Tuesday, September 10, 2002

The Sullynator has some interesting responses to the Harper's article against him.

Sullivan gets all huffy at the suggestion that his good friend Charles Francis, by giving him $500, bought a favorable mention.

First, if Francis only gave $500 why is he listed as a Gold Sponsor for giving $1000+?. I don't think it really matters, except to highlight Sully's tendency to instinctively lie when accused.

Second, as is his way he takes the Harper's criticism out of context. The context of the criticism was Sullivan's non-stop rantings against Krugman for having gotten some money from Enron for essentially attending a conference. If we all remember, Krugman was bad because he took Enron money without disclosing it even though he was working as a Times columnist. Then, even though it was before he was a Times columnist it was bad because he didn't disclose it. Then, it was bad because even though Krugman had disclosed it, he hadn't disclosed it every single time he mentioned Enron in his column to his readers, even though he was writing viciously negative things about the company. The time Krugman did write something nice, in Fortune , he disclosed it.

But, in any case, the Harper's article was highlighting Sullivan's now famous double standard of morality - one for him, and one for everyone he doesn't like. If Krugman is supposed to disclose his Enron payola every single time he writes something about them, then Sully should disclose in the text every single time he writes something nice about one of his $500 (or is it $1000+?) donors.


The truth is Sully's "defense" is a less convincing version of Krugman's - as Krugman was supposed to disclose his former financial ties to a company he was blasting, while Sully doesn't need to continuously disclose his financial ties to someone he is saying nice things about. Neither "defense" is really necessary, as in both cases there isn't all that much to defend, which of course was the point of the article in Harper's.


UPDATE: Just wanted to add that determining whether or not Paul Krugman is an "economic genius" of course requires a subjective judgement. But, if one considers the honors his peers have bestowed upon him - including the prestigious John Bates Clark medal and tenured positions at top universities - it isn't a ridiculous statement. And, given that it's a pretty good bet that he'll be a future Nobel Laureate as well....

Oh, also, check out the cartoon of little Hitchens and little Andy riding George Orwell like a horsey in the back of the NYT Book Review this past Sunday. I couldn't find it online.