Elevated comment

A comment from Prof. DeLong's weblog that I found worth repeating, from a post on the subject of the administration's difficulties in hiring replacement members of their economic team:

This just in from the wires:

>>In a surprise announcement, President George W. Bush today nominated Berkeley economist J. Bradford DeLong to be his new Secretary of the Treasury. In prepared remarks, the President complimented Professor DeLong on his intelligence, his integrity and his devotion to family.

In the brief question-and-answer session that followed, reporters peppered the President with insolent and childish inquiries, harping on Dr. DeLong’s being not only a Democrat from a Blue State but one who calls the economic policy making of the Bush Administration "a clown show” and the war in Iraq "a disaster" (Professor DeLong has indeed reportedly gone so far as to call on more than one occasion for the President’s impeachment – Ed.).

Out of pity, the President explained the obvious to the White press corps:
“You have to have dissent if you want to crush dissent. If I filled the cabinet with yes men or folks with neutral positions, I wouldn’t have the fun of crushing the life and spirit out them…and when I say “I” I mean me and the Vice President, of course.”

DeLong, who refused to appear alongside the President at the press conference announcing his appointment, issued a cryptic message to readers of his Internet-based thought crime experiment or “weblog”:
“Help, the Secret Service has already surrounded the building! They have built some sort of barrier around the perimeter out of printed copies of the 2003 and 2004 budgets. There is no way out. If anyone knows or is related to a member of the Senate, tell them I will not come to the hearing. I will not answer questions--even by email. Wait, a car is pulling up. Someone is being taken out of the car. Oh, God! It’s John Taylor. They seem to be holding him at gunpoint. I…I can’t quite make out what he is saying but he looks very agitated and I do not think it’s about the yuan peg. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no! They’ve [Error 404]” <<