
call_me_ishmael
Jeesus haploid Christ, I didn’t think it was possible for me to think less of Bobo until I followed that link about the Stewart rally.
Limbaugh and Beck as great showmen? Perhaps if you think of showmen as Grandpa Simpson selling his revitalizing tonic. Although, to be fair, most of their customers/consumers are very similar to Grandpa Simpson in his “Old man yells at cloud!” idiom.
Also, Henry Farrell v McMegan is the very definition of a battle of wits with an unarmed (wo)man.
beltane
I’m grateful that Henry Farrell made it perfectly explicit as to just how toxic McArdle is. There really isn’t much more to say on the matter.
Comrade Javamanphil
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s never too early if you are reading McMegan.
Alex S.
That Brooks/Collins article is like a slap in the face. It’s Brooks’ second sentence already that knocks you out with stupidity.
Zandar
Just…use the money to hire a fact-checker, Megan.
Like, find a high school student to read over your work. If the high school student says “Hi, Mrs. McArdle, I know you worked really hard on this but I don’t think this part is you know correct and stuff” then DON’T POST IT.
Geez.
MikeBoyScout
I think we should all tone down our McMegan criticism for about a month so so we don’t inadvertently get her fired before we have the opportunity to read this year’s Holiday Gift Guide.
Who knows what amount of hilarious joy it will bring us?
Bubblegum Tate
And IIIIIIIIIIIII kept standing 6 feet 1.
Pangloss
@Omnes Omnibus: I call it “resorting to a 21st Amendment solution.”
schrodinger's cat
@Alex S.: I have no idea why people think of Brooks as a moderate. He is a Republican shill, with better manners than your ordinary wingnut, that’s all. When Bush was the President, Brooks was always making excuses for him and now he never misses an opportunity to criticize Obama.
cursorial
This, exactly. The deeply aggrieved tone of media commentary about the Stewart/Colbert rally is revealing. Stewart’s devastating turn on Crossfire easily applies to almost everything that passes as news now, political or otherwise. And deep down, they all know it.
Just because we’re not laughing doesn’t mean your political coverage is not a joke.
morzer
Surely McArdle wrote the definitive putdown of herself when she made it clear that, in her view, a hypothetical had equal truth status with a statistic? I mean, this Farrell bloke tries hard, but he’s never going to top McArdle’s self-annihilation.
stuckinred
Is everyone following the yemen bombs on UPS planes?
PHILADELPHIA — A suspicious package containing a toner cartridge with wires and powder was found during routine screening of cargo in the United Kingdom, prompting authorities to scour three planes and a truck in the United States on Friday. Searches were conducted in Philadelphia, Newark, N.J., and New York City.
redoubt
Just wanted to say how fabulous I Reject Your Reality and Substitute Pink Himalayan Salt would be as a tagline.
morzer
Speaking of self-refuting jackassery, the recent Brookism is a piece of classical late period Beltway Ignorati discourse:
he will have to demonstrate that even though he comes from an unusual background, he is a fervent believer in the old-fashioned bourgeois virtues: order, self-discipline, punctuality and personal responsibility
Dear God, why doesn’t Brooks just call him a shiftless, lazy Negro and have done with it?
morzer
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/opinion/29brooks.html?_r=1&ref=davidbrooks
Sorry, that’s the link to Little Lord Applebee’s latest truly astounding post.
JPL
@stuckinred: It’s nice to have an administration take chatter seriously. They were also searching a UPS truck in Queens.
Malraux
@stuckinred: At this point I have to wonder who manufactures these stories about a week before the election. Do the terrorists intentionally time them that way; does law enforcement just get more jumpy then; or does the media look extra hard for scare stories?
MBunge
McArdle is Jonah Goldberg’s slightly smarter but more socially awkward sister. That is all.
Mike
stuckinred
@Malraux: I vote for number 1! They know we have become a nation of chicken shit motherfuckers and the use it.
redoubt
@morzer: Because doing so would show he’s been asleep at his desk the last ten years. (President Obama’s immediate predecessor liked to make decisions “from the gut.” )
Maude
@MBunge:
Win.
freelancer
@redoubt:
I don’t get the Pink Himalayan Salt part. Anyone care to bring me up to speed?
Citizen Alan
I have to go brush my teeth again. I have a job interview at 2:30, and reading that Collins-Brooks drivel made me throw-up into my mouth a little. What soulless loathsome people!
MikeBoyScout
@33 freelancer:
If you google “mcardle Pink Himalayan Salt” you’ll have funny stuff to read all weekend.
Stay tuned for this year’s edition of mcmegan’s Holiday Gift Guide!
Ahasuerus
@freelancer: I hear it goes really well with Arugula and Exotic Foreign Mustard.
