Weathervane

Archein has a funny preview of Paul Krugman's upcoming intellectual crusade in favor of "comprehensive" finance reform. Here's a taste (h/t Naked Capitalism): Krugman As Failure

First few columns: "These bankers are greedy bastards and Wall Street really needs to be fundamentally changed."

Next few columns: "We really need this, this, and this. It's imperative, to do anything else would be a sham on the American people and destructive to the American economy."

Columns once the bill is pretty much intact: "All this is not nearly enough, they didn't do anything, but there's still time to make a couple good changes."

Columns once it's clear even to Mr. Krugman the Democrats are in the tank for Wall Street and nothing good is going to come of it: "Well, this isn't a great bill, but we need to hold our nose and vote for it, to do nothing will be fatal for November."

Column when bill is passed: "This is historic, the Democrats are just great, we can improve it in the future."

I like the part where he says "The Democrats are just great, we can improve it in the future." It's funny 'cause it's true.

While conservatives can talk about "repeal & reform" and "November 2010," they need to realize that the problems we face cannot be solved solely by the political process. Even if we vote every bed-wetting progressive in Congress out of office, there will still be an army of truculent progressives in the media, academy, and non-profit worlds who will be able to exercise outsize power through their various sinecures, and they ain't going anywhere. Paul Krugman is a case in point: a loud-mouth ideologue who will argue against his own interest (not to mention his own academic work) if it will let him beat up on Sarah Palin for one more week.

The American Left cannot be beaten just in the political arena. It must also be defeated in the intellectual arena as well, but that is a much more arduous task, not because of the superiority of the Left's ideas, but because their intellectual institutions give a platform to people like Krugman, regardless of how objectively wrong Krugman's arguments have been over the years. One Paul Krugman on the back page of the NY Times is worth any 30 liberal back benchers in Congress. Until we are rid of the likes of him, the progressive project will always be ascendant.