Brad DeLong sounds like he advocates ostracizing Douglas Holtz-Eakin for (a) working for McCain and (b) calling Obama a “redistributionist.”  At least that’s how I read Brad’s approving quotation of an unnamed source saying:

Someone needs to tell Holtz-Eakin he can’t say this sort of **** and
then expect to rejoin polite society once the election is over…

As an atheist in the church of politics, I find this rancor baffling.  How far apart are Obama and McCain, really?  Less than one standard deviation of a distribution that’s pretty narrow to begin with.  How come I can have friendly lunches with thinkers who are four+ standard deviations away from me – and even learn something before we pay the check?

It’s almost as if politics isn’t really about policy

P.S. Please don’t use the comments to throw Brad out of polite society. 🙂