Mendacious Wacko of the Right Named Undersecretary Designate

Matthew Yglesias writes:

Jim Glassman, America's New Salesman: One point people have tried to make over the past few years is that the Bush administration needs to stop thinking of public diplomacy as simply a need to put a better sales pitch on the same American policies. Our pitch is actually fine and people understand what we're saying -- they just don't like it.

Relatedly, someone told me earlier today that Jim "Dow 36,000" Glassman was replacing Karen Hughes. I laughed at this pretty funny out-of-left-field joke. Obviously, the same George W. Bush who thinks public diplomacy is just about salesmanship wouldn't give the job to one of the least credible salespeople on the planet. Funny stuff. And imaginative! But no, this is really happening.

Time to hoist from the archives!

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005_archives/000025.html [Kevin Hassett and James Glassman,] the authors of Dow 36000: The New Strategy for Profiting from the Coming Rise in the Stock Market, pretend, once again, that their book did not say what it said:

TCS: Tech Central Station - DOW 36,000: Five years ago, economist Kevin Hassett and I wrote a book called Dow 36,000.* Maybe you have heard of it. The book made the bestseller lists and won accolades from, among others, the current chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisors. For some, however, the book became an object of derision because -- just in case you haven't noticed -- the Dow hasn't actually risen to 36,000 yet.... Dow 36,000 was not a prognostication. Sure, the Dow will hit 36,000 and probably, eventually, 360,000. But I don't know exactly when, and I don't believe investing is a game of forecasting what's going to happen tomorrow or next year...

However, those of us unlucky enough to own Dow 36000: The New Strategy for Profiting from the Coming Rise in the Stock Market can go to our bookshelves, pull it down, and read that "the Dow should rise to 36000 immediately"--i.e., in October, 1999. But Hassett and Glassman say, they are going to be cautious and conservative. They are not going to forecast that the Dow will rise to 36000 tomorrow, but instead they "believe the rise will take some time, perhaps three to five years..." (p. 18).

However, they acknowledge that they might be wrong: the rise might come much quicker. As they go on to say later on the book, the fact that Glassman and Hassett "conservatively" don't expect the rise of the Dow to 36000 to occur for three to five years--i.e., until 2002 or 2004--does not mean that investors should delay. Investors should "seize the opportunity now [i.e., in 1999] to profit from the rise in the Dow to 36000 (p. 125)."

On pages 18 and 19 of the book they go so far as to sneer at one of their American Enterprise Institute colleagues--someone who told them back in 1998 what Glassman is saying now. For when one AEI colleague heard their title, he gave a cynical laugh and said, "As long as you don't say when [the Dow will reach 36000], I suppose it is all right." Glassman and Hassett's response was: "we aren't laughing. The case is compelling.... 36000 is a fair value for the Dow today... stocks should rise to such heights very quickly. As you read on, you will... learn to invest in ways that take advantage of a remarkable time in financial history..."

Glassman's investment advice today is good. He is right when he writes that "stocks are a far better place than bonds and cash to put the vast majority of your money for the long run." But his flat-out claim that this "was the unequivocal message of [Dow 36000: The New Strategy for Profiting from the Coming Rise in the Stock Market]" is flat-out false. That "stocks are a far better place than bonds and cash to put the vast majority of your money for the long run" was the unequivocal message of Jeremy Siegel's Stocks for the Long-Term. Glassman and Hassett may wish that they had written the book that Seigel wrote, but they didn't.

Moreover, we haven't even gotten into the fact that Glassman and Hassett got their math wrong. As the Economist's Clive Crook told them in May 1998, the 36000 number was "wrong, plain wrong.... Your reasons for believing that the Dow should be at 36,000 are wrong in the same way that it's wrong to say two plus two equals five.... Using your own method, provided only that you put the right variable into the formula, the market is about fairly valued."

Note how they don't dare mention the subtitle of their own book--it would make the falsity of the claim that "Dow 36000 was not a prognostication" too obvious.

---

It would be an elementary point to say that somebody who cannot tell the truth about his own book shouldn't be held out as the public face of American diplomacy by any administration. But this point eludes Condi Rice and the rest of the Bushies.

---

UPDATE: In fact, this point eludes the usually-reliable James Fallows, who after writing:

James K. Glassman: face of America: I have known and liked Jim Glassman for a very, very long time.... He is a lively, funny, and creative guy, and there are lots of jobs for which I would happily sign him up.

But as the head of America's public-diplomacy efforts?... America's idea is still powerful and attractive, and America still has the opportunity to present a compelling and authentic face to the world.... I have met... many true-blue patriotic Americans who have spent their careers learning how... America could best engage [foreign countries]. Jim Glassman, despite being a great guy, is not one of these...

Reverses field:

Further on JK Glassman and public diplomacy: This hasn't happened in a while, but after taking a few hours to to think it over, I've changed my mind.... The idea of America, in its authentic version, should be attractive and inspiring to people around the world.... If the world doesn't feel that way right now, it's largely though not entirely our own fault.... I'm still exasperated at the damage done to my country's reputation and name, and I have very low expectations of what Karen Hughes's successor... will be able to accomplish... the current president and vice president will still be in office. But it is possible that the verve, energy, and ingenuity Jim Glassman has shown through his career could be just the traits the person in that situation needs... let's see what he can do in this next year.

I'm going to be cynical, and note that Fallows did not follow the advice of Dow 36000--did not say "let's see what [Glassman] can do"--did not borrow as much as he could and invest everything in the stock market in October 1999 to take advantage of the "coming rise of the stock market" to Dow 36000 that Glassman was saying would happen in 3 to 5 years. Risks worth running with America's global diplomatic effort are not risks worth running with one's own financial portfolio.

