Erick Erickson, the conservative pundit who alternates between quoting Bible verses and making vulgar insults, really doesn’t like Vox’s executive editor Matt Yglesias.
That’s probably the best explanation for Erickson’s latest blog post on RedState, which masquerades as a rebuttal to a video from Yglesias.
In the video, Yglesias argued that everyone should stop “freaking out” about the national debt.
In his response to the video, Erickson declared that Yglesias is “just not that bright.” His evidence that Yglesias is a dolt? Because Yglesias has said things with which Erickson disagrees, of course.
Erickson wrote that the video makes it clear why the Washington Post passed on financing the Ezra Klein-led project.
“Turns out it is just a left-wing propaganda tool trying to spin instead of explain,” Erickson wrote.
(As Simon Maloy joked, it’s a curious explanation from a conservative who seems to think the mainstream media is all “left-wing propaganda.”)
When Erickson eventually got around to trying to rebut Yglesias (after writing 263 words in a 394 word piece), the RedState editor pulled out arguments that were brief and devoid of both context and substance.
Which brings us to his video at the JuiceVox Media website. He tries to explain the National Debt and out of the gate beings with a lie. He claims the national debt is $5 trillion less than the U.S. Treasury says it is.
Then he uses deficit and debt interchangeably.
Then he claims the U.S. Government can never run out of money.
He goes through all of this to conclude that the national debt, which he understated, is just not anything to worry about.
After that, Erickson was right back to bashing Vox’s “left-wing propaganda.”
The Week’s John Aziz shredded Erickson’s retort, pointing out that Yglesias was clearly talking about “Federal debt held by the public” and that it wasn’t necessarily an economics faux pas to use deficit and debt interchangeably.
Moreover, Aziz details the obvious point that the U.S. government can’t actually run out of money.
The critique would be even more devastating if Erickson actually wrote his piece to make a point about the debt (like what Kevin Glass attempted to do at TownHall). But it seems that Erickson was more concerned about calling Yglesias an idiot than actually addressing Yglesias’ arguments.
