Douthat gets recession all wrong

Even without this helpful graph from an Ezra Klein column at the WaPost, I knew Russ was full of shit.

First, it’s less red-vs.-blue than he claims, and by far. The California housing bubble is hitting Orange and Riverside counties as badly as anywhere. The same bubble and related problems have heavily red Arizona in almost as bad a pickle as California.

South Carolina, almost as government stingy as Douthat’s favorite child, Texas, is one of the hardest-hit states. And, Texas ain’t all that great, beneath the surface.

Beyond that, Douthat gets Social Security and Medicare wrong.

FDR pushed Social Security not so much because the Depression was waning (it was actually embraced in part because it would buy seniors still working out of jobs and open them up) but because folks like Upton Sinclair and Huey Long wanted that or more.

LBJ and Medicare? Well, yes, he was at the peak of his powers. And acted. Very shortly after getting elected in his own right.

In short, this is Douthat’s worst column since joining the Times.

I was not a total Douthat basher when he first joined the NYT. And, some of his columns have been at least halfway thought-provoking. In other words, I found him usually to be no worse than David Brooks and often a small notch better. But, I am not sure the lower levels of Brooks "bobo" columns touch this level.

Not only was Douthat wrong, he was deliberately wrong, whether out of laziness, stereotypes, ax-grinding, or some combination thereof.