Krugman: Crucially, the media generally can’t tell the difference

[johan helge]

Krugman (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/upton-sinclair-and-the-wonk-gap/):

Jonathan Chait bemoans the wonk gap:

"One of the unusual and frustrating aspects of the health care debate is the sheer imbalance of people who understand the issue at all from a technical standpoint. Even the elite policy wonks of the right make wildly incorrect claims about the issue."

First of all, I don’t think this is unique to health care, or especially unusual. Monetary policy, fiscal policy, you name it, there’s a gap, although not quite as large as on health.

Second, I’m surprised that Chait doesn’t refer to Upton Sinclair’s principle: it’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. In fact, in general right-wing think tanks prefer people who genuinely can’t understand the issues — it makes them more reliable.

Doesn’t this apply to both sides? Not equally. There was a time when conservative think tanks employed genuine policy wonks, and when asked to devise a Republican health care plan, they came up with — Obamacare! That is, what passes for leftist policy now is what was considered conservative 15 years ago; to meet the right’s standards of political correctness now, you have to pass into another dimension, a dimension whose boundaries are that of imagination, untrammeled by things like arithmetic or logic.

Wouldn’t the right be better served by better wonks? No. For one thing, they’d be unreliable — they might start making sense at an inappropriate moment. And, crucially, the media generally can’t tell the difference. I’ve had long exchanges with reporters over the doc fix; let me tell you, it’s very, very hard to get the point across. People like me tend to think in terms of simple thought experiments, but reporters keep wanting to dive into the political ins and outs, no matter how many times you try to say that those are irrelevant.

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[villager]

1. "what passes for leftist policy now is what was considered conservative 15 years ago"

...and not just in health care

[Vinnie From Indy]

2. Actually Krugman kind of misses the mark

He is right about most everything he wrote, but he fails to mention that the media is complicit in the deception. They too understand where their bread is buttered.

[johan helge]

3. I agree

My comment to Krugman: "Upton Sinclair's principle applies to these reporters, too!"

[jeff47]

4. Really?

"And, crucially, the media generally can’t tell the difference. I’ve had long exchanges with reporters over the doc fix; let me tell you, it’s very, very hard to get the point across."

[RufusTFirefly]

5. Yes. Krugman definitely includes the media in his criticism. I'm not sure why that isn't obvious.

jeff47 is right on. You might want to go back and read the piece again, Vinnie (and johan).

[johan helge]

6. Perhaps you're right

- I just got the impression that he used the Sinclair principle about the wonks, not about the press. But if I'm right, that is of course just an oversight from Krugman, of course he agrees that the principle applies to the press, also.