IT’S SO EASY! Amazing! For one brief shining moment, the editors had a tax plan:

FRIDAY, AUGUST 12, 2011

Bringing the global failure home/Krugman furthers the fail: In a recent blog post, Paul Krugman coined a superlative phrase. He described the “global intellectual failure” afflicting the world’s economists.

Krugman described a global failure—a failure of one of the planet’s “elites.” We assume he’s right in what he sees. His record is very good.

That said, intellectual failure is all around as you scan your country’s newspapers. This editorial, from yesterday’s Washington Post, is a truly remarkable document. (More on this museum-level effort next week.) Meanwhile, the discussion of Newsweek’s cover photo of Bachmann has been a giant, and varied, intellectual fail. But the people employed to pose as a press corps simply adore such bungled discussions. These discussions let them play familiar cards while sidling away from more substantial debates.

(Last night, we finally heard someone describe the foolishness of Bachmann’s stance on the debt limit, which she says she would never raise. The savant was Rick Santorum.)

To all intents and purposes, our modern journalistic culture is defined by the term, “global intellectual failure.” (Ranking liberals rarely seem to notice or mention this fact.) Unfortunately, Krugman extends one part of this fail in this, his latest column.

People, there he goes again! For the third time in recent weeks!

As far as we know, Krugman’s column is completely right on the merits. Once again, he argues that your nation is having the wrong discussion; we should be talking about unemployment, but instead we keep discussing debt. But people, there he goes again! In the following passage, he starts to explain how we got off on the wrong track.

The GOP has been part of the problem. But then, there’s that other key group:

KRUGMAN (8/12/11): So how did Washington discourse come to be dominated by the wrong issue?

Hard-line Republicans have, of course, played a role. Although they don’t seem to truly care about deficits—try suggesting any rise in taxes on the rich—they have found harping on deficits a useful way to attack government programs.

But our discourse wouldn’t have gone so far off-track if other influential people hadn’t been eager to change the subject away from jobs, even in the face of 9 percent unemployment, and to hijack the crisis on behalf of their pre-existing agendas.

Check out the opinion page of any major newspaper, or listen to any news-discussion program, and you’re likely to encounter some self-proclaimed centrist declaring that there are no short-run fixes for our economic difficulties, that the responsible thing is to focus on long-run solutions and, in particular, on “entitlement reform”—that is, cuts in Social Security and Medicare. And when you do encounter such a person, you should be aware that people like that are a major reason we’re in so much trouble.

Krugman notes that the GOP has played a key role in this process. But he focuses on a different group of prominent malefactors. According to Krugman, “other influential people” have been “eager to change the subject away from jobs.” You can encounter these “self-proclaimed centrists” on “the opinion page of any major newspaper” or on “any news-discussion program.”

These people “are a major reason we’re in so much trouble,” Krugman says, in his most damning comment. As he continues, he continues describing the damage these people have done:

KRUGMAN (continuing directly): For the fact is that right now the economy desperately needs a short-run fix. When you’re bleeding profusely from an open wound, you want a doctor who binds that wound up, not a doctor who lectures you on the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle as you get older. When millions of willing and able workers are unemployed, and economic potential is going to waste to the tune of almost $1 trillion a year, you want policy makers who work on a fast recovery, not people who lecture you on the need for long-run fiscal sustainability.

Unfortunately, giving lectures on long-run fiscal sustainability is a fashionable Washington pastime; it’s what people who want to sound serious do to demonstrate their seriousness. So when the crisis struck and led to big budget deficits—because that’s what happens when the economy shrinks and revenue plunges—many members of our policy elite were all too eager to seize on those deficits as an excuse to change the subject from jobs to their favorite hobbyhorse. And the economy continued to bleed.

“Many members of our policy elite” are involved in this conduct, Krugman says. In his last paragraph, he refers to them as “the usual suspects.”

That said, who are these “usual suspects?” This is the third column Krugman has written on this subject in the past two weeks. He has yet to name, or to quote, a single one of these “usual suspects.”

