Word: stockman
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...Stockman's 'gee-whiz' admissions about the policy vacuum that has permitted the American economy to career close to the fiscal brink have already received more attention (and shekels from Newsweek), than they deserve. What hasn't gotten so much remark is the character of the man himself. Perhaps people are tired of Stockman, perhaps Michael Deaver's shenanigans have supplied everyone's sleaze fix, but Triumph is not only the tale of history's greatest fiscal fiasco, it's an extraordinary summary of the political degeneration of a generation, a moral and institutional slackness that characterizes politics the Harvard...
...Harvard that Stockman mounted the first rung on the the ladder up to his current, ridiculously well-paid position with the head gnomes of Wall Street, Salomon Brothers. In the late '60s, Stockman, like many WASPs of his time, was in hiding from the Vietnam war. A self-professed leftie, Stockman chose the Harvard Divinity School as his hideout, but he soon fell under the sway of the smell of power...
...STOCKMAN CRAWLED up to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then a Nixon cabinet member, becoming first his babysitter and then his intellectual disciple. Stockman read everything Moynihan wrote, including his private files, and used the Moynihans to get into a seminar journalist David Broder was teaching, who in turn connected Stockman to the John Anderson team in Washington...
...Stockman's career pattern was simple: find a "rabbi" (mentor in B-school lingo), become his slave until a better mentor comes along, become his slave, etc. The concept of a personal life, or fun, does not seem to part of Stockman's mental vocabulary; only the ceaseless immersion in whichever intellectual orthodoxies seemed most prudent at the time...
...only crime in this style of intellectual prostitution is getting your feet tangled. Stockman's confessions about supply-side economics in the famous Atlantic article, "The Education of David Stockman" was perhaps the best example. At that time, he was lucky. Stockman, despite his indiscretions, knew too much to be fired. Later, Stockman was smart. He jumped into the investment banking boat before the mess the Republican Administration had made of the economy became obvious...