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What's Krugman's deal?

January 21, 2008, 9:50AM

Columnist C seems to have it in