Jinchi
@freelancer:
Look here: https://balloon-juice.com/balloon-juice-lexicon-i-p/#P
JGabriel
Mitch McConnell (via Krugman):
Shorter McConnell:
I think fears of a gov’t shutdown are understated. By Republican reasoning, clearly the 1995 shutdown wasn’t enough to bring down Clinton. Therefore, the GOP must impeach Obama before the next election.
.
chopper
i also love mcmegan’s defense – “that doesn’t really change the fact that I already said years ago that I oughtn’t to have written it. Is this the shining example of “caring whether one is right on the facts” that I am supposed to emulate?”
i said i was wrong, that wipes the slate completely clean. no, megan, it doesn’t. being consistently wrong doesn’t magically go away when you acknowledge being wrong once.
trollhattan
@MikeBoyScout:
Welp, if Teh Atlantic sets her out on an unemployment iceberg, surely Fox will rescue her with a seven-figure contact and a regular spot on…not sure who’s show, during which she can start a Fox Shopper’s Network spot.
Her problem will be seamlessly intleaving cutsie hipster food appliances and self-powered scooters. Since she groks teh majikal marketz, this should be as easy as clubbing hippies with two-by-fours.
thomas Levenson
@ed: What ed sez. I know. I’ve tried to write “the definitive” McArdle slam, but no matter how thorough a job I think I’ve done, the damn gopher pops up out of another hole.
But still, it is a job that must needs be done. In every generation, etc.
freelancer
@Jinchi:
Thanks. It seemed vaguely familiar, and I didn’t think it was in the Lexicon. God, is this woman just perniciously dumb.
liberal
@JPL:
Hmm…Roubini writes
“In an ideal world Mr Obama would also have been able to move towards reforming and reducing entitlement spending, with commitments to measures that could be phased in over the next few years, therefore avoiding short-term fiscal pain…”
Stupid. The quickly growing component of entitlement spending is Medicare/Medicaid. You can’t cut those without draconian spending cuts unless you get health care cost inflation under control. (IMHO Obamacare doesn’t do that, but the elites who bitch about entitlement spending don’t do it either.)
And I’m so tired of elites acting as though we can’t shut the spigot to the military rathole way down. All it’s doing is making us a lot less safe.
“He would also have committed to increase, gradually over the next few years, less distortionary taxes such as a VAT and a carbon tax.”
I don’t know why he thinks a VAT isn’t distortionary. In fact, I’d argue that making income taxes much, much more progressive would make them much less distortionary, since AFAICT almost all the really high earners (e.g. people who make > $10 mil/year) are just rent collecting parasites.
Of course, the least distortionary tax is a tax on land and other assets that directly produce rents, but it’s hard sell, particularly so in the aftermath of a huge RE bubble. Though do note that with high enough land value taxes, there’d be no more RE bubbles.
Sasha
I would rather you used another tag besides “Pink Himalayan Salt” to describe Megan McArdle. I got some and it’s good stuff.
FlipYrWhig
@JGabriel: Another Shorter McConnell: “After years of disappointment with get-rich-quick schemes, I _know_ I’m gonna get rich with _this_ scheme…and _quick_!”
Bill E Pilgrim
@freelancer: I’m not quite sure I get this either, or rather I get the idea, but so how is that different from “arugula is elitist”?
I mean, Megan McCardle writes some of the dumbest, most embarrassing Glibertarian nonsense around, then gets combative and defensive when this is pointed out, but unless I’m misunderstanding it, how is the salt thing different from being accused of liking snobby French mustard, which everyone here is always slamming people on the right for going on about?
I may have missed a twist in this, which I’d be happy to have explained to me.
Just speaking for me, once I discovered fleur de sel, going back to tasteless white sand would be out of the question unless my taste buds had died.
Edit: Ok I just saw the link above explaining it and followed the second link, I guess it’s the way she referenced it, which doesn’t surprise me. The “experts” saying that Himalayan salt or fleur de sel goes best on the table rather than wasting it in cooking where it all gets melted down– would seem sort of too obvious to have to spell out, but maybe Megan was talking about cooking with it.
Maude
@liberal:
Roubini doesn’t seem to understand that Medicare and Medicaid are needed.
I can’t stand these people who say people should do with less as long as it isn’t them.
quaint irene
Amen. And so tired of all the too-too earnest ‘But what does it all mean?” mewlings.
John Bird
Reading Collins and Brooks telling terrible jokes and congratulating each other on finding Dennis Miller funny . . . I’m almost tempted to start watching the Daily Show again. As bad as it’s gotten, it’s gotta be manna from heaven compared to this.
