As for the substance of the interview, Norquist dodged with the best of them. I loved how he called the government “them” and “they.” As we use democratically elected republican form of government (2000 in Florida notwithstanding) Grover’s “they” is of course, “us.”
Certainly.
“Bush is bad.”
Regards,
Shodan
Basically, what he was TRYING to say is that it’s not okay to do something to anyone, even if you’re only doing it to a “small group”
However, we’re talking about a “small group” which makes a vast majority-these tax cuts are not even hurting “them” in the way that the Holocaust hurt that “small group”.
You might as well take Norquist’s logic, sprinkle salt on it, and call it a pretzel, it’s so fucking twisted.
When Norquist keeps drawing a distinction between “us” and “the government,” I can’t help thinking of “There’s a Monster at the End of This Book”. . .
Yeah, I caught part of the show yesterday… what a nut. My favorite part was his evasiveness about paying private workers less than government workers for the same job.
(paraphrasing)
Terry: “So when you talk about saving money, you mean paying government workers lower wages?”
Grover: “No, I mean privatizing the jobs and getting competitive bids. The government workers could reorganize and win the bid, or the low bid could come from the private sector.”
Terry: “So the government workers might not have a job anymore, or they might be doing the same job but getting paid less to do it.”
Grover: “Well, um, no. They might be making more money. They might be getting lower wages for the whole year, instead of getting higher wages but only working part of the year.”
If you’re saving money on labor, then you can’t be paying the workers more than they made before. You can’t have it both ways!
I thought Gross actually did a poor job of interviewing Norquist. She let him get away with a lot of shit that a better prepared, more informed interviewer would not have. Frex, at one point Norquist was referrring to the ease and speed with which Americans leave poverty in the U.S. and he was citing numbers from the mid-90s … that’s right, the heart of the dot.com boom, one of the most prosperous periods for Americans since the 60s. And Terry didn’t call him on it, in fact, she didn’t call Norquist on a lot of his dubious stats.
I think there are about two dozen regular posters on SDMB who would have done a better job than Gross did of interviewing Norquist. I’ve noticed this repeatedly on TV and radio interviews … the reporters just aren’t very well prepared.
Journalists like Gross have the luxury that their “posts” to the media are for all practical purposes one way … sure you can email them or call them but that’s just not the same thing as being heard at length by milliions. I think that makes them sloppy in relations to Dopers who post knowing that if they indulge in any bullshitting they’ll get called on it real fast. The journalists know that any but the most egregious errors will be allowed to slide, and not being sufficiently prepared for an interview doesn’t even necessarily count as an error.
Which is why we really need conservative posters like Shodan and Airman Doors on the board. They keep us honest (would that we could do the same for them. 
) and in doing so they create a more disciplined debate than if it were all one way. As a result, I get the feeling that we are an intellectually tougher bunch than the media types who dominate the airwaves at present.
If you want to hear an uncomfortable interview, listen to Ms Gross’ interview with Gene Simmons from KISS. From what I understand, it never got aired, but somewhere I found an MP3 of it. I felt soooo bad for her after hearing it. He’s an ass.
Well, to be fair EC, the time pressure of such an interview format is incredibly strong. It’s not like one has the luxury of planning out responses in advance. Typically one has a list of X number of questions (and the foreknowledge that many won’t make it in the final interview due to time restrictions anyway) and you simply have to knock them out one two three.
The print format is generally a little easier because one has more time for the interview in total.
Sucks sometimes, but that’s life.
I’m an ex-journalist, I’ve interviewed a LOT of people for print media, and with many of them I knew I wouldn’t have much chance for followup so I had to get my questions right in advance and follow up well if I was going to get a good interview. Gross did a very poor job. Her list of questions was OK, but not important because Norquist is clearly an experienced speaker and could have carried her if she’d had a weak list of questions. It was her near-total lack of followup except in the instance of comparing taxing the wealthy to the Holocaust that I fault her for. I think a lot of Dopers would have known enough to be all over her. I think an hour or two of time spent reading background stuff on the Web would have prepped her very well for the interview – Norquist isn’t exactly an unknown in politics.
I still think she did a lousy job.
It did air. In fact, it was on the “best of the year” year end show. My wife and I were on a road trip, and we were at first shocked, then amazed, then laughing uncontrollably. The guy is an amazing pig. You can do a search by date Monday , February 04, 2002 at the fresh air site
NurseCarmen,
I followed your link to the Fresh Air site, but there was no transcript that I could find, only this message:
[Simmons declined to give permission for this Web site to offer audio of his interview, or sell tapes or transcripts of it.]
Is it available somewhere else, or am I missing the link somehow?
Ah, the incisive analysis and measured criticism we’ve come to expect from the right.
lost4life, Krugman is a liberal economist who writes frequently for the New York Times. Rather than try to summarize his economic views, which seem to me to tend to a liberal Keynesianism on matters of macroeconomic policy, i’ll give you a link to a Times article that he wrote back in April about the Bush tax cut.
Here’s the article (Note: This will take you to the NYT login site first. If you want to read the article, you have to register, which is free. Once you put in your username and password, it will take you to the article.)
Krugman apparently received some emails questioning some of his mathemtaics and economic theory in the article, and he posted a followup on his Princeton website.
These articles are easy and interesting reading, and give you an idea of Krugman’s politics and his economics.
If you type “gene simmons terry gross transcript” into Google, you’ll get plenty of hits.
Here’s one i prepared earlier. 
Thanks, mhendo. I just read the Gene Simmons interview from the link you provided. I think NurseCarmen calling him a pig is somewhat unfair to pigs. I know I’d be offended to be lumped in the same category with that jerk.