Several years ago I was invited to attend a Hoover Institution retreat out in Palo Alto. At the gathering, Hoover scholars presented to a variety of economics writers, Left and Right. Catherine Rampell was one of the attendees, and it was pure joy seeing her poke holes in a presentation by Niall Ferguson in which he, among other things, claimed he predicted the 2008 financial crack-up. Ferguson did not do what he claimed, to have predicted 2008 was to have predicted the incredibly inept (a redundancy?) interventions crafted by the Bush White House and the Bernanke Fed amid what was a healthy correction up until then, but the main thing is that separate from Ferguson’s howler of a claim, Rampell exposed so much of what he said as questionable.
It’s a reminder that the Right, like the Left, needs talented critics. Rampell is a good one for the Right, even though she’s not always correct herself. The main thing is both sides need their beliefs critiqued, and Rampell capably critiques the Right.
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