Lurked
@morzer:
You know who else believed in “order, self-discipline, punctuality and personal responsibility”….
catclub
@morzer:
“he will have to demonstrate that even though he comes from an unusual background, he is a fervent believer in the old-fashioned bourgeois virtues: order, self-discipline, punctuality and personal responsibility.”
Because the evidence of running a successful campaign for the presidency and then having the most productive legislative term in decades is just so wishy-washy.
There is NO evidence that will convince them.
Paul in KY
Megan McArdle makes John McCain’s daughter seem like the 2nd coming of Thomas Aquinas.
JPL
@Maude: Medicare increases have to get under control. Most spending occurs during the last few months of life and some of that is addressed in the Health Plan. The health bill has to be improved upon especially the ways that doctors are paid and that won’t be done under the Republicans.
@liberal: I agree with you about the military spending being key. It was my opinion that some VAT can be progressive depending on how you apply it. Our income tax system because of the deductions has not been progressive for some time.
What I found interesting was his comments about monetary and fiscal spending keeping us out of a depression. Republicans depend only on monetary activities and because they are not for stimulus spending, we are headed for a rough couple of years. At least that is how I interpreted his column.
Sentient Puddle
I also didn’t get the “Pink Himalayan Salt” tag until a few days ago. I was just randomly perusing through the lexicon again and stumbled upon it. Good laughs, that.
p.a.
Who is Henry Farrell and why is he shrill? Has he not been invited to enough proper NY/Washington cocktail parties? Is his summer place on Block Island rather than Nantucket or the Vineyard? We musn’t let those people deride our opinion-leading elites. God bless you Meagan for the work you do.
John Bird
@Bill E Pilgrim:
I think there’s a gap between Dijon mustard/arugula and Himalayan pink salt, in that I can buy the first two at fucking Food Lion.
Tim Connor
Amusing that Brooks wants to brand rally attendees as Prius owners. Many, if not most, will be young, and the current system is so rigged to screw them that few –if any –can afford a Prius.
But introducing reality into discussions involving David Brooks is basically a pointless endeavor anyway….
kay
@catclub:
Like conservatives are in a position to lecture anyone, anywhere, on any of those qualities.
The least self-disciplined group of people in the entire world, bar none. Conservatives are the reason we have to write rules.
Bill E Pilgrim
@John Bird: Ah. Yeah probably also a gap between that and the fact that I’ve never heard of Food Lion and can find really good salt, of all kinds, fairly cheap in the local equivalent.
Actually, as much as I love Susan’s site, that post was kind of bogus. She talks about Megan citing “pink Himalayan sea salt” which is really “Pakistani rock salt” — which is funny mainly because Megan thought rock salt was sea salt– except that McCardle didn’t call it sea salt in her thing, just “pink Himalayan salt”. Which is the marketing term everyone uses.
Just as in other more pricey kinds of salt, it’s the minerals and flavors picked up around it that make it taste more interesting, in this case wikipedia cites “10 different minerals” including the ones that make it pink.
Cooking with it though, that’s pretty stupid I have to say.
Downpuppy
@thomas Levenson:
I’m pretty sure Farrell read your works, or at least counted the words, and made sure his ran 5 words longer.
But he doesn’t have pictures, just Sebastian for chuckles, which isn’t nearly as much fun.
Joseph Nobles
Speaking of soul-crushing chicanery, Sarah Palin had committed tweet again. P.J. Crowley tweeted a happy birthday message to Ahmedinejad, asking him to celebrate by releasing the American hikers. He then said that maybe Mahmoud’s 55th year wouldn’t be a year of lost opportunities like his 54th. Sarah Palin says that’s coddling Iran.
Some people have no shame.
stuckinred
@Bill E Pilgrim: Linda Ketner is the daughter of one of the Food Lion owners. She’s openly gay and has come close in some South Carolina state elections. She’s really cool. So there!
anon
ann althouse
jayackroyd
I suppose Liz Phair also looks like an elf.
Xenos
@John Bird: They have Pink Himalayan salt at the Delhaize/Food Lions in Belgium. It is not very expensive, interestingly enough. I suspect there is a big ‘credulous American yuppie’ markup.
The Republic of Stupidity
Indeed! Indeed!
***stands up and applauds…***
And I say, the rest of us have a sacred duty and obligation to continually mock them silly until they DO start behaving better…
jayackroyd
And, I dunno, but I thought Tom Levenson set the McMegan bar pretty high.
geg6
Read this and tell me you didn’t throw up a little in your mouth as you did:
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/keeping_up_with_chuck_todd.php?page=all
Tells me everything I needed to know about this shill. Especially this line:
The Republic of Stupidity
@Joseph Nobles:
Sheesh…
Can Sarah see Iran from her kitchen too?
Bill E Pilgrim
@stuckinred: oh I’m not being snobby about Food Lion versus some other store, the reason that all kinds of “exotic” salt is available here in regular chain supermarkets is because it’s France. Not because I’m going to some exotic store.
