Glenn Reynolds suggests that the U.S. treasury defaults on its debt, Bruce Bartlett trashes it, and Glenn’s defense?
Well, I was hoping for a thoughtful email from an expert, but instead I got a typically intemperate blog post from Bruce Bartlett. Bruce, I’m not trying to turn the United States into Zimbabwe. That would be the guy in the White House, whom you seem surprisingly anxious to defend.
I’m surprised nobody noticed the racist undertone in this response. Bruce Bartlett brought up Zimbabwe because defaulting on the debt was the direct cause Zimbabwe’s economic collapse. The analogy Glenn sets up is: Barack Obama is America’s Robert Mugabe and he’s going to take all the land away from you White people!
While that was most likely completely unintentional, the only adequate defense is that Glenn Reynolds, a law professor and premier conservative political pundit, is both socially insensitive and politically ignorant.
The irony amuses me with the obviousness of it all. (NB Title: Glenn Reynolds teaches law at the University of Tennessee.)
The twiterati think from this comment that I’m a fan of Bruce Bartlett. This couldn’t be further from the truth—the dude was a supply-sider! In my universe he was part of the problem.
Having said that, Glenn’s “It was just a question” defense is not only best left to a five-year-old, but also completely disingenuous. Bruce Bartlett as a former Treasury official, knows what how the rules guiding a default would play out, and points out that many people are “seriously” advancing this absurdity. While saying “The Treasury can never default on the debt; it’s simply impossible” is not semantically correct—it can and has happened in the past, it ignores the context of the quote—the treasury cannot easily default because of legal, political, and economic realities of the U.S. system.
Please, stop listening to Ron Paul and start edumacating yourself. Geez!
Simon Owens sent me his analysis of which domains Instapundit (Glenn Reynolds) linked to most often over a several day period. You might find it interesting.