Exuberantly intemperate!

Professor (and don't you forget he was almost a Cabinet officer) Brad DeLong!

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More about DeLong here.

Comments

[JRoth]

I dunno. I guess DeLong was intemperate on this. But so was Cassidy - the phrase "amazingly robust" should not - cannot - be applied to any circumstance where the reality remains controversial. Not only do we know in retrospect that the economy in 2002 was far from robust (much less "amazingly" so), but we also know that many knowledgable commentators at the time didn't buy that it it was robust at all.

In other words, Cassidy is rewriting history. It's not that he's absolutely wrong - there's evidence on his side - but he's using exaggerated language to blow past any objection, and create a false impression. And, after the last 7 Orwellian years, that kind of crap doesn't get the considered, probitive response it once did.

It is no coincidence that DeLong is one of the proprietors of the ShrillBlog, dedicated to documenting those driven to "shrill unholy madness by the mendacity, incompetence, malevolence, and disconnection from reality of George W. Bush and his administration." DeLong, and Krugman, and a lot of others, used to be barely-liberal academicians and technocrats, the kind who distanced themselves from "dirty fucking hippies" (in Atrios' terms); but, thanks to the utterly disastrous events of the past 7 years, and the complicity of the media in midwiving them, they are now as shrill as the DFHs themselves. I've seen a similar shift in your writing as well, David. I wonder if your recent distaste for Prof. DeLong might not have some relationship to your concern/fear that you, too, may become too shrill.

[Dave Sucher]

J. Roth, I have no fear of being shrill; I am acid.

As to DeLong's personal insults versus Cassidy's poor judgment — uh, there's the difference. You illustrate my point.

Shrill is not effective. Consider Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings; she is my own current model of precise and eviscerating commentary which is not shrill and therefore far more effective than what DeLong does. Consider his remarks to which I referred here a few weeks ago. He was so angry that he never even got around to making any substantive points about Philip Jenkins' article. That's not effective, just loud. And consider the context: he was attacking another academic about an article he didn't like. That's not attacking a man who has "decided" a nation into bad straits. It's very tempting and easy to be ad hominem; it just doesn't work in the context of the blogosphere.

Take Bush for example. Are the personal attacks effective? Uh...we are still in Iraq. He is still President. The pressure on Bush is not because people yell and scream but because he has done such a poor job of governing, putting it mildly, and it is becoming obvious. No, I don't think attacks on the personality of an opponent are effective, though they are fun.