Krugman-Will get fooled again

Brad DeLong praises Jacob Weisberg for noticing, finally, that the GOP has gone off the deep end — then asks why Weisberg hasn’t written a piece about how he got snookered by Paul Ryan just 6 weeks ago.

And more important, what will happen when the next charlatan comes along?

John Quiggin is optimistic: he thinks that we may have reached a real turning point. I hope he’s right. But I doubt it. There’s a large cohort of people in the commentariat (and one in the White House, I fear) who are more or less liberal in sentiment, but desperately want to see themselves as men who transcend partisan differences; and to serve their self-image they keep looking for what Atrios calls “GOP daddies”, supposedly serious, sensible Republicans they can praise to show their open-mindedness.

So what happens when this intense desire to find sensible Republicans faces the reality of a GOP gone bonkers? The answer is a series of unrequited crushes. Paul Ryan is only the latest figure to be held up as an example of competence and reasonableness despite clear evidence, for anyone willing to see it, that he utterly lacked those qualities. Some of us remember that none other than George W. Bush once got the same treatment.

So my guess is that any day now someone else will get the nod. Actually, Mitch Daniels would have gotten the Ryan treatment if he had run — and down the road pundits would have been shocked, shocked to find that Bush’s budget director, who did as much as anyone to explode America’s debt, is not actually sensible or moderate. Now unrequited centrist love will have to find a new object for its affections — but whoever it is, we can confidently predict that he will disappoint those expectations.

Meet the new crank, same as the old cranks.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/23/will-get-fooled-again/

they would accept a pro-labor or pro-consumer bill in exchange for some pro-business deductions or exemptions.
they would allow a pro-business bill to have a few pro-labor or pro-consumer conditions.

then came reagan, who taught republicans that IMAGE could be completely divorced from POLICY. ever since then, they've been on a rampage to get EVERYTHING THEY COULD POSSIBLY GET AWAY WITH, while struggling mightily to maintain an IMAGE of competence and reasonableness. they are COMPLETELY uninterested in actually ACHIEVING competence and reasonableness. in fact, they don't want that. they WANT to be unreasonable and they WANT to destroy government.

all they want is the IMAGE, just as the big, bad wolf wanted the image of the dear old grandma. the better to eat you with, my dear.

so on and on they go, sifting through the bottom of the barrel for something or someone to which a positive image will stick, despite all evidence to the contrary.