One of the problems with our public intellectuals that write columns in certain newspapers and appear on certain cable new shows is that they are often merely political hacks masquerading as disinterested, thoughtful people. In many ways, one can often predict what they are going to say before they say it. In the recently released GDP growth numbers (5.0% annual growth rate over the 3^rd quarter) which shows an economy that appears ready to take-off after all of these long years, a certain Nobel Prize-winning economist took to the airwaves and editorial pages to declare that President Obama’s (and by extension his own) policy prescriptions were working. It was not so long ago that this same Nobel Prize-winning economist was declaring that GOP-induced gridlock was preventing Obama’s economic policies from becoming law, was causing the sluggish recovery, and might even push us into a recession. This same individual claimed that the 2009 stimulus would work and then, when it didn’t produce the desired result, stated that it should have been even bigger.

This is not to say that the stimulus should not have been larger. Maybe it should have been. And maybe President Obama’s policies, had they been passed by the GOP House, would have shortened this sluggish period and had the U.S. economy back on track sooner (if indeed it actually is back on track). Or maybe the GOP gridlock, as others are claiming, prevented Obama’s worst policies from becoming law and has allowed the economy to emerge from its slump. What we do know, is that Obama’s desired policies that were not passed by the GOP, as the Nobel Prize-winning economist wanted, were not the policies that drove the recovery. We also know that 4 years of GOP-induced gridlock has not pushed us into a recession in any case. Making a wrong prediction, ignoring it, and declaring that your guy who has been stymied was the cause of the good news is the hallmark of the political hack. That he is a Nobel-Prize-winning economist doesn’t make him any less of one.