Seminar in Sycophancy

THE LITTLE ROCK talkathon was billed as a quest for new ideas, but it was anything but that. It was instead a payoff for campaign contributors, an audition for aspiring bureaucrats, and an Orwellian effort to reassure the public that many Clinton supporters agree with Mr. Clinton.

“We’ll explore every idea,” said Mr. Clinton, but even the mainstream press choked on that one. The Chicago Tribune rudely observed that “all of the economists at the meeting had endorsed Clinton’s program.” All of them; every one. “Not only was there not a supply-sider in the lot,” added the New York Times, “there was not even one advocating the basic Republican precept of low taxes and small government.”

About the Author

Alan Reynolds

Alan Reynolds, National Review’s economics editor from 1972 to 1976, is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author of Income and Wealth.

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THE LITTLE ROCK talkathon was billed as a quest for new ideas, but it was anything but that. It was instead a payoff for campaign contributors, an audition for aspiring bureaucrats, and an Orwellian effort to reassure the public that many Clinton supporters agree with Mr. Clinton.

“We’ll explore every idea,” said Mr. Clinton, but even the mainstream press choked on that one. The Chicago Tribune rudely observed that “all of the economists at the meeting had endorsed Clinton’s program.” All of them; every one. “Not only was there not a supply-sider in the lot,” added the New York Times, “there was not even one advocating the basic Republican precept of low taxes and small government.”