Jude Wanniski, no RW nut, REAMS Colin Powell's cred

[buycitgo]

chek THIS

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/wanniski.php?articleid=2846

in which he inserts himself into the recent MTP interview, and both blows apart the remaining shreds of believability even rightwing stalwarts such as Wanniski have/had, AND nails Russert for being the obviously ignorant shill he always was:

snip.....the Wanniski part is his own conceit, as if he'd been there:

RUSSERT: Some observers, Mr. Secretary, will say the primary rationale for the war, weapons of mass destruction, have not been found; we were supposed to be greeted as liberators, which is not the case; that a lot more than just the 130,000 troops are truly necessary; that General Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, who said we needed hundreds of thousands, was probably more correct. Why shouldn't people say that this war has been mismanaged from the very beginning?

POWELL: Well, it's succeeded in its principal objective of eliminating this regime and the intention and capability that this regime had to have weapons of mass destruction. Even though we haven't found actual stockpiles, we now don't have to worry about that intention or capability anymore. It's gone….

WANNISKI: This may be the first time Mr. Powell has identified the government's "principal objective" as being "regime change" and not the "elimination" of its weapons of mass destruction. President Bush only had congressional authority to war with Iraq if he could assure the Congress that the UN inspections had failed. Mr. Powell surely knows President Bush gave these formal assurances to the Congress on the eve of the war even though the UN inspectors indicated Iraq was cooperating and could be cleared of all WMD questions in two months. Tim Russert seems unaware of this time sequence.

[shraby]

1. That wasn't the reason given

to congress when they invaded.

[charlie]

2. Well, he's never been a neocon

He's been stridently opposed our idiotic Iraq policies before even the first Gulf War. But you definitely don't want Wanniski anywhere near the corridors of power when he's wearing his economist hat -- then he's a certifiable rightwing nut.

[jmowreader]

3. Why is anyone asking Jude Wanniski's opinion on this?

Jude Wanniski is a supply-side economist. That's all he is.

Jude Wanniski was lunching with Arthur Laffer one day when Laffer drew his infamous "curve" of tax rates-to-tax receipts. (How you know Arthur Laffer is full of shit: The Laffer Curve is shaped like a bell. The two ends of it are zero percent taxation and 100 percent taxation; at either end tax receipts will be zero--at zero percent for obvious reasons, and (according to Laffer) at 100 percent because no one will work. Now here's the bullshit part: the high point on this curve represents maximum tax receipts. Anything to the right of this point represents decreased productivity because people will work less. Hmm...okay, let me get this straight: the higher the tax rate gets, the cheaper food gets. The higher the tax rate gets, the lower my mortgage payment is. Great! Just set the tax rate to 100 percent, and then everything will be free! We'll all be hippies in a commune! Now if Laffer would have pointed out that when taxation gets too onerous tax avoidance schemes pop up like mushrooms after a spring rain, which is what happens, I would have gone for it. Maybe.)

Asking Jude Wanniski about war is like asking Ann Coulter about food. Neither knows anything about the subject.