More Waste of Space At the Washington Post

For a more complete rundown of my holiday experience, go read Brazen Hussy. I got that great Food Poisoning feeling too. Yippee.

While I'm feeling fairly articulate (at least compared with yesterday), let me comment on the op-ed by Robert Samuelson. After years of lecturing us about the correct economic policies, he decides to trot out that most irritating and mendacious of Bushian excuses, "Nobody Could Have Known!" According to Samuelson, nobody predicted that the subprime mess could undermine the U.S. financial system. Nobody predicted that relying on debt-driven consumer spending had a breaking point. Nobody predicted that a recession in the U.S. would lead to a global slowdown.

Well I suppose Samuelson is right. "Nobody" saw any of these things as a possibility, if the definition of "Nobody" is people who hadn't sworn intellectual fealty to the Chicago School, including both trained economists and just interested observers. In other words, if liberals and center-left policy wonks are political and policy unpersons. Which for Samuelson, they are. I mean really, it's not like liberals were right about the Iraq War, Global Warming, or any other major issues over the last few years, were we?