|
“Artificial
Device” posted
9/18/01
Dear Rich,
I was planning
to reference you in a forthcoming article. Let me know what you
think of the following passage:
"Last
Tuesday's terrorist attack makes clear that we should scrap plans
to deploy missile defense. As National Review editor Rich
Lowry writes in a September 14 column, 'missile defense wouldn't
have stopped these attacks.'"
Okay, I wasn't
really going to write that. (In fact, I don't even believe it.)
I thought it would point out to you the bizarre way in which you
have serially misrepresented my views on the Social Security lockbox.
It began with
me writing an article
defending the Social Security and Medicare lockboxes. In the course
of said defense I called them an "artificial device."
You proceeded to write a
column in National Review Online quoting those two words in
such a way as to leave the distinct impression that I opposed lockboxes
because they are artificial. I was prepared to let it go, but then
you wrote another
column doing the very same thing.
So, to clear
things up, I wrote an online
response explaining that something can be both artificial and
good at the same time. If there was any confusion remaining about
my views, I thought it would have been dispelled by a 3,000-word
cover story I wrote a week later defending the lockboxes.
But then, last
Friday, you
did it again! This time, in fact, you stepped up the mischaracterization.
Now, it seems, "Jonathan Chait of The New Republic has
been saying for weeks" that the lockboxes are "artificial
devices." Of course, I haven't been saying that for weeks.
You've been saying I've been saying it for weeks.
A colleague
of mine suggested that you are actually engaged in some wry, absurdist
prank to see if you can make somebody famous for championing a view
that's the opposite of what they actually believe. If so, I must
admit that it's extremely clever. But maybe it's time you let your
readers in on the joke.
Jon
|
