Mr. [Gregory] Mankiw is clearly making an effort to remain consistent with the administration's message in a way that he did not as a professor. Asked about the recent controversy over a tax credit for poor families that was not included in the tax cut this spring, he started to speak, interrupted himself and looked at a White House spokeswoman, Claire Buchan, who was sitting in on the interview. Ms. Buchan then said that Ari Fleischer, the press secretary, had addressed the issue in his briefing that day.
And to think that this was once a man, and once a Harvard professor...