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Go Home Rick Perry, Weird Husbands, Stimulus, and More

TIMOTHY NOAH NOVEMBER 3, 2011

Rick Perry, Weird Husbands, Stimulus, and More

BY ISAAC CHOTINER

[Guest post by Isaac Chotiner]

Some random pickings from the day's news:

1. Rick Perry paid a visit to Sean Hannity's show last night, and the host asked the following question:

You have to think about people that you want around you as president on a daily basis. Give me the names of a few people, just off the top of your head, I won't ask you specifically, Vice President, Secretary of State, Defense, who would you like to have around you on a daily basis, giving their insight, their experience, their thought process...

This is what's called a softball. Perry said he'd speak to same of the same advisors he has today, before adding:

You know, I have had some great foreign policy conversations with Liz Cheney and with John Bolton, I mean, people who actually understand intimately where these countries are.

"These countries" were unspecified, but no can could possibly doubt Cheney's and Bolton's geographic prowess!

2. Hard to imagine why this guy's wife wanted a divorce...

3. Ramesh Ponnuru's and David Beckworth's piece on our site raises some interesting questions about monetary and fiscal policy, but I found one bit confusing:

The more fiscal stimulus Congress provides, the less monetary easing the Fed feels inclined to offer. Liberals feel they are compensating for the Fed’s lack of action, but they are really just encouraging it: the main effect of any current fiscal stimulus is not to expand the economy but to shift economic activity around (and especially to shift it from the private to the public sector). Spending may have an economic payoff if it raises the nation’s productive capacity, but it won’t increase total economic activity in the near term because monetary policy, given the Fed’s predilections, will adjust in response to the stimulus. [Italics Mine]

If this is the case, why is Bernanke pushing so hard for more fiscal stimulus?

4. Political junkies must click here.

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17 comments

Thank you for filling in for Timothy, Isaac. Your posts are always worth reading and thinking about.

- liberalref

November 3, 2011 at 12:17pm

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Item 2 seems not to point to a permalink for any story. If you point to an aggregation, there's no guarantee that the story you're referring to is still on the page. The word "divorce" isn't currently on the page, so I couldn't tell if you were referring to Bernanke, Cain, Perry, the NYPD Chief, or someone else (McCourt, maybe?). Otherwise, I'm enjoying both Tim's work and Isaac's.

- ramcat

November 3, 2011 at 12:48pm

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Ah, it must be this guy: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/nyregion/suit-against-photographer-seeks-re-creation-of-wedding-after-divorce.html.

- ramcat

November 3, 2011 at 1:07pm

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Item #3 -- um, no, the Congress has refused to approve any further "Quantitative Easing". Therefore asking Congress to approve additional Keynesian spending is the only thing the Fed has left to do (especially considering how low interest rates already are). If Congress would approve additional QE steps AND approve additional spending, I feel sure Bernanke would approve of both. In other words, these two steps are NOT on the opposite sides of the teeter-totter, as the quote tries to say.

- AllanL5

November 3, 2011 at 1:31pm

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That’s because the more fiscal stimulus Congress provides, the less monetary easing the Fed feels inclined to offer. The authors have it backwards. This category error is prevalent among conservatives: usually, by inverting their statements you can show the opposite notion maintains and perhaps they know this and are cynically attempting to suppress the truth. It is almost incontrovertible that since the stimulus we've had tight fiscal policy (counter-stimulus) and things like quantitative easing that qualify as monetary stimulus. If anything, the more monetary stimulus the Fed provides, the less fiscal stimulus Republicans in Congress feel inclined to offer.

- chaitless

November 3, 2011 at 2:01pm

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Nate Silver's piece (No. 4 above) is a little depressing.

- Nusholtz

November 3, 2011 at 2:24pm

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For some reason Perry's response reminds me of Carmac the Magnificent, the Johnny Carson character who would give the answer to a question before Ed McMahon asked the question. Perry can give an answer and then Hannity can provide the question that best fits the answer.

- rayward

November 3, 2011 at 5:20pm

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Live Free or Die! Haarrr! What about that, eh? That's some motto. Yeah. Ah'm from Texas. We have some mottoes in Texas too. You better believe it. We believe in livin' free, yessir! And dyin'. Nothing against dyin'. Now mah tax plan is simple. You can fill out your tax information on the back of a postcard, tear it up, and toss it in the trash. We're tahred of Washington telling us what to do. Now governor Romney, he don't -- he doesn't get it. Now ah'm a conservative. He's a flip-flopper, see. Ah'm different. I was a Democrat once, now I'm proud to be a Republican. A Republican from Texas. Yessir. And my wife is here with me. Jobs. That's what ah'm about. We created more jobs in Texas than . . . than . . . we have folks comin' to Texas for work. Thank you and god bless the United States of America.

