You know the drill...

An Irrelevant Proposal By PAUL KRUGMAN

Here's how it works. Faced with a real problem — terrorism, the economy, nukes in North Korea — the Bush administration's response has nothing to do with solving that problem. Instead it exploits the issue to advance its political agenda.

Nonetheless, the faithful laud our glorious leader's wisdom. For a variety of reasons, including the desire to avoid charges of liberal bias, most reporting is carefully hedged. And the public, reading only praise or he-said-she-said discussions, never grasps the fundamental disconnect between problem and policy.

And so it goes with the administration's "stimulus" plan.

The evolution of Paul Krugman has been an interesting sight to see. I can remember first reading his columns early in the 2000 election. How refreshing it was to find someone who looked at the Bush economic plans and said the same thing that I said: "Huh?" Of course, Krugman is working from a very strong economic background, so he can back up that "Huh?" much better then I ever could. But, what was even more interesting, at least to me with my strong animosity towards the establishment press, was to witness Krugman's steady progression in his attitude towards his new companions in print and on TV. It is clear to me now that, coming from an academic background, Paul expected that his columns would garner the kind of back-and-forth debae any similar type of column would have received in various economic journals. When this didn't happen, when most of the mainstream press essentially ignored the simple questions he was laying out, the sound of his head-scratching could be heard all the way out here in the Pacific North West. I think it took him time to realize that he was dealing with a culture of individuals that played by entirely different rules then what he was lead to believe. In other words, he bought into the press' myths about themselves. Eventually, over time, it began to dawn on him that many in the media didn't pay attention to the obvious questions because they just didn't see any profit in it (and a lot of potential drawbacks, especially for their careers). Over the last one to two years Krugman finally broke through and came to a full realization of just how corrupt the establishment media has become. That awareness has permeated his columns ever since. It's nice to have him on our team.