Krugman reflects on our broken political discourse, again

I couldn't agree more with this old blog post from Paul Krugman of the NYTs. Given the urgent necessity of intelligent dialogue during the upcoming presidential race, our state of affairs is even sadder than usual.

November 21, 2007, 7:35 pm
A thought about political discourse

A meta-thought inspired by the Social Security craziness:

Faced with a major public issue, such as the future of Social Security, one might think that the crucial thing would be to ascertain the facts. If I say “there is no crisis,” and you think there is, well, produce the evidence that shows that my arithmetic is wrong — not something I once said that you think proves that I’ve changed my mind. Making this a game of gotcha is just childish.

But here’s the thing: this childishness infects a lot of political discourse. Think about what passes for a “tough” question on the Sunday talk shows. It’s not “Senator Bomfog — you say X, but the statistics show that it’s actually Y. How can you explain this discrepancy?” In fact, I’ve never seen that happen. In political reporting, being wrong means, at most, that your claims are “in dispute.”

No, what actually passes for “tough” questioning is “Senator Bomfog, you say X but last year you said Y. Aren’t you flip-flopping?”

Like I said, it’s childish — and destructive.