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Megan McArdle

Megan McArdle - Megan McArdle is a senior editor for The Atlantic who writes about business and economics. She has worked at three start-ups, a consulting firm, an investment bank, a disaster recovery firm at Ground Zero, and The Economist. More

Megan was born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and yes, she does enjoy her lattes, as well as the occasional extra-dry skim-milk cappuccino. Her checkered work history includes three start-ups, four years as a technology project manager for a boutique consulting firm, a summer as an associate at an investment bank, and a year spent as sort of an executive copy girl for one of the disaster-recovery firms at Ground Zero … all before the age of 30.

While working at Ground Zero, Megan started Live From the WTC, a blog focused on economics, business, and cooking. She may or may not have been the first major economics blogger, depending on whether we are allowed to throw outlying variables such as Brad Delong out of the set. From there it was but a few steps down the slippery slope to freelance journalism. She has worked in various capacities for The Economist, where she wrote about economics and oversaw the founding of Free Exchange, the magazine's economics blog. She has also maintained her own blog, Asymmetrical Information, which moved to The Atlantic, along with its owner, in August 2007.

Megan holds a bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. After a lifetime as a New Yorker, she now resides in northwest Washington, D.C., where she is still trying to figure out what one does with an apartment larger than 400 square feet.

One Lone Nut Making a Whole Movement Look Bad

By Megan McArdle
Jun 11 2009, 12:03 PM ET Comment

A lot of people have picked up on the fact that white separatists are apparently worried that the shooting makes them look bad.  This is hilarious in a laugh-until-you-cry sort of way, as is their strenuous efforts to ensure that we all realize he's nuts.  Trust me, folks--we think you're all nuts.

But like Yglesias, what really struck me is that John de Nugent telling the Washington Post that "the responsible white separatist community condemns this."  What, one wonders, characterizes the responsible white separatists?  Are their swastika armbands all made from 100% biodegradeable materials?  Do they take care that the leather in their jackboots comes from humanely raised cows?  Do they carefully follow the Forest Service's wildfire prevention guidelines when burning crosses?  Are their white separatist brownie points for attending school board meetings or chairing the Community Chest drive?

But their concern does raise one interesting point:  it's not actually possible for the white separatist movement to look any worse than it does.  George Tiller's killing cast some genuine shame over the pro-life movement that nurtured his killer.  But did yesterday's horror make you think any less of W.A.R.?  You couldn't actually think any less of them, could you?


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