The Stimulus
Reading the news coverage of President Obama’s first prime-time press conference, in which he argued forcefully for his massive economic stimulus bill, I was reminded of a conversation I had with either David Frum or Robert Samuelson or possibly Sebastian Mallaby (I don’t recall exactly, but it was a major columnist, I’m sure), who was telling me an anecdote about Henry Kissinger — or was it James Galbraith? — who was at this party, and Kennedy was there too, the Senator, I think, along with like three or four Supreme Court justices, including either O’Connor or Scalia, who was in the news at the time, and there was a commotion, glasses breaking and all that, and everyone at the party looked over to see two gentlemen fighting over the citations in some Brookings white paper, and it turned out that one of them had written the paper, the other had written the item in which it cited, which I guess was the key citation, and the writer of the cited paper was trying to claim credit for the paper’s idea while also arguing that the writer (of the paper) got the citation wrong, or at least misunderstood his intent, and Kissinger — or God, was it Milton Friedman maybe? No, couldn’t be — anyway, he pulled out a copy of The Origin of the Species (Yes! Darwin! I’m not making this up, I swear!) from his pocket, which apparently he’d been carrying around, and was about to read a passage the he’d apparently bookmarked, but started by saying… saying… what did he say? I seem to have forgotten entirely, but I’m sure it will come to me later, and I do recall that it seemed relevant to, you know, all this. But anyway, my point is that this stimulus package sure is expensive, and shouldn’t we take care with legislation like this to be a little more fiscally responsible?
That’s a pretty awesome story. Right up there with the theft of the Zimmerman Telegram. Which didn’t happen. Or did it, and it was just subterfuge to hide the real source? I was at a party in Georgetown with Barbara Tuchman and she had said something clever about how… I dunno. But anyway, I managed to name-drop a German diplomat and a famous historian ;)
— jamie Hardt · Feb 11, 05:48 AM · #
…This is a parody of something that a guy like me down in the banana republic is utterly unfamiliar with, no?
— Joseph F. · Feb 11, 10:00 AM · #
I get the “structure” of the parody, or is it “construct”? I confuse the 2 often, or actually just use them interchangeably. In any event, as I was saying, or asking really, was the “structure” (I am not using “scare quotes” to imply that I do not really believe in the concept of “structure”, just that it could also mean “construct”, although to be honest I am not entirely sure where the “Venn” overlap is—again, nothing nihilistic meant by the “scare quotes”) meant to convey the sense that the Obama press conference was in some “neo-parody” way reminiscent of the “Nixon years”. You did reference “Kissinger”, as a comic, or at least the way I view things—-was that the point?—offset to Friedman, who, ironically (as I am “sure” you knew—that was the inside joke I thought) was wildly opposed to his —Nixon that is, not Kissinger, whose views I would not know on the subject—wage and price controls—which ironically (no “redundancy” intended) is what Obama seems to be listing towards. In any event, back to my main point……………
— Michael S Rulle Jr · Feb 11, 11:39 PM · #
Were Bono and Frank Sinatra at this same party? What about Thomas Friedman and his Indian CEO golfing buddies?
— TWylite · Feb 12, 07:46 PM · #