From Rubin to Rove

This was the Rubin doctrine - the conviction that, whatever the short term costs, in the end good economic policy will produce its own political reward - whether it was painful measures to reduce the fiscal deficit or unpopular support for countries in financial crisis.

Now we have the Rove doctrine. Karl Rove's prescription that if it feels food electorally, do it. This is why the administration pressed ahead last year with an inappropriate tax cut devised at the peak of the 1990s expansion. This is why tariffs were imposed on imported steel this year, why Mr Bush gleefully signed a corporate reform bill that his economists feared would do more harm than good.