Something that I've been kicking around

I'm a fan of the blogs of economists Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong. Krugman teaches at Princeton and writes for the New York Times Op/Ed page while DeLong teaches at Berkeley and is a formal Clinton administration Treasury official. Both are illuminating and at ease writing about technical economic matters, politics, and culture. I've been trying to read more mainstream economic writing in the last year or so and both of these blogs are invaluable educational resources from well respected and reputable economic scholars.

All of this introduction is preamble to the following observation: both are extremely shrill in their opposition to the Bush administration. I mean, Professor DeLong even maintains Shrillblog, a roundup of "shrill" anti-Bush writing on the web.

My question is: why?

Neither of these guys is in any danger of voting for the Green Party candidate for any office. I doubt if either have ever attended any kind of demonstration or ever carried a picket sign. Both are pro-free markets, pro-free trade. Krugman is one of the centrist neo-liberal thinkers for whom the Washington Monthly coined the term "neo-liberal" in the late '80s/early '90s to distinguish them from actual left-liberals. These guys are the dictionary definition of "sensible" "establishment" figures. But to read their political writing you'd think that they were editors for the Socialist Workers newsletter. They hate this president and his party. Professor DeLong often ends posts with the phrase, "Impeach George W. Bush. Impeach Richard Cheney. Do it now." Krugman is one of the few mainstream media figures willing to use words like "lie" and "illegal" when describing the action of the Bush White House.

I'm interested in the sheer divisive power of the President. If middle of the road, pro-market moderate economists are driven to "shrill unholy madness" in DeLong's memorable phrase, then we are truly witness to one of the sorriest White Houses in years.