- ironyroad

November 3, 2011 at 6:07pm

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Post-FDR Presidential historians have a tendency to frame presidential greatness through activism in times of crisis. Stephen Skowronek developed a political science-driven typology grid in his 1993 "The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton". Skowrenek’s typology forces each president into a political identity that is either opposed or affiliated with his predecessor, and whose ‘previously established commitments’ are either vulnerable or resilient. Seems to be a better predictor of who will win. I would love to see Nate Silver break outside his data on approval ratings and GDP forecasts and consider whether Obama's POLICY commitments such as PACA Obamacare and EPA regs, etc make Obama far more vulnerable than resilient. After all, the reluctance of 75% of the GOP to embrace Romney is because Romney's tenure in Massachusetts makes him AFFILIATED with his would-be predecessor Obama. Kind of funny that Nate Silver ranks Perry at 67 on ideology when the big gripes from what I call the Palin-wing is that Perry is soft on illegal immigration and used to be a Democrat, based on my completely non-scientific sampling of comments at Pajamas Media, which is not a big Romney fanfest.

- K2K

November 3, 2011 at 6:11pm

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http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7386800n&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cbsnews%2Ffeed+(CBSNews.com) just in case irony wants to retain his professorial integrity by viewing the entire 25 minute keynote speech that Gov. Perry delivered at the NH Cornerstone annual dinner. Quite different than watching the 8 minute trash-bash edit that has the entire media in mean mode.

- K2K

November 3, 2011 at 6:17pm

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKM5-d9aY7k&feature=player_embedded "Governor Rick Perry at Sean Hannity freedom concert 2010" might help explain why Hannity throws softballs to Perry in interviews. Last night, I watched that interview (even the Weather Channel was boring!) and I cringed at the thought of Steve Forbes being SecTreas, but have begun to appreciate John Bolton's contempt for the UN. Apparently Obama's EPA is still considering regulating dust on rural dirt roads...

- K2K

November 3, 2011 at 6:28pm

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Irony keeps his professional integrity for his profession, where it belongs. Here, he's just having a bit of fun. But, that said, eight minutes of a 25-minute speech is a third of that speech. I scratch my head if I think of someone saying about me "About eight minutes of irony's conference paper were beyond surreal -- it sounded like he'd gotten into the tequila at lunchtime -- the remaining seventeen minutes were normal, however."

- ironyroad

November 3, 2011 at 8:09pm

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Irony: fair enough that 8 minutes is not 25 minutes. But I've been a speechwriter on and off for a while, enough to know that audiences take away very, very little of the content of the speech - one or two key points might stick, if you're lucky, and frame the speech so those are the bits you want them to remember. So I would think that 8 minutes of bizarro behaviour in an otherwise ordinary 25 minute speech would pretty much guarantee that the oddness was all that anyone would remember.

- jcovell

November 3, 2011 at 8:29pm

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AP report today: "...New Hampshire House Speaker Bill O'Brien and former GOP congressional candidate Jennifer Horn told reporters that the hype had gone too far. Both attended Perry's speech, although neither is formally connected to any presidential campaign. "We the American people are engaged in the most important responsibility we have as citizens: choosing the next leader of the free world," Horn told reporters. "And we are kind of sick and tired of the gotcha games of politicians and the political press. This sort of irresponsible unsubstantiated storytelling hurts the democratic process." Horn lashed out at what she called "an 8-minute cut-and-paste, arts-and-crafts video project that somebody made on their desk of a 25-minute serious speech." "Go back and look at the 25 minute speech and let that one go viral," she said. ... But New Hampshire voters saw a different man last Friday than the one they have come to know in recent months. "I sat there thinking, 'We need to see more of this Gov. Perry," O'Brien said, recalling his reaction while watching the speech. ..." I saw the 8 minute edit first, and knew Perry was mimicking Ron Paul (Gold is good) and Herman Cain, but thought something was weird about the editing, so I found the entire 25 minutes. Gov. Perry started with Proverbs 15:13 "A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance", and segued into his riffs. But, then he went into serious mode for the balance, and it was quite powerful. I remember the end "Make America the land of the free" and saw a genuinely 'merry' man touched by the gift of what everyone in New England calls 'liquid gold' - real maple syrup. We had a tough sugaring season this year, so the price is really high. Every time I see a NH license plate "Live Free or Die", I respond the way Perry did. As irony knows, I do not think poking fun at white Texans or Southerners is funny, nor do I think those who openly express their faith should be disrespected, even though I have no faith. Apparently, some of Perry's 'mannerisms' are very familiar to anyone who attends Methodist churches. You guys do not 'get' how to engage an audience. I used to make speeches (that I had to write) for boring trade conferences. children's repertory theatre helped :)

- K2K

November 3, 2011 at 9:46pm

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K2K: "I do not think poking fun at white Texans or Southerners is funny" Pity. I do a pretty good Al Gore, but ok, not such a great Clinton.

- ironyroad

November 4, 2011 at 1:01am

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irony: go for broke. Try doing Haley Barbour :) btw, New Hampshire is really angry over this - one of Romney's county chairs from 2008 was at that NH Cornerstone speech, and just endorsed Perry.

- K2K

November 4, 2011 at 9:13am

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is anyone else shocked that someone who ordered a mail order bride is: a) now divorced, b) kind of a jerk?

- miceelf

November 7, 2011 at 10:14am

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