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!@#$%! · 01.10.2020, 11:42 AM

paul krugman’s newsletter from this morning, which i just posted on the iran thread cuz it applies here too.

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When liars go to war

I wrote my first column for The New York Times 20 years ago. I was hired to focus on business and economics — I remember Howell Raines, the editorial page editor at the time, saying “We have five columnists writing about the Middle East, which is too many, and nobody writing about the economy.” And I fully expected to spend my time mainly on the tech bubble, China’s entry into the world economy, and so on.

But events intervened, in ways that seem highly relevant to our current situation.

First, I found myself horrified by the 2000 election campaign and its immediate aftermath — both by the campaign’s content and by most of the media coverage. For it was obvious to me that George W. Bush was being deeply dishonest about his policy proposals on things like tax cuts and Social Security privatization — dishonest in a way we’d never seen in previous elections.

Yet the conventions of “balanced” coverage prevented the news media from making Bush’s dishonesty clear. As I wrote in November 2000, “If a presidential candidate were to declare that the earth is flat, you would be sure to see a news analysis under the headline ‘Shape of the Planet: Both Sides Have a Point.’”

Then came Sept. 11, and the partisan exploitation of the atrocity. Within days, Republicans tried to use the terrorist attack as an excuse to cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy. But nobody wanted to hear about that; the media narrative was of a nation unified in its determination to stand tall, and the corrupt reality was largely covered over.

Which brings us to this current moment. The media and the public are far less gullible now than they were then, but even now there’s a tendency to take administration claims at face value, or at least semi-seriously.

Don’t do this. Lies don’t stop at the water’s edge. Administrations that are dishonest about domestic policy tend to be dishonest about foreign policy too. And while the Bush administration lied a lot, Trump and company lie about everything

01.10.2020, 11:42 AM	#7578
!@#$%! invito al cielo Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: mars attacks Posts: 42,465	paul krugman’s newsletter from this morning, which i just posted on the iran thread cuz it applies here too. — When liars go to war I wrote my first column for The New York Times 20 years ago. I was hired to focus on business and economics — I remember Howell Raines, the editorial page editor at the time, saying “We have five columnists writing about the Middle East, which is too many, and nobody writing about the economy.” And I fully expected to spend my time mainly on the tech bubble, China’s entry into the world economy, and so on. But events intervened, in ways that seem highly relevant to our current situation. First, I found myself horrified by the 2000 election campaign and its immediate aftermath — both by the campaign’s content and by most of the media coverage. For it was obvious to me that George W. Bush was being deeply dishonest about his policy proposals on things like tax cuts and Social Security privatization — dishonest in a way we’d never seen in previous elections. Yet the conventions of “balanced” coverage prevented the news media from making Bush’s dishonesty clear. As I wrote in November 2000, “If a presidential candidate were to declare that the earth is flat, you would be sure to see a news analysis under the headline ‘Shape of the Planet: Both Sides Have a Point.’” Then came Sept. 11, and the partisan exploitation of the atrocity. Within days, Republicans tried to use the terrorist attack as an excuse to cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy. But nobody wanted to hear about that; the media narrative was of a nation unified in its determination to stand tall, and the corrupt reality was largely covered over. Which brings us to this current moment. The media and the public are far less gullible now than they were then, but even now there’s a tendency to take administration claims at face value, or at least semi-seriously. Don’t do this. Lies don’t stop at the water’s edge. Administrations that are dishonest about domestic policy tend to be dishonest about foreign policy too. And while the Bush administration lied a lot, Trump and company lie about everything
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