Fresh Air: creating a debate where there’s none.

I love NPR and Fresh Air.  But right now, I’m very disappointed.

Terri Gross is chairing a a discussion about health care solutions with two people.  One is Paul Krugman.  I knew the name, but not too much about him, and so here’s what I found:

• Professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton,
• Centenary professor at London School of Economics,
• 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize winner in economics,
• Author of “25 books and 40 scholarly articles” (Wikipedia).

I thought to myself, wow, awesome — I want to hear what he has to say.  And the other person?  “Stuart Butler, [some position at] conservative thinktank, the Heritage Foundation”.  Ok, so red flags go up for me.  Who is this guy?  Here’s the best I can find:

• Author of a series of “WebMemos” and “Heritage Lectures” on the Heritage Foundation website,
• Adjunct faculty at Georgetown,
• Identified as a very influential person by a D.C.-insider periodical. (per his resume)

For cryin’ out loud — why why why?  How in the world does a discussion between these two people serve listeners?  How is Butler any different from Creationists who write “research” papers that they publish in their own personal “scientific journals”?

Here’s just one of the many problems with this:

As a consumer of news and content, I’m shortchanged.

If there is a well-represented competing current of research and solutions in the field, then I’d like to hear from someone who would disagree with Krugman on some issues.  But please, this person should have similarly solid credentials, and should represent a similarly broad stream of research in the subject area.