As the dysfunctional US political system continues to brawl its way forward in the debt ceiling debate, an imposing and familiar figure has returned to the forefront. Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary (under Bill Clinton) and one-time Winklevoss-baiter, was all over the business networks this past weekend, throwing in his two cents' worth.
On CNBC's oddly-named "Fareed Zakaria GPS", big Larry took the opportunity to set out some historical facts. He pointed out that when President Clinton left office at the start of 2001, the US was running budget surpluses and paying down its debts. Then along came Bush 43 with his tax cuts, wars and uncosted prescription drug wheeze, and hey presto, surplus turned to deficit in the blink of an eye. The die was already cast by the time the financial crisis hit: even without the extra spending and fall in revenues resulting from that, the US fiscal and debt position would still be lurching towards unsustainability.
This may all be true, but if Larry thinks that the Tea Party can be brought to heel by deploying a few facts, he can't have been paying attention. A couple of months ago, Sarah Palin made a fool of herself by revealing her total misunderstanding of the significance of Paul Revere's famous ride in 1776. No problems; the Tea Party faithful simply went into Wikipedia and altered the story there to match Sarah's version. More recently, Michelle Bachmann bragged about how proud she was to hail from the same town as John Wayne, when in fact she shares a birthplace with John Wayne Gacy, the notorious murderer. Again, no problem: a few keystrokes on Wikipedia by a Tea Partier, and the Duke's birthplace was duly relocated.
Wikipedia has, of course, set the record straight on these matters, but it all serves to show how unlikely it is that the Tea Party will allow itself to be confused by the facts. And anyway, how hard could it be to turn a few plus signs on a website into minuses?
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