Larry Kudlow, a minor figure in the Office of Management and Budget under Reagan, is the host of a show, "Kudlow and Company"on CNBC. His audience is primarily the financial community on Wall Street--those that remain anyhow. Although most of his guests are rightwing, Kudlow does include the other side with such personages as Robert Reich (Labor Secretary under Clinton) and Jared Bernstein (Economic Policy Institute, and HuffingtonPost contributor).
Kudlow himself is an unabashed "supply-sider", who gets his guests to recite a pledge of allegiance to low taxes on the wealthy and free-markets, that he calls the "Kudlow creed", that goes like this: "I believe that free market capitalism is the best path to prosperity". Although he is also an unabashed Republican, he has been willing on occasion to chide them gently when they have strayed from the free-trade/free-market/low spending mantra.
When Hurricane Katrina struck, and George Bush had his klieg light minute promising to do "whatever it takes" to reconstruct New Orleans, Kudlow had a cow. He spent a week on his program getting people to trash "New Deal" style programs, wanted Davis-Bacon repealed (so workers would not have to get the prevailing wage!), and extolled the virtues of free markets to solve the problems.
Let me repeat, however, that Kudlow does provide space for contrary views to be expressed, and his guests are generally well-spoken and understand finance and the economy. His is not a phony Sean Hannity-Rush Limbaugh-Bill O'Reilly gig.
The Kudlow program has suddenly become interesting in its response and analysis to the economic meltdown. Gone is the Kudlow creed, or at least his daily recitation of it. Perhaps Kudlow sees the irony.
Most amazingly, Kudlow--the siren of free market, no government intervention--closed his show yesterday, with a final comment that said (and this is a close paraphrase): "Be cautious, but if the government delivers tomorrow, it could be a big day".
Imagine, Wall Street depending on the government.
But, the Democrats' position has been that the free market breaks down in various circumstances, and thus collective action in the form of government, or public-private partnerships, or rule-setting, is necessary. Kudlow and his ilk have always objected to the public participation part on ideological grounds--what are they going to say now?
Is it possible that the country may actually be able to debate the practical wisdom, rather than the ideology, behind economic policy? That might actually allow the country to solve some problems the rightwing has resisted for 4 decades.
Because Kudlow's program is about "money and politics", he had been plumping the McCain program and deliberately misconstruing the Obama plan on taxes. One may expect him to get back to blasting the Obama economic program and extolling the virtues of McCain's. He has expressed hope, for example, that Phil Gramm's departure from the campaign was only window-dressing, and that he was still helping behind-the-scenes.
Thus, Kudlow needs some watching. I'll be "Chewing on Kudlow" weekly at least until after the election, trying to sum up the thrust of his program's week. I'll try to make it interesting, and informative, but make no promise to match Jason Linkins entertaining weekly summaries of the Sunday talk shows.
With the economic crisis we face, perhaps Kudlow's show should be called, "Greet the Mess".