Blame-Shifting

It's one of the most popular forms of amusement in Washington these days. It's called 'blame-shifting'. But, strictly speaking, this is a misnomer, as Batchelor himself suggests. The point of the exercise is to give the illusion that those at fault are not at fault. (If one were to tie 'blame-shifting' to its obvious nomenclature, somebody would actually have to be at fault, and suffer the consequences of being at fault: go to prison; go to the gallows, etc. But since nobody is actually in prison and nobody is likely to be executed, I guess, nobody is at fault ...and the crimes continue.)

Friedman, like Krugman among others, has consistently soiled himself in defending the indefensible. Designated by academe and liberal media as a high intellect, he has had to hold his nose and swallow hard in trying to defend the Left’s faulty logic, its broad disregard of historical precedent and its blatant double standard. It is not clear to me whether or not he knows that he has prostituted himself or if he actually believes the stuff he writes. No doubt, he’s made a good living among the like-minded. But even their never robust ranks are thinning, leaving behind only the most seriously hobbled. How long Friedman can continue (assuming he’s reasonably sane) doing his stick before packing away his writing tools and sending them off to permanent storage is anybody’s guess.

Is Friedman deliberately lying or is he just plain stupid. It’s the same question in essence we could pose regarding President Obama. Both men are likely to keep the answer close to the vest. In the final analysis it’s not about them; it’s about us. How we ourselves answer these questions will determine whether we are on the road to better health or locked into a death spiral.