Wednesday, July 1, 2009

No One Goes There Anymore. It's too Crowded.

I haven't gotten to attend many panels this year, because I've been on too many.
o_O
The questions for Goolsbee are much more hostile than they were last year. I don't know whether to attribute this to the economy, or the fact that the disadvantages of Obama's policies are now apparent. All policies sound better when they're in white paper, and Obama's rhetorical deftness made it particularly easy to make his proposals sound like all things to all people. Now deficits have to be paid for, climate change bills turn out to lack teeth for anyone except the Chinese, health care gets scored by the CBO rather than optimistic campaign members.
Time taken to realize GWB was a failure: 6 years.

Time taken to realize that BHO is a failure: Less than 6 months.

Ideological win.

2 comments:

clever pseudonym said...

Shhhh...don't anybody tell Megan that sitting on panels also means you are in attendance. She might figure it out for herself if she thinks about it really, really hard.

ChciagoEd said...

I have no idea what Megan's thinking about here. My best guess: Some U of C prof that Megan took a course from ten years ago and is now with the Obama administration gets asked "hostile" questions by "very successful people" who attend Aspen about, basically, tax rates--which haven't fucking changed since Obama got in. Sounds really stupid already. But to Megan, the more money you have the smarter, better, more astute you are--nothing proves this point more than this post--so the "successful" must be taken seriously. Who the fuck cares what these rich assholes who go to Aspen for their "Ideas" fest think, or the tone of their questioning to Austan Goolsbee? What does that prove? Anyone who traveled to Aspen and paid money--not to mention actually spending their time--listing to Megan McArdle host a panel discussion about her crackpot concerns deserves to have their head examined.

Q: Who's Megan's audience for this post? This post where she praises the astute and biting questions from the inquisitors of (the Socialist) A. Goolsbee? Could it possibly be a) the rich fucks who go to Aspen, and b) her douchebag boss who hosts it? No, not Megan. She'd never write a fawning puff piece about the virtue of her benefactors who keep her Mini Cooper gassed up and the Kindle upgrades purchased. Never.