I followed a link from tbogg today over to Donald “Poor and Stupid” Luskin’s website. In big letters on the left, it says:
“THE CONSPIRACY TO KEEP YOU POOR AND STUPID BY DONALD L. LUSKIN
THE WEBLOG OF THE BOOK: How Big Government, Big Business, Big Media, and Big Academia Block Your Road to Financial Freedom– and Tell You It’s For Your Own Good”
Underneath, it has a quote, which I reproduce in full:
“…straight contrary-to-fact statements embarassing, and damaging to their own credibility…”
— Brad DeLong
This doesn’t link to anything.
A casual reader might think that this quote came from a review of the book. He or she might wonder who this Brad DeLong is, and what he’s referring to. Big government? Big business? Big media? There’s no way to tell.
Significantly less casual readers might know that Brad DeLong is a Democratic economist, and in-no-way casual readers might know that DeLong is a fierce critic of Donald Luskin. If you look up this quote, you’ll see that it comes from a sharp attack on Luskin himself, and on his editors at the National Review for publishing him:
You have to have confidence that those who write on social and political issues for National Review will find these kinds of straight contrary-to-fact statements embarrassing, and damaging to their own credibility–their writings are published beneath the same masthead, after all–and will talk to the editors. (emphasis added)
Hmm. If there had been a link, or if the subject of the quote had been clear, I’d have called this a self-deprecating joke from Mr. “Truth Squad” Luskin. But there isn’t one.
Now I think very, very little of Luskin, so I don’t trust my own judgement. Maybe I’m just being humorless. But I’d be very interested in hearing comments about how others judge this on the cute-to-slimy scale.
UPDATE: Edited to correct spelling of “deprecating”
{ 17 comments }
JohnC 09.24.03 at 11:54 pm
I always interpreted it as a self deprecating joke.
Brad DeLong 09.24.03 at 11:58 pm
The “stupid” are those who read Luskin’s columns in _National Review_. The “poor” are the people who invested in Luskin’s mutual funds.
The missing link is: http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2003_archives/001869.html .
CS 09.25.03 at 12:13 am
It’s a joke. It obviously refers to the thing DIRECTLY ABOVE THE QUOTE, and offers a bit of in humor for those who know who DeLong is and read his Semi-Daily Journal. And it hardly seems misleading as ’twill be a rare soul indeed who would be surfing Luskin’s site without an ideological axe of his own to grind. Ted: c’mon dogg, lighten up.
Jeremy Osner 09.25.03 at 3:25 am
Yep, I think it’s a stretch to read that quote and think it’s a reference to the entities Luskin is attacking. If you know who Delong is, you will read it as a self-deprecating joke; if not, it will be entirely meaningless.
Matt Weiner 09.25.03 at 4:37 am
I’m not exactly on the cute-to-slimy scale. Luskin means you to see that DeLong is attacking him–DeLong’s quote describes the website–but Luskin doesn’t see this as a self-deprecating joke; DeLong’s criticism validates him because DeLong is PART OF THE CONSPIRACY. Just like Paul Krugman. And, as far as I can tell, all other non-supply-side economists.
Well, the comment about Krugman’s “The Great Dogearing” is cute, so Luskin has a bit of a sense of humor–but if you are foolish enough to click on the weblog, it looks like it should be subtitlted “A Paul Krugman stalker site.” Yeesh.
Terry 09.25.03 at 6:27 am
Luskin’s a nutbag. A couple of weeks ago, he was bashing Krugman’s book right and left, asking if anyone was “surprised to learn that Krugman’s publisher, W.W. Norton, has repeatedly refused (his) requests for a review copy of the new book” and then hawking the book on his own page.
Gall: It’s not just a province of Romana.
Anno-nymous 09.25.03 at 6:32 am
I agree that it’s probably a joke, or at least intended as evidence of how contrary he is. But I think the better question is, why doesn’t the quote include the subject or verb? Why not include “National Review will find these kinds of”? It sounds like Brad doesn’t know how to speak English. Then again, maybe that was the point?
Anno-nymous 09.25.03 at 6:33 am
I agree that it’s probably a joke, or at least intended as evidence of how contrary he is. But I think the better question is, why doesn’t the quote include the subject or verb? Why not include “National Review will find these kinds of”? It sounds like Brad doesn’t know how to speak English. Then again, maybe that was the point?
