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Fortune's Peronet Despeignes interviews Greg Mankiw:

Magazine - Economist Greg Mankiw Sounds Off on Karl Rove, Paul Krugman, and More - FORTUNE - Page 7: Q: So you often read the paper and slap your forehead?

A: Let me give you example. This is as I was arriving [as the new chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers]. Glenn Hubbard, my predecessor, was leaving. I read one of Paul Krugman's New York Times' columns, and he said something like, 'Hubbard said he was leaving to be with his family, but you could see the knives sticking out of his back.' The suggestion was that he's being kicked out. I knew that wasn't true. I knew I got the job in large part because Glenn recommended me. So here we have Krugman sitting in some office in New Jersey making a supposition about what's going on in Washington and then writing for the New York Times, with readers presuming that he knew something...

Wait a minute. Stop right there. I understood that when Paul Krugman was writing, Glenn Hubbard had just played the up-or-out game--promote me to a job that has more power and prestige, or I'll head back to Columbia. Remember that in the winter of 2003 Glenn Hubbard was being described as one of the "four horsemen of Bush economic policy," the "most influential chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in two decades," a man who has "stretched his role far beyond tinkering with the tax code and overhauling the pension system." The Washington gossip vine in the fall and winter of 2003 was singing that Glenn would stay--but only for the right job, with more influence.

When Glenn went back to Columbia in early 2003, I was told by not-very-senior administration officials that it was because some feared that Glenn was just a little *too* smart and too capable, and that he was not "safe."When the Treasury and NEC jobs were opened up, Glenn did not get either of them--that's what Paul Krugman was referring to. (I think that everyone in the White House now agrees that this was a bad mistake: that Glenn would have greatly strengthened the administration's economic policy team over the last two and a half years.)

Greg is telling the truth when he says that Glenn recommended him for the job, and Greg is telling the truth when he says that Glenn could surely have stayed in the CEA chair job if had wanted to. But Greg's claim that Krugman is wrong? The best you can say is that it is... "incomplete."

Read Greg's _Fortune_ interview with this in mind, particularly when you come to statements like:

There are three kinds of people in Washington when they look at this budget situation. There are conservatives—honest conservatives—who think we need to reduce the size of government. There are honest liberals who want to raise taxes to make government bigger. And then there are people who are putting their heads in the sand who do not want to do either. It's very clear that this administration is filled with conservatives who believe in smaller government, leaner government, and the tax cuts go hand in hand with that.

No Greg. That's not clear at all. Not clear to anyone.

Comments

[david]

A real question, not snark. Does anyone suffer professionally in academia for spouting bs like this in defense of administration policy? Any administration will do as an example.

[Brad DeLong]

Not as long as you can make a credible case that your "outside" pr gained you enough "inside" points to make a difference when you Spoke Truth to Power.

If there's no evidence that you Spoke Truth to Power, it can get bad--I am told that it got bad for Murray Weidenbaum, for example.

[howard]

ye frickin' gods: mankiw isn't really trying to make the claim the prof quoted, is he? this is some parody version of mankiw, right? or maybe everything that comes out of his mouth since he worked for the bush administration is a parody?

or maybe, as the prof might be implying, he's actually murray weidenbaum in disguise.

[pgl]

I wonder if Mark Thoma will say to himself - you let Mankiw off too light especially on the deficit issue. The part where he suggested Bush was serious about reducing spending made me gag. Thanks for taking this interview on, but Mankiw owes you for being quite gentle - big time IMHO.

[david]

Thanks! Not a problem historians have to confront really.

[bakho]

Samwick disagrees- according to Brads buddy at the WaPO, Weismann.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/23/AR2005052301938.html?sub=AR

[edward]

Nothing very much to say about this, just a thought on the expression

"in smaller government, leaner government"

The way words change. 'Lean' these days sem to imply 'sleek' and 'efficient', maybe a boxer 'lean and mean'(ie there is an implied agressivity also perhaps).

But there was an earlier meaning: 'with that lean and hunrgy look', this would take me back to Steibeck and the thirties. Just a thought.

[hyh]

The whole interview is simply amazing. What does it say about policy makers when they refer to events that they themselves helped bring about as external, historical events with which they were simply confronted? The denial/delusion is tragic. The mendacity is criminal. The smugness is blood curdling. That they have been "successful" speaks volumes about the ethics of power and Americans' larger problem of amnesia and short-termism.

[Ginger Yellow]

Edward, "lean and hungry look" is from Shakespeare - Julius Caesar. So you're going a lot further back than the 30s.

[theCoach]

Why Brad continues to use the kid gloves on Mankiw is beyond me. Ralph Reed is more respectable.

[dogfacegeorge]

Mankiw makes a pretty nasty charge: Krugman is a liar - he "just makes stuff up."

Mankiw's only Exhibit supporting his charge: Krugman made a "supposition" that the official line on Hubbard's departure might be bunk.

So, Krugman apparently (a) gave the official explanation and (b) expressed his personal doubt about its credibility. What, exactly, did he "make up?"

It's amazing to me that Mankiw's first inclination is to think that someone who disagrees with him is a liar. It's amazing to me that an academic would behave in that way.

[dogfacegeorge]

"Greg is telling the truth when he says that Glenn could surely have stayed in the CEA chair job if had wanted to"

Actually, Mankiw isn't really telling the truth. He wasn't the decision-maker and doesn't know whether Hubbard was forced out or not (and neither does Brad). Mankiw simply believes the company line; Krugman does not.

Krugman, however, apparently identified his belief as a "supposition." Mankiw, on the other hand, professes to have personal knowledge -- "I knew [Krugman's suggestion] wasn't true." Mankiw's assertion of personal knowledge of the true reason for Hubbard's departure is a falsehood, pure and simple.

Ordinarily, this would not be so bad because we frequently say we "know" things when, in reality, all we have is a fervent belief. But Mankiw's complaint againt Krugman is that Krugman implies a personal knowledge that he does not possess. Mankiw is guilty of the very sin he accuses Krugman of committing. Talk about projection!

[William]

"It's amazing to me that Mankiw's first inclination is to think that someone who disagrees with him is a liar. It's amazing to me that an academic would behave in that way."

Touché, dogfacegeorge.

[Jon Husband]

Brad .. if you replace the words *smaller government, leaner government* with the words *policies to support a "starve the beast" strategy* .. does that make it more clear ?