Matthew Yglesias: Drezner Outreach Program

Drezner Outreach Program

I come to get Dan Drezner to vote for John Kerry, not to bury him, and since he's edging in the right direction we'll continue to accept his premises ad arguendo and kindly ask Professor DeLong to avoid antagonizing anyone. This is like wondering if you should hire the architectural firm whose structural engineer doesn't know what he's doing just because you like their clear, aesthetic vision for your house. The only problem is -- your house is going to fall down, so the aesthetic qualities aren't all that relevant. You want to just buy the firm's pretty model and put it up as an object in your less-pretty, but non-collapsed, house constructed by the competition. Implementation is very important.

August 18, 2004 | Permalink

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» Matthew Yglesias Becomes a Missionary from Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)
Matthew Yglesias asks me to please not jiggle his elbow, and to refrain from pointing out that Bush's "grand strategy"--even if completely and successfully implemented--would still be a clown show: matthew: Drezner Outreach Program: I come to get Dan D... [Read More]

Tracked on Aug 18, 2004 2:38:46 PM

» Hey, what if... from Three Guys
So false dichotomies seem to be the primary idiocy of our time. With us or Against us. Against the War or For the Troops. Terrorist or Republican. [Read More]

Tracked on Aug 18, 2004 4:29:56 PM

» Hey, what if... from Three Guys
So false dichotomies seem to be the primary idiocy of our time. With us or Against us. Against the War or For the Troops. Terrorist or Republican. [Read More]

Tracked on Aug 18, 2004 4:31:32 PM

» Hey, what if... from Three Guys
So false dichotomies seem to be the primary idiocy of our time. With us or Against us. Against the War or For the Troops. Terrorist or Republican... [Read More]

Tracked on Aug 18, 2004 5:02:24 PM

» IS THE CHOICE REALLY VISION VS. COMPETENCE? from Heretical Ideas
Daniel Drezner asks:This leads to an disturbing question. Which is better: a foreign policy with a clearly articulated grand strategy but a f#$%ed-up policy process, or a foreign policy with no articulated grand strategy but a superior policy process?M... [Read More]

Tracked on Aug 19, 2004 12:31:45 AM

Tracked on Aug 19, 2004 12:35:38 AM

Comments

I think Fareed sealed the deal.

Posted by: praktike | Aug 18, 2004 11:33:16 AM

Zakaria's most recent column doesn't seem to leave much doubt about who he's going to vote for. He had a tendency in some of his previous columns to adopt the "I'm going to criticize Kerry, or maybe just 'Democrats,' alongside Bush because I have to be non-partisan instead of just saying that Bush is screwing everything up" strategy, which MY deplored in a post some months back. Good to see that Fareed is now in the "you know, Bush is just wrong, and Kerry's basically right" camp that his logic pointed to all along.

Posted by: Haggai | Aug 18, 2004 11:46:56 AM

Phil Carter is also back from his boards and is kicking butt. A must for any blogroll.

What does a structural engineer do without an architect? Build last year's house, I suppose. Or remodel the house next door. I do worry a little about Kerry being too process-oriented, so much time is spent in the Senate negotiating, making deals, building relationships that what comes out in the legislation is a serviceable, but theoretical mess. But if the next four years were only spent in remodeling and shoring up the foundations, cleaning up the mess Bush has made, we would be well served indeed. Bush 41 lacked grand strategy, but I think was a successful Presidency.

Posted by: bob mcmanus | Aug 18, 2004 11:49:08 AM

Haggai-

I've watched Zakaria become more of a tacit Kerry supporter on the "This Weak" panel over the past year. I'd say this column is his coming out party and perhaps the beginnings of a campaign for a job in the Kerry administration.

Posted by: praktike | Aug 18, 2004 12:03:43 PM

I think you're conceding too much with this analogy. Since when would Bush's vision for the world be the "prettier" one? It's not like Kerry doesn't want safety, stability, and democracy.

Posted by: The Dude | Aug 18, 2004 12:06:51 PM

The Dude,
In George W. Bush's mind we were greeted as liberators with flowers, and at that point our mission was accomplished.

Posted by: theCoach | Aug 18, 2004 12:09:16 PM

praktike, it has seemed like a slow realization on Zakaria's part, hasn't it? A sort of, "wait a minute, this guy may be a politician, but he really does agree with me on all the important points." The substance of his columns, and his arguments on This Week, have never really left much doubt about where he would end up.

It reminds of me of one of Dennis Ross' observations in his new book, which I'm reading now. Regarding Yitzhak Rabin, Ross says that while Rabin would sometimes insist that he couldn't do certain specific things--like negotiate with the PLO, or consider withdrawal from the Golan Heights--you always had to pay attention to the broader strategic logic that he would explain to his American interlocutors, because his decisions would inevitably catch up to his logic, even if he insisted otherwise at first.

Posted by: Haggai | Aug 18, 2004 12:13:12 PM

Vision with no engineering can be prettier, because reality doesn't constrain the design. An Eiffel Tower made of rock candy would look awesome, for about a day.

Posted by: Tim H. | Aug 18, 2004 12:14:48 PM

This is like wondering if you should hire the architectural firm whose structural engineer doesn't know what he's doing just because you like their clear, aesthetic vision for your house.

Look, they fixed "Falling Water". The repairs only cost $4 million. The original cost over run as only $125K (the original estimate was a total cost of $30K. But, it appears the architect achieved some cost savings on things like beams.)

But it's fixed. Who wouldn't be happy? Why do people have to keep harping on these little problems?

Posted by: lucia | Aug 18, 2004 12:24:52 PM

Haggai-

I just bought the Ross book last night. So far I've only read the first chapter re: three narratives. I'm surprised at how good it is, and how candid. I like the way he began with failure and is now working to fill it out and explain why he failed. Kind of a sad story.

Posted by: praktike | Aug 18, 2004 12:28:55 PM

Amazing book, isn't it? I'm maybe 1/4 of the way through it now. I probably read as much about that subject as anyone else, and the level of useful and illuminating detail in this book is extraordinary.

Posted by: Haggai | Aug 18, 2004 12:31:38 PM

I'm wondering why MY cares so much about the immortal soul of DD. One more Kerry vote in Illinois is somewhat superfluous, and his impact on the national audience is suspect. I doubt he brings hoards of likely Bush voters along with him where ever he finally toters.

But he IS an assistant professor of Poli Sci at the UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, so I guess that counts for something.

Posted by: JimPortlandOR | Aug 18, 2004 12:41:21 PM

As I remember from DeLong, the Bush vision that Drezner admired was (not to use a more recent forbidden analogy) a Napoleonic imperial license to do anything, anytime, anwhere, to anyone, and to make maintenance of the hegemonic power to do this one of our prime goals. Does any one else feel that there are any problems with this?

Posted by: Al | Aug 18, 2004 12:48:35 PM

Simple--when Drezner finally declares for Kerry, the national campaign can print up a big "University of Chicago Political Science Department for Kerry" banner which we can hang up on Pick Hall. Which, of course, has absolutely zero red state street cred.

Posted by: Maureen | Aug 18, 2004 12:49:26 PM

JimPortlandOR-

Drezner represents the amorphous and shrinking constituency of known as the "grownup Republican."

Posted by: praktike | Aug 18, 2004 12:55:01 PM

Drezner has a lot of credibility with the centrist and center-right crowd. People like Delong do not... As to how many people he will influence, who knows? He is a smart, thoughtful and honest blogger who will tip the balance for some. Why would anyone dismiss the aggregate effect in a 50-50 nation?

Posted by: jk | Aug 18, 2004 1:01:40 PM

ad arguendo

ARG! Your grammar sucks in every language!

"Arguendo" is the dative of purpose. It doesn't need a preposition. And even if it did, "ad" always takes the accusative. Which would be "ad arguendum". Which would mean "against the act of arguing". Which isn't what you mean here at all.

Posted by: Grammar Troll | Aug 18, 2004 4:10:04 PM

Apologies for the trackback repetition above. Browser issues.

Posted by: Srinivas Ayyagari | Aug 18, 2004 5:06:33 PM

Yes, Mr. Yglesias sucks scissors as a Latinist. I have one criticism to make, however, of Grammar Troll's otherwise perfectly correct take-down. "Ad" with a gerund or gerundive was quite often used to express purpose: e.g. "ad hostes opprimendos," "in order to crush the enemy." Grammar Troll is of course quite right to point out that the accusative is the only case that can be used with "ad"; "ad arguendo," therefore, is an eye-hurting monstrosity. (From a former Classics professor.)

Posted by: C Schuyler | Aug 18, 2004 10:24:22 PM

Yes, there's a lot of bad Latin on the web, and both Matthew and Grammar Troll have given us more.

Posted by: Holdyournoseandvote | Aug 20, 2004 12:43:31 AM

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