William Sjostrom 09.25.03 at 10:34 am
Are you serious? Remember when Krugman attacked Andrew Sullivan as “to vile to read” (or something like that), and Sullivan put the quote up on his website, as evidence that he got under Krugman’s skin? Luskin is obviously doing the same thing, since DeLong is a well known Democratic partisan. Not as well known as Krugman nationally, but certainly as well known among blog readers. Or were you just doing a parody of deeply distressed liberal hyper-sensitivity? (Sorry if I missed it.)
Barry 09.25.03 at 1:08 pm
Freudian projection explains an awful lot of the right’s actions and words (note Luskin’s ‘conspiracy’ tagline). In addition, it’s sometimes a good tactic to accuse others of that which oneself is guilty, just to muddy the air. In the case of the quote, however, it’s probably based on the assumption that the readers won’t check on the source of the quote.
Thorley Winston 09.25.03 at 3:01 pm
I agree, Ted Barlowe seems to be coming up short in the “finding something substantive and interesting to post about†department lately. This one is particularly weak. However it does illustrate rather nicely how desperate the other side has gotten that they get so apoplectic over a rather obvious in-joke on a blog.
Terry 09.25.03 at 3:22 pm
Wow, Thorley, your laserbeam intellect has sliced through our weakness and found that we are scared and desperate. Of course we are. How could we not be when we see things like this and read things like this. (Shudder.)
Rob 09.25.03 at 3:24 pm
No the funny part is how Donald Luskin when maniacal over a slightly edited quote of his while cutting Delong’s quote out of context.
Thorley Winston 09.25.03 at 4:19 pm
Terry,
“This” and “this†are supposed to be what and what exactly?
Remember – Preview is your friend.
;)
Terry 09.25.03 at 4:28 pm
Thorley,
Hmmm…. So it underlined them, but didn’t link… Tricky comment bastards! Apparently my intellect is laser-like today as well.
Here they are:
http://www.pollkatz.homestead.com/files/image001.gif
http://www.msnbc.com/news/971384.asp?0cv=CA00
Ted Barlow 09.25.03 at 4:56 pm
Thorley,
Reading over the post, I really don’t think that I got apoplectic. The distinction between the tone of this post and a fit of anger so intense that it causes a rupture of blood vessels in the brain is subtle but real, I think.
Anyway, the straw poll seems to point to “not slimy”, which is fair enough. To heavy blog readers, it’s hard not to see the quote as a joke. And there’s a reasonable point that people who don’t know who DeLong is will just read it as a non sequiter- the quote refers to “they”, not “he”, so it’s hard for me to understand why someone unfamiliar with DeLong would know that it’s a criticism of Luskin. It’s not a huge deal in either case.
Thorley Winston 09.25.03 at 6:50 pm
Ted,
Thank you very much for your prompt response to my earlier post. In hindsight, I have to agree that “apoplectic†was too strong of a word; however I am curious about something.
The “issue†itself over Luskin’s quoting of DeLong on his website seems rather trivial to put it mildly. I can understand discussing something trivial as a springboard for a larger issue such as Bustamante’s ties to a racist organization like MEChA or how Drudge and Robert Novak distorted Clark’s wearing of a hat of a Serbian war criminal prior to his being indicted although after he was accused of war crimes. But each of these issues – trivial as they may be – at least can lead to a discussion of larger issues such as whether or not there is a double standard for what constitutes a “racist organization†(based on the ethnicity of said organization or the political affiliation of the person who was a member) and whether or not our nation’s representatives who have been sent to deal with unsavory sorts ought to have it held against them for doing their jobs when they did not break any laws in the process.
I just don’t see what the fascination was with the Brad DeLong quote on Donald Luskin’s website. Was there a larger issue here that I’m missing other than possible concern that people might not “get†the joke? Because it seemed a little bit like nit-picking when I first read it and while I generally think you’re above that, it seems to me that you might be falling into that pattern with several of your last posted issues. I hope I’m wrong because you have posted some fine stuff in the past and I have no doubt you will in the future as well.
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