I would like to co-sign this sentiment:
There’s only one downside to the news that David Leonhardt (right, NYT pic) will become the new Washington bureau chief for the New York Times: presumably it means that he will do less writing on his own.
It is still too rare to find in mainstream journalism people who are (a) comfortable enough with the language, conventions, and math of formal economics to be able to write confidently about the substance of economic issues, rather than just reporting thepolitics of the issues in a "critics claim…" / "will Obama be vulnerable?" way; but also (b) detached enough from those conventions and shibboleths to be able to report clearly and confidently about what economic specialists get right and wrong.
I have always been impressed with the quality of Leonhardt’s work, even when he was blatantly copying my stuff.
Okay, okay I’m joking of course! But still…I come out with a post about how McDonald’s employees will be better off with Obamacare than with their crappy “insurance” plans and then a couple days later Leonhardt comes out with a column saying the exact same thing.
This is like when Google+ totally stole my idea for “circles” which I came up with four years ago while on a walk in the woods behind my house. And told only my wife about…or when Dungeons and Dragons stole a bunch of my RPG when they came out with 3rd Edition (which I told…nobody about).
There’s no honor among thieves.