:-)

Comments

[christofay]

Gilder, Glassman, go for a trifecta, please a post on Kudlow. Otherwise we might wake tomorrow and find he's been appointed George Bush's ambassador to the handling of the imploding financial system, a czar, a man to cut through the bureacrazy of the Federal Govt on our way to banana republichood

[a]

hm. So making an inaccurate prediction is a mark of "utter stupidity". What then to make of Krugman's famous preditions of recessions in 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, ... ?

[la deluge]

--- Things are really getting muddled here. At 8:00am EST James Fallows is saying, among other things, this:

---- "Over the years I have met, through reporting, many true-blue patriotic Americans who have spent their careers learning how Asian (or European or Arab-Islamic etc) cultures work and think, and how America could best engage them. Jim Glassman, despite being a great guy, is not one of these. As with Hughes, this seems another choice driven by internal comfort (the assumption that he'd face no confirmation problems) rather than external suitability (demonstrated understanding of the outside world), which means another bad choice."

--- But there's a note that says that last sentence in the above quote isn't a sentence that was in the Post that Brad DeLong was responding to:

---- "* (Last three sentences altered since first posting, to make internal/external point.)"

--- I'd be interested in knowing what James Fallows' original post said.

[Total]

"What then to make of Krugman's famous preditions of recessions in 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, ... ?"

Two shots at spelling 'predictions' correctly and you couldn't do it?

Citations for those predictions, please.

[Outraged to Shrill, Raging Fury]

Fallows wrote:
"I'm still exasperated at the damage done to my country's reputation and name..."

Exasperated. He's a much milder and kinder man than I am.

[Matt Zanon]

I wonder if Glassman could have predicted that his book would go for all of $2.03 in Very Good condition on Amazon Marketplace.

[Barry]

This is a prime example of the second level of media bias (the first is serving the interests of elite corporations):

Fallows knows Glassman, and so Glassman's lies aren't going to bother Fallows. Now, this is probably good career practice for journalists and writers; each enemy increases the chances of not getting a job, somewhere down the road.

But here it's clear that Fallows is covering for somebody who at the very least was spectacularly wrong in his areas of expertise.

This is also how AEI flourishes; journalists don't want to tell the truth about it.

[Barkley Rosser]

While we are at it, Condi just appointed Paul Wolfowitz to some sort of oversight body at the State Department also. Talk about mendacity and wackos!

[save_the_rustbelt]

Wal-Mart is selling a count down to inauguration day calendar, featuring dumb Bush quotes and dumb Bush photos.

If even the purchasing agents at Wal-Mart can figure Bush to be a dunce it shouldn't surprise is that he acts like a dunce.

What next, Michael Jackson appointed special ambassador to Save the Children?

[la deluge]

--- Thanks Outraged to Shrill, Raging Fury, you've pointed me to something James Fallows posted after the post-edition I was citing. The entire paragraph:

---- "I'm still exasperated at the damage done to my country's reputation and name, and I have very low expectations of what Karen Hughes's successor, whoever it might be, will be able to accomplish. That person will have barely a year to operate; Guantanamo will still be running; there will still be a large U.S. troop presence in Iraq; the current president and vice president will still be in office. But it is possible that the verve, energy, and ingenuity Jim Glassman has shown through his career could be just the traits the person in that situation needs. As I think about him more, and more about the sources of my exasperation, I say: let's see what he can do in this next year."

--- This tells me that in that post he's willing to give James Glassman a chance, but doesn't on first reading give any insight into what he had written and then changed in his earlier post.

--- When a seasoned blogger and well regarded journalist states that he has altered sentences to make an internal/external point he reasonably fuels concern. This is even more the case when the magazine he is associated with has recently changed ownership and moved from Boston to DC.

--- That he doesn't feel some responsibility to his readers and didn't show the change with the statement that he had made an alteration is troubling; it suggests he feels something to hide, and we don't want our better journalists feeling this way.

[Ahab]

Yes Atlantic will bear watching. Let's hope Fallows doesn't meet the "Dog Whisperer" I expect Blind into Baghdad won him some special friends. The day is near that reading anything printed on paper is mainly useful as an indicator of the issues that need to be "spun"

I prefer to believe his better nature convinced him to be charitable to a person taking a really unattractive job. Would anyone reading volunteer for "Liar in Chief"?

[trotsky]

For years I've read and enjoyed Fallows' work, but after reading this, I've got to wonder:

This hasn't happened in a while, but after taking a few hours to to think it over, I've changed my mind ...

Yeesh, what's the point in thinking about anything then?

[Long memory]

Jim Glassman writing in the Harvard Crimson, at the end of the sixties, quoted in Steven Kelman, Push Comes to Shove, Houghton-Mifflin, Boston, 1970, pp. 209-210:

"Action is its own reason for existing. Rebellion can only be understood by a rebel, who knows that the only `reason' for rebellion is the pleasure (or whatever feeling) of rebellion itself. Revolution for the hell of it, because there is no other reason big enough for rebellion."

Lots of people who shared Glassman's political views as students in the sixties have changed their opinions since. But while most of them gained in wisdom along with years, I'd have to say that the author of Dow 36,000 did not.

[lee]

I'm surprised they didn't appoint Charles Kadlec, author of "Dow 100,000". Since he had a timeline of 10-15 years he could still be right! This book is available at Amazon.com "from $.01" Really a deal!

[Ben Ross]

At least they didn't appoint Glassman chairman of the SEC!

Not to say the SEC chair they did appoint was a whole lot better...

[kharris]

The reason for the appointment is simple, and known to all. Glassman already serves in a sort of related capacity, and has not made any waves. Any replacement for one of Bush's all-time favorite people has to bring some measure of the comfort factor. Bush doesn't like to approve hires who don't allow him his comfort factor.