Supply-sider logic:

Via Tapped, we learn the following:

ANALOGIZE THIS. NRO seems to have given Donald Luskin a day off, so Bruce Bartlett takes a crack at Paul Krugman, while defending supply-side economists from the charge that they lack academic credentials:

Under the circumstances [of the 1970s], there was no time to write articles for obscure academic journals that might take years to get into print, organize scholarly conferences, and do all the things necessary to get the grudging respect of people like Paul Krugman. Supply-siders went directly to policymakers and the media with their ideas, bypassing the academics the same way Gen. Douglas MacArthur went around Japanese strongholds in the Pacific, leaving them isolated and ineffective.

Tapped would find the analogy more plausible if MacArthur had run out of troops halfway to Japan and found himself beating a hasty retreat back to California in much the same way that Ronald Reagan eventually discovered that his policies were bankrupting the country and he needed to turn around and raise taxes to prevent a fiscal disaster. [...]

We'd prefer to put it this way:

Under the circumstances [of the 1930s], there was no time to write articles for obscure academic journals that might take years to get into print, organize scholarly conferences, and do all the things necessary to get the grudging respect of people like Vavilov. Proponents of vernalization, such as Lysenko, went directly to Stalin and the media with their ideas, bypassing the academics, leaving them isolated and ineffective.

posted by Quiddity at 9/23/2003 08:57:00 AM