Who are these “prominent pundits?” (The phrase he used to describe them in a previous column.) How are readers supposed to know? According to Krugman, these prominent, influential people are doing tremendous damage to your country. And they keep going unnamed!

Who is Paul Krugman talking about? We’d have to say that this trio of columns represents a giant intellectual failure—and a giant failure of modern press corps culture. Paul Krugman didn’t invent the culture in which polite, high-ranking professional journalists avoid naming the names of other such royals, even those who are doing great harm to their country—but he has been enacting this culture with a remarkable zeal. This morning, he says these folk are “the usual suspects”—but his readers have yet to hear the names of any such suspects! And yes, this does create confusion, even among those who are following closely:

After one of Krugman’s earlier columns, we assumed he was talking about Thomas L. Friedman, the press corps’ reigning Butter Cow of ponderous, jowly self-parody. But everywhere else, liberal blogs seemed to assume that Krugman meant David Brooks.

Thomas L. Friedman and Brooks both work for the Times; Krugman may be working under restrictive covenants forbidding him from naming Times colleagues. (In the fall of 2000, he wasn’t allowed to use the word “lie” in writing about the flagrant misstatements of Candidate Bush.) But according to Krugman, other such “influential people” are found on the opinion pages of all major American newspapers—and you can see them on any news-discussion program! Surely, there’s someone whose name he could name, in an effort to let people know what the fuck he’s talking about.

But no! Paul Krugman won’t do it! Darlings, it just isn’t done!

Krugman only gets 800 words—though 800 words become 2400 when the same column is written three times. That said, why should people be named, and quoted, in the course of such discussions? Duh! It’s hard to know if paraphrased claims are really fair until actual quotations are offered or referenced. And screeds like this tend to get lost in the mist until real names get named, focusing the senses.

Who is Krugman talking about? As part of a giant intellectual fail, no one currently knows.

A long-standing part of press culture: Dearest darlings, it just isn’t done! Consider what happened in December 1999, when a White House candidate was misquoted by Ceci Connolly and Katharine “Kit” Seelye in the Washington Post and the New York Times.

On December 1, 1999, Candidate Gore was misquoted, about Love Canal, by the pair of press corps tyros. Later that day, a young reporter at the AP was assigned to do a report on the rapidly growing flap—a growing flap which had been triggered by a misquotation. In the course of her work, this young reporter discovered that Gore had been misquoted, in a highly significant way. Being intelligent, she thought she had an important story.

In 2003, a research group at the Kennedy School of Government interviewed this young journalist. And sure enough! Hadley Pawlak explained what happened when she tried to correct an obvious error by her journalistic betters.

Long story short: Pawlak’s editor had to step in and tell her the facts of life:

KENNEDY SCHOOL (2003): The story Pawlak now envisioned was not about Gore’s propensity to exaggerate, but the fact that the nation’s two leading newspapers had quoted him incorrectly and, consequently, misrepresented his meaning. “And maybe it could go even further,” Pawlak remembers thinking. “Maybe we could explore how easy it was for things to get out of control...One word difference by these two newspapers gets this whole thing blown out of control.” Her editor, however, thought otherwise, and told her, as Pawlak recalls it, “the AP is not in the business of correcting the Times and the Post.”

Darlings! It just isn’t done!

(While we’re at it, enjoy a wonderful irony: In the lengthy report by the Kennedy School, Pawlak’s editor never gets named!)

The Kennedy School goes on to describe the way Pawlak’s report got rewritten, bringing it in line with the pre-existing Post/Times line of attack. That said, the Kennedy School failed to notice a groaning fact; in the rewritten version of Pawlak’s report, Gore was misquoted again, in an all-new, second way! This second misquotation of Gore added to the growing claim that Gore had been lying again.

This high-profile incident turned the press corps’ AL GORE, LIAR theme to stone. For the next eleven months, this punishing theme was a staple of mainstream campaign coverage. Almost surely, it was the most consequential press corps narrative of the entire Bush/Gore campaign. Almost surely, this misquotation of Gore ended up sending Bush to the White House.

A young reporter tried to correct the mistake. But darlings! It just isn’t done!