The review also ignores a lot of evidence from political scientist Larry Bartels on values voting that supports Krugman's position on the influence of racial politics. The values voting conclusions aren't things Krugman simply asserts - as you might conclude from the review - Krugman reviews solid evidence before coming to this conclusion. So when Kennedy launches into other reasons why voters may have supported Republicans, it does nothing to undermine Krugman's thesis that a large amount of the change arises from racial politics. The Bartels evidence is still there, nothing is presented in the review to counter it, and it paints a clear picture.

The author also takes issue with the statement that "Yes, Virginia, there is a vast right-wing conspiracy," but once again he does not tell us about nor bother to try to rebut the careful, detailed discussion of right-wing institutions and their common funding sources that comes before this statement. Krugman's statement is a summary of this evidence, and to focus on the summary statement rather than than the evidence that supports it is not much of a rebuttal.

It's too bad that Kennedy chose to argue that, in essence, "Democrats have problems too" -- as though that somehow excuses Republicans for issues like racial politics -- rather than dealing with the evidence Krugman presents concerning the political and economic changes that produced the New Gilded Age.

"It just sticks in my craw every time I hear them say it's an intelligence failure. It's an intelligence failure. This was a policy failure," Drumheller tells Bradley.

Drumheller was the CIA's top man in Europe, the head of covert operations there, until he retired a year ago. He says he saw firsthand how the White House promoted intelligence it liked and ignored intelligence it didn't: