Author: Andrew Sullivan

Ryan Avent adds to Greg Mankiw's criticism:

It seems to me that fiscal stimulus will work well in countries where it is believed that fiscal stimulus will work well.

What do I mean by this? Well, one obvious point is that a country that understands stimulus should experience an immediate jolt to confidence when stimulus is enacted. But other factors are likely to be more important. A country committed to stimulus will take care to prepare to use stimulus. It will construct a system of automatic stabilisers that provide immediate countercyclical aid as an economy deteriorates. It may have a backlog of needed infrastructure projects at the ready, which can be rushed into action as conditions warrant. A country generally sceptical of stimulus, on the other hand, will reach for it in an emergency and find that it is unprepared. Automatic stabilisers will be too small and will require constant Congressional maintenance. Too few projects will be shovel-ready. The need to legislate will lead to inclusion of pork items that aren't particularly stimulative. Stimulus will be less targeted, timely, and effective as a result.

Today on the Dish we rounded up reaction to the latest Wikileaks leak. Andrew's take here. He also ripped into Journo-list for its Trig talk (a reader poured salt), wrung his hands over epistemic closure, and continued to confront anti-Semitic smears.

ABC finally released the full transcripts of her 2008 interviews. More Palin coverage here and here. The backlash against Lindsey Graham got scary. "Torture" watch here and here.

Creepy ad here. Slow lightning here, unoriginal lyrics here, ugly animals here, guy stuff here, and the definitive case against monogamy here. MHB here, VFYW here, and FOTD here.

— C.B.

Heh:

(Via TDW)

Tom Ricks recommends Leila Fadel's WaPo article on Mosul, Iraq. Ricks remains pessimistic:

There is no agreement on how to share oil revenue, no resolution of the basic relationship between the country's three major groups, and no decision on whether Iraq will have a strong central government or be a loose confederation. And no resolution on the future place of the Kurds and Kirkuk.

Joel Wing studies the connections between terrorism, insurgency, and government:

It’s much easier to come up with local projects and create community security forces than it is to reform an entire government. That can be seen in the current situation in Iraq. The insurgency has lost most of its popular base, but it still continues because Baghdad is dysfunctional, and militants still consider it a tool of the Americans.

Friedersdorf's reasoning:

I try the patience of some readers by regularly writing about talk radio hosts. It isn’t a fun beat, for all the obvious reasons (hate mail, gratuitous insults, having to listen to their shows)…It is nevertheless important to engage prominent talk radio show hosts by setting down their words on blogs, because otherwise their most indefensible nonsense just drifts off into the air unchallenged, a convenience that allows them to grow lazy in their call-screener-maintained cocoon while retaining more respect than is deserved from their ideologically friendly colleagues outside of it. The good folks at National Review or The Weekly Standard, which have covered this story well from various perspectives, might read Liberty and Tyranny, and being people that work a lot during the day, assume without ever thoroughly checking that the quality of argument on Mark Levin’s radio show is comparable.

Ackerman's guide to the Wikileaks document dump:

There’s a bias in journalism toward believing that what’s secret is inherently a hive of hidden truth. That operating principle animates reporters’ practice of breaking down governmental secrecy. But it can also create a misleading expectation that leaks represent huge new revelations. And when those revelations don’t manifest, it creates an expectation that the trove is neither useful nor significant. In this case, that would be a mistake.

Why are Huckabee and Romney still relative unknowns? Not everyone is obsessed with politics:

Pick something that you pay no attention to.  For my dad, I always suggest NASCAR.  My dad has read a sports page every day since he was a little kid; he still gets (as do I) a real, honest-to-goodness local newspaper on his front porch every morning.  He must have seen the names of NASCAR drivers thousands of times, but odds are he's only stopped to read a story if it had something in the headline that really caught his attention (someone from the Bronx, or Jewish, or both, might do it).  If you asked him to name a NASCAR driver he'd probably look at you as if you were nuts…but if you named some of them, he'd probably recognize the names.  The idea is that lots and lots of people have about that level of knowledge about most of what happens in politics.  It's just background noise.  We, the people who write and read political blogs, and watch debates, and pay attention to politics even in the off season –we're the minority.

… slowly (footage slowed down 300 times):

Les Gelb, in a succinct little paragraph:

The United States is giving “moderate” Pakistanis and the Pakistani military billions of dollars yearly in military and economic aid, which allows  Pakistani military intelligence to “secretly” help the Taliban kill Americans in Afghanistan, which will drive America out of Afghanistan and undermine U.S. help for Pakistan.