Little-League Hokum Journalism at the WSJ

It is sometimes said that the way the stock market goes in January, so will it go the rest of the year. I hope this does not apply to journalism also because if it does, maybe we should get ready to weep for the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) which began the year with a first edition containing two articles that are so child-like, it will be sad to think that the rest of the year promises to deliver more of the same.

It happened that on January 2, 2014 the Journal published an article by its own Daniel Henninger under the title “Time for a big-League President” and the subtitle: “The antidote to global chaos is American leadership.” The Journal also published an article by John B. Taylor under the title: “The Economic Hokum of 'Secular Stagnation'” and the subtitle: “Blaming the market for the failure of bad government policies is no more persuasive now than it was in the 1930s.”

To begin his article, Henninger does what journalists do instinctively which is to quote a news item, and go from there. Well, this proves he is at his core a journalist. But the questions to ask are these: How smart a journalist is he? Can he present a well thought out argument? To answer the question, you look at the news item he quotes: “The days before the New year brought two suicide bombings in Russia and a major political assassination in Lebanon.” So you ask yourself: How could a “big-league” American President have prevented this from Happening? You have no answer so you reserve judgment for now as to what that says about the author. But deep down, you are inclined to think he may be of the little-league himself.

You go through the article to see what really his point is, and find this: “Whether the world will tip into war is not the subject here. The subject is rediscovering the antidote to war, which is strong global leadership. The world we inhabit doesn't have enough of it. Or any of it.” But then, right after that, he contradicts himself by citing the work done and the methods used by Russia's Vladimir Putin, China's Xi Jinping, Egypt's “de facto military junta,” Syria's Assad, Iran's Rouhani and by the Saudis. What perplexes you is that he presents the whole as proof of strong leadership on the part of those people. Can this guy say anything without contradicting himself?

Henninger then writes this: “The West's leaders are distracted or disinterested. Hollande [of France] has a low approval rating. Merkel can't extend her leadership beyond Germany's border.” And this makes the WSJ author conclude: “Only one thing really matters: the quality of U.S. leadership.” But he laments about “the disturbingly smug selfie photo of Barack Obama, David Cameron and the Prime Minister of Denmark at the Mandela funeral.” Is this proof of lack of leadership? He doesn't say.

But he laments that: “this American president goes with the flow of opinion polls … Because polls say Americans are in an isolationist mood, Mr. Obama won't spend political capital outside the country … It falls to the rest of the political class in the U.S. to recognize that a potentially dangerous breakdown in international order is when national populations in many places lose faith in their leadership.” And this gets him back to his original thesis: “To repeat, the antidote to a world running along the cliff's edge is strong American leadership.”

You know what this is, my friend? It is a repeat of the John Bolton talking points. It says basically that because there has been bombings in Russia and Lebanon, Obama must abandon looking after America's interests, and start poking his nose in the affairs of Russia, Lebanon and the other nations to prevent the world from getting into a war the way that things happened which led to two World Wars. He says this, after saying earlier that tipping into war was not the subject of the article. In any case, you decide that nothing can be more useless to America or the world than this sort of superficial discussions from a small mentality.

We now look at the John Taylor article. He begins with the assertion that “government policy has been to blame for the disappointing economic performance in recent years.” He goes on to say that many have argued otherwise, and have presented other alternatives to explain the disappointing performance but that all were debunked, including the latest which is “secular stagnation.”

He rehashes the main arguments the way they were presented by each side over the years. To end his own presentation and explain the poor performance of the economy, he says this: “That is most likely explained by increased regulation and the Affordable Care Act” which is a rehash of one side of the argument; the one that happens to be held by the hokum little-league editors of the WSJ. Yes, there is reason to weep for the low quality of what used to be a respected publication.