On the other hand just try and find a cheesesteak. Or barbecue sauce. Or a decent can of beans. Those, you have to go to the fancy American place.
Okay they don’t have cheesesteak. How the hell do you spell that?? My spell checker wants it hyphenated, surely that can’t be right?
Violet
@geg6:
I can’t believe I ever liked Chuck Todd. The only impressive thing about him is his ability to achieve Villager insider-y-ness and mediocrity as quickly as he has.
Mark S.
@BR:
God, I remember that, where McMegan doffed her paleo-climatologist hat and let out this:
Megan isn’t qualified to talk about much of anything, and while it’s entertaining to watch her wield her MBA at Nobel Laureates in economics, my favorites are when she branches out and tries her hand at other sciences. The words “Now this isn’t my area of expertise” never show up, cause Megan once got half way through a book on the subject and caught the last fifteen minutes of a Nova episode on it five years ago.
kay
@geg6:
Chuck Todd doesn’t know it’s his job is to “engage policymakers” on policy?
If we’re supposed to do it, why do we need him?
We’ll need his pass and his salary, but, okay.
Perry Como
Farrell’s criticism is technically true, but collectively nonsense.
Martin
@JPL:
What people have been brainwashed out of is making a distinction between ‘services’ and ‘costs’. There are real opportunities to provide the same services at a lower cost. That’s not cutting Medicare/Medicaid in any way that the citizenry should care about unless the costs in question are related to their salary.
One of those very real opportunities is to require people have insurance prior to going on these plans. People routinely defer medical care until they hit the government plan, and then load up on treatment. Simply requiring those under 65 to take care of these issues when they first crop up will save a fuckton of money without reducing what services Medicare provides one iota.
liberal
@Martin:
It’ll save some money, but the real money lies in reducing rent collection by the insurance industry and by physicians.
liberal
@kay:
Did he actually think about what he was saying before he said it? What a clown.
geg6
@kay:
Mind boggling, isn’t it?
After reading that, I thought, boy, I wish Jake Tapper would stop by BJ today so we can ask him about his opinion on this matter. ;-)
Jay in Oregon
@Joseph Nobles:
Blah.
I’ve had far more productive conversations on Twitter arguing over whether or not the D&D Essentials line is going to kill 4th Edition.
And yes, I’m serious.
Mark S.
@morzer:
More Bobo goodness:
Brooks, the man who sat there for an hour while a Senator groped his thigh, is decrying people who play influence games to “get the gravy.” And I love how Americans are supposed to blame the bottom 98%, the people whose real income declined the past decade, have become debt-addicted and self-indulgent. Our Galtian banksters have been completely blameless!
Martin
@liberal: Medicare/Medicaid already has cut out a fair bit of rent collection. There’s the Part C bonus still to come out, that’s not small. The rest is going to be an ugly fight though. So long as insurers pay better than CMS, doctors are going to fight hard.
That shifting of care from Medicare to insurance is a *much* easier and better savings for Medicare as it shifts 100% of those costs out of their budget. Further, as the costs move back toward the insurers, they have no choice but to reduce what the pay out on claims, which will make it much easier for CMS to reduce rent collection.
Making sure 50-64 year olds have insurance is a HUGE cost savings. The same effect on people before they hit Medicaid is going to save the state budgets. These are very, very significant things. They sound small because they aren’t really tinkering with the level of care people get, but they’re massive in their effect for entitlement spending.
This is where that >$1T in savings in the 2nd decade comes from.
Calouste
@stuckinred:
Another successful AL-Qaeda ploy to drain another few billion out of the US economy towards on security theatre for the cost of about $20 in materials.
Their goal is not to blow stuff up, their goal is to have the whole American economy exist of nothing more than the military and the security apparatus, and than it will implode just like the Soviet Union’s economy in the late 80s.
slag
I’m liking the idea of this Rally more and more every day. It’s garnering criticism from all the right quarters. I may just have to go to the satellite rally in my area whether I have time or not.
asiangrrlMN
@morzer: And 0 to rage in ten seconds flat. What an asshat that Brooks is.
aimai
@catclub:
Jeezus, getting a law degree, marrying and having two kids, writing two hugely successful books, becoming a state senator, a regular senator and then president isn’t evidence that he has a Protestant Work Ethic? What the fuck? Does Brooks think Obama got his law degree, wife, two kids, and his book advance from the “Affirmative Action Welfare League” barrell?
aimai
geg6
@aimai:
Yes.
And this has been another edition of SATSQ.
thomas Levenson
@Lurked: Hey. I thought that was my obsession.
Glad to know I’m not both solitary and paranoid, if you know what I mean.