First, after Will tossed out a trademark more clever than smart remark on bailing out General Motors (Will: Let 'em fail--haven't the bail-out fans noticed GM has ALREADY failed?), Krugman laid out the inconvenient facts: We're still poised on the edge of an economic precipice, and the loss of GM, along with its 1 million-plus jobs, would risk mortal damage to the economy. Too big a risk to take now. Will's simplistic men's club dismissiveness was shown up as irresponsible cant.

And in an exchange on depression-era economics, Will unspooled the musty canard that Roosevelt's activist New Deal policies scared off Wall Street investment and deepened the Depression. Krugman, whose new book is on depression economics, just cocked an eyebrow and pointed out the obvious: With 20% unemployment and record bankruptcies at American companies in the '30s, there's no need to resort to Roosevelt-bashing to explain investors' tight-fistedness. He added that New Deal policies were actually modestly successful at reviving the economy--and it was only in '37-'38, when conservatives pressured Roosevelt to trim government outlays to balance the budget, that the economy went back into a tailspin. 

All in all, an instructive mismatch between a Nobel-prize winner from the reality-based policy world versus a know-little, ideology-stuffed hack.  

Hopefully ABC will soon have the clips up on its web-site.