A mystery for the ages

[Daniel Drezner]

Ten weeks ago I predicted all of Paul Krugman's op-ed essays for 2008 by using the following simple formula:

We’re heading into a recession....

The Republicans are blinkered.

Everything is Alan Greenspan’s fault.

I luuuuuv John Edwards.

Barack Obama is not a real progressive.

By my count, today's op-ed has at least three of the five tropes.

Krugman's defenders might point out that he's actually right about a few of these points -- though I'm willing to bet that there's dissensus about which ones he's been right about.

What's puzzling to me, however, is that this tactic of redundant repitition renders Krugman unbelievably boring. After the 50th op-ed hammering home the same point, Krugman winds up alienating even his natural allies.

This is a genuine problem. Looking back over the past decade, Krugman has been right about some big issues (Bush's tax cuts, Iraq) even if his reasoning has not always been spot-on. During this campaign, however, his rhetorical effectiveness has been on the decline -- which means that even if he has a valid point, it gets lost in the ether.

In contrast, the campaign seems to have rejuvenated the minds of David Brooks and even, Lord help me, Maureen Dowd. I don't necessarily agree with them all that much either... but there's a curiosity of mind at work -- a willingness to play with ideas and themes -- that seems completely shut down in Krugman's work.

Why is this?

Comments

Because producing 750 words of engaging topical commentary twice a week is a literary skill that few people have, and one not all that well correllated with the possession of a specialized body of knowledge. Every moment he has invested in his wretched column was subtracted from time that might have been spent on the academic research and publication that has been his true vocation. Also, for whatever reason, he elected seven years ago to destroy the reputation he had acquired from his writing for general audiences in his books and his column in Business Week. If there is a biography of Dr. Krugman, answering why he did that will be job #1.

Posted by Art Deco | April 4, 2008 1:09 PM

Largely vindicated by the current administration's failures, Krugman's brain has been overtaken by hatred and self-satisfaction.

Posted by Andrew | April 4, 2008 1:09 PM

Oooo, a dissensus...

Tell us, Dr. Daniel, what have you gotten right this decade?

Posted by SavageView | April 4, 2008 1:13 PM

Krugman is not a writer with a broad general interest in things outside of economics. In addition, he seems to suffer from BDS which has made him boring, as well, once you have read a month's worth of his columns.

However, I must vociferously disagree about Dowd. I simply don't understand how anyone with an IQ higher than 80 could find her columns worthwhile, even if they have vastly improved.

Posted by Yancey Ward | April 4, 2008 1:21 PM

I'd say that at the very least he's right about "We’re heading into a recession" and "The Republicans are blinkered." The problem is that the second of these seems pretty obvious to me, and the first he has been saying for so long now that it's hard to give him much credit when it's finally true...

Posted by David T | April 4, 2008 1:26 PM

I guess I am in the bottom 11% of the psychometrician's distribution. I do not often read one of her columns, but the one's I have read I found amusing and, in some way, insightful. (The best may have been her column comparing the former President and his wife/aspirant successor to Lucy and Ricky Ricardo).

Posted by Art Deco | April 4, 2008 1:26 PM

During this campaign, however, his rhetorical effectiveness has been on the decline -- which means that even if he has a valid point, it gets lost in the ether.

Krugman's rhetorical effectiveness has not so much been on the decline. Rather, he simply finds himself in a different (Hillary) tribe than most liberals. I think that's largely because Krugman's main hobbyhorse is traditional, New Deal-style, europhilic, redistributionist politics. He wants to make the US a lot more like Western Europe with respect to domestic policy. Unlike Hillary Clinton, Obama mostly doesn't seem very interested in such a course of action. And the largely upscale, well-educated, mostly economically secure liberals who support Obama share their candidate's priorities. Such people are more concerned with foreign affairs, political reform, social policy, and the environment, than they are with the economy.

Krugman's sin is being an econocentric liberal. Most liberals who matter and vote -- ie., upscale ones -- aren't particularly econocentric in their politics.

Posted by Sonny Disposition | April 4, 2008 1:45 PM

BDS? Ah, Bloody Dismal Science.

Posted by dearieme | April 4, 2008 1:55 PM

"Bloody Dismal Science"

I was hoping it would be BDSM...

Posted by D | April 4, 2008 2:01 PM

How'd he get the war and tax cuts right? I must have missed his mea culpa article.

Posted by Tom | April 4, 2008 2:05 PM

Barr-McArdle '08: In Your Heart You Know They're Right-Wing.

Posted by Barr-McArdle '08 | April 4, 2008 2:12 PM

Alright, let's just step back from the brink here for a minute. Krugman has been somewhat repetitive, though in a seemingly repetitive political world. Brooks has actually been fantastic for the last few months, writing pretty interesting and original pieces. But Dowd? Dowd?! Since the beginning of this election cycle she has had nothing but columns devoted to say how awful Hillary Clinton is filled with terrible jokes and nicknames. Seriously, the woman makes Guy Smiley look like a legitimate journalist. I am baffled, simply baffled, that she still has a job.

I mean here's analysis of Jan. 17th's gem: http://airingofthegrievances.blogspot.com/2008/01/maureen-dowd-is-war-crime.html

More greatness: http://airingofthegrievances.blogspot.com/2008/01/maureen-dowd-is-generic-cheerios.html

Or this gem: http://airingofthegrievances.blogspot.com/2008/02/maureen-dowd-is-supercalifragilisticexp.html

To wit: She is ridiculous and terrible.

Posted by Jonathan | April 4, 2008 2:22 PM

krugman's a partisan

that's what they hired him for, that's what he wants to do, so that is what he writes

Posted by xxx | April 4, 2008 3:20 PM

Ah, jealousy of a Nobel-caliber economist who has been entirely right about Bush, the war, etc. Nice.

Posted by John McCain: More of the Same | April 4, 2008 4:17 PM

He has the Anna Quindlen Chair for Upper East Side Cheerleading.

When I first moved to NYC, I resolved to read the NY Times all the way through, daily for a year. Didn't get all the way through it every day, but I read the op-eds, and everything Quindlen wrote for a year. After about four months of her columns, I played a game: could I write the whole column after just reading the first sentence? Almost always. And I began to wonder, why read something if you already know what it's going to say? It's the same twelve pieces, over and over and over and over.

What would puzzle me the most was people who thought she was just wonderful, couldn't wait to read her next column. All I could think was, "Hey, you've read it already...."

Anyway, I came to realize that there are a lot of people who read her column because they loved to be told that they're right. Perfectly human, who doesn't like to be told that they're right? But, jeez, guys, doesn't it get a little dull? Apparently not. Which led me to conclude - somewhat to my surprise - that neither side of the political spectrum has a monopoly on close-minded, intolerant true believers.

Now, as Drezner said, this doesn't mean that what they say is wrong. Just repetitive, tiresomely predictable, and dull.

Posted by rhinoman | April 4, 2008 4:30 PM

Yup, Krugman is repetitive. If you had to come up with two 750-word columns twice a week for years, you'd get repetitive, too. He started out writing a column for Slate called "The Dismal Science". He was better there because he had all the space he needed, he only did one column every other week and he could cite links if he had to. Problem is, the NYT is the biggest soapbox there is, and it requires 750-word columns weekly.

Secondly, I think he's repetitive because he feels he has to be. He was right to oppose invading and occupying Iraq, and he was unusual in that he said so before the invasion when it might have made a difference, and Megan admits he's right. But there's cognitive dissonance here: people (like, say, Megan) realize on some level that Iraq was bad strategy combined with incompetence, yet they can't bring themselves to act on that understanding. As Krugman put it: "You just can't be taken seriously in this town on national security unless you were wrong on Iraq". So Krugman feels he has to keep bringing these topics up to change people's minds.

Posted by amorphous | April 4, 2008 6:57 PM

This isn't unique to Krugman. If anyone's writing can be predicted based on a few ideas, even if those ideas aren't the ones they explicitly lat out, then they're boring to everyone for their fans.

For me, I can sum up Noam Chomsky's political works with the sentence "It's America's fault." He can do a lot of work to get to that point, and can even be right, but it's always the same no matter what he seems to write about. So, it's utterly predictable and I don't bother anymore.

For a lot of partisan commentators it's "Always the President's fault," "Always the media's fault," and so on. I think that if a writer's views can be distilled this easily, then we have an insight into their underlying outlook. Once we have that, there's not much point in reading what they say in the future since we already know. It's pretty clear that they're already convinced and are just looking for confirming evidence.

This is avoided by people like David Brooks and Mickey Kaus. I never know what they'll say about a new topic (of course we know their views on old ones). I don't think they're right any more often, but at least I'm curious to see what they'll do.

Posted by John Lynch | April 4, 2008 7:08 PM

The torch has been passed. It used to be Al Gore who was our national Cassandra, right but disbelieved. Now it's Krugman. The fact that he's disbelieved by people on both sides of the aisle reinforces this if anything.

Also, I love the idea that repetition devalues the message. That's why successful politicians never repeat themselves.

Posted by bobv | April 4, 2008 7:37 PM

The torch has been passed. It used to be Al Gore who was our national Cassandra, right but disbelieved. Now it's Krugman. The fact that he's disbelieved by people on both sides of the aisle reinforces this if anything.

Also, I love the idea that repetition devalues the message. That's why successful politicians and advertisers never repeat themselves.

Posted by bobv | April 4, 2008 7:37 PM

little performance art there

Posted by bobv | April 4, 2008 7:38 PM

I would expect part of the reason why Krugman feels he needs to keep hammering on the theme that the sky is falling is that the broader political discourse continues to consider it perfectly respectable to maintain that these heavy, sharp-edged chunks of blue concrete falling on our heads are just extra-large raindrops, and anyway who could possibly have predicted that the sky would fall -- other than those deranged alarmists who did?

Today's column, e.g., addresses John McCain's health care "plan", which is based on the premise that since the world's most privatized health system is also its most expensive and has the most uninsured, the way to get everyone insured and bring down costs is to privatize it even more. Which is pretty much the current conservative playbook: since what we've been doing for the past 8 years has been a disaster, let's do it even harder! What is Krugman supposed to do but respond: No. Wrong. Let me explain it to you again.

Posted by brooksfoe | April 4, 2008 10:03 PM

David Brooks

Posted by ed | April 4, 2008 11:05 PM

better

Posted by ed | April 4, 2008 11:09 PM