Catchword for Careerists

Hundreds if not thousands of bloggers are meeting in Austin at the annual Netroots Nation convention, including the erstwhile Digby, the casually enigmatic Duncan Black, and the hilariously profane Rude Pundit, among lots and lots of other DFH notables.

What fun we're having comes from staying put and reading their laptop dispatches and occasional pieces in the New York Times' blogs.

Hallabaloo stand-in, dday, on Friday reported on a panel discussion about the media that included Princeton economist/New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. Just before dday's laptop battery gave out, he passed along this gem from Prof. Krugman:

"It is better to be conventionally wrong than unconventionally right." The example is how nobody who was actually right about the war is allowed to comment about it, but that's also true with the housing bubble, etc. "There's something wrong with you if you actually figure this out too early." There's a narrow range of being counter-intuitive. It's acceptable, for example, to say "Bush is actually better on the environment than you think."

Krugman, of course, was one of those DFHs who was right on both issues, early and often. You might not known that because -- wouldn't ya 'know -- he isn't allowed much on TeeVee.

Once upon a time, the advice a certain type would give to someone from the next generation was "plastics." In the America we have now, that same type now can pass along the life maxim to budding journalists: It's better to be conventionally wrong than unconventionally right."

Have a great career.