Krugman Blog- Republicans: Evil or Stupid?

[n2doc]

Atrios likes to say that the eternal question, as you look at absurd policy debates, is whether these people are evil or stupid.

In the case of the Fannie-Freddie-did-it discussion, we seem to have an answer.

Mike Konczal reads the Democratic report on conduct at the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (pdf), which has some fairly shocking evidence about Peter Wallison, who has been pushing the clearly false line that Fannie and Freddie were actually leading the charge into high-risk lending.

As Konczal says, all of this stuff relies on a form of three-card monte: you talk about “subprime and other high-risk” loans, lumping subprime with other loans that are not, it turns out, anywhere near as risky as actual subprime; then use this essentially fake aggregate to make it seem as if Fannie/Freddie were actually at the core of the problem.

But was this self-conscious? Do these people know what they’re doing?

Yes.

more

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/evil-stupid/

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Yes.

[Zoeisright]

2. They're both.

Plus greedy and mean.

[Johonny]

7. I agree not mutually exclusive

:)

[donheld]

15. They are indeed both

There's the greedy pigs on the one side and on the other side there are those who have so blindly followed FOX, Limbaugh that they are totally screwed up and too stupid to know they're being screwed.

[queenjane]

3. The leaders are evil,

the followers are stupid.

[CleanGreenFuture]

4. Both. They are stupid evil fucks.

[fascisthunter]

5. both... they are a psychologists wet dream

of fuck ups to observe.

[JHB]

6. Some are evil, some are stupid, many are both...

It's an infernal feedback loop.

[FiveGoodMen]

8. Their leaders are evil (but NOT stupid)

Their voting base is stupid for sure and often evil as well.

And they're harder to get rid of than MRSA.

[rucky]

9. They're STEVIL!

stupid + evil

my apologies to anyone named Steve

[Zorra]

10. Is it deliberate self-deception/delusion induced by hate and greed, by

process of an unevolved id dominated selective conscience...

...or are they really semi-sociopathic or sociopathic conscienceless creatures that only hold their reptilian nature in check because they are afraid of getting caught when they do the immoral and unethical things that they commonly do?

I don't know.

But I have learned to Never. Ever. Trust. A. Republican.

[amborin]

11. not mutually exclusive

[sakabatou]

12. Both

[valerief]

13. The powerful ones are evil, the poor ones painfully stoooooopid. nt

[hifiguy]

14. Blammo - Bull's eye! nt