Back in the day, when I was...

...a libertarian (up until about 2007-08), I used to read the Wall Street Journal every day and shudder at its reporting on Western Europe: high taxes; entrenched, bloated bureaucracy; burdensome government regulations; stubbornly high unemployment; crippling labor unions; socialized medicine; small houses; small cars -- small everything! And everybody clad in black from head to toe, wandering about the Left Bank aimlessly in an existential funk. What a godforsaken place it must be!

And then ... I went over there for a visit. And I met Europeans traveling in America. And it became clear to me that maybe things over there weren't so bad. After all, their economies seemed to work just fine, the people seemed to strike a good work/leisure balance, they ate better, were healthier, had pretty high-quality universal health care, and didn't seem to spend their whole lives behind the wheel of a Chevy Suburban or in front of a television set.

What gives, I thought? Could the Journal be "talking their position," as we used to say in the markets? In other words, were they cherry-picking information to support their laissez-faire ideology?

Tyler Cowen, a noted libertarian economist, has a blog post on why France is not the miserable economic basket case that the Journal would have you believe. Kind of makes you wonder what else they're spinning.

(Actually, it's not that great of a post, but I'd never pass up an opportunity to slam the Journal.)