I'll deal with this in a bit more wonky detail over the next couple of days, but I'm beginning to think that Andrew Sullivan is even dumber than Jeff Goldstein. Yes, hard to believe, I know. We may have to rank them, in order of stupidest to less stupid, 1) Doug Feith, 2) Andrew Sullivan, 3) Jeff Goldstein. Still not sure on the appropriate ordering for the last two.
Look, if you're the former of editor of one of the nation's premier political magazines and you're currently writing for one of the two premier weekly news magazines and you're pontificating on the budget you should, you know, actually know something about the damn thing. I appreciate that it's "just a blog" and so a bit of off-the-cuffness can be tolerated. But when you're called on your shit maybe you should do a wee bit of research. It isn't hard. You don't have to be an economist like Dr. Atrios, Ph.D to pull up the budget numbers and do a bit of addition and subtraction. You don't have to be an economist, or a high school graduate, or a even a goddamn chimpanzee, to understand that when you're asked what you'd cut to balance the budget without raising taxes (now he's backed down a bit from that) the response "pass a balanced budget amendment" is a fucking stupid thing to write, as is "institute a line item veto."
I guess Time decided the best way to attract hits is to publish an idiot who invites criticism. Probably a smart business move.
