by the Way . . .

The noted economist Paul Krugman has introduced an analysis of one of the most vexing problems in modern political science, shaking it to its very foundations.

Presidential appointments of cronies to important government posts is a well studied and understood phenomenon. It is known that the success of the crony strategy is largely determined by the quality of the cronies. Examples are replete. John F. Kennedy dipped from two pools, Harvard, a well known crony pot, and his WWII navy buddies. The results are legendary. The Harvard cronies were of extremely high quality and made excellent government officials. The WWII buddies controlled the appointments for female companionship (governmental affairs), and if you think the Harvard appointments were top notch, you ought to see this group, where Marilyn Monroe and Judith Campbell Exner were only average quality. Conversely, while the appointments to government posts were good during the Clinton administration, Clinton attempted to handle appointments in the girl-crony category himself, with haphazard results. It has been suggested that his impeachment resulted directly from his lack of military service.

However well explored this first degree cronyism is, scientists have never been able to explain what is known as "the 7 degrees of cronyism". This is when a presidential appointment is not of a crony of the president, but of a crony of a crony (2nd degree), or of a crony of a crony of a crony (3rd degree), and so on to the 7th degree. This has received renewed attention during the Bush administration, although nothing beyond the 5th degree has yet been noted in the field.

Enter Paul Krugman ("Craggy Boy" to the president). He has posited the existence of the Crony Fairy, "who visits key agencies by the dead of night, snatches away qualified people and replaces them with unqualified political appointees." He was led to this discovery, he says, by his study of the report on responses to Hurricane Katrina ("Trinky") by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. [Here again we see the natural bifurcation of the posting and the affairs duties]. The report points to many deficiencies, but contains no hint of what may have caused the qualified people to leave and be replaced by unqualified people. Craggy concludes, reasonably, that these must have been installed by the Crony Fairy.

It is too early to gauge the impact of this new vision, but a government spokesgirl has stressed that the Crony Fairy is only a theory, not a fact. The author agrees that further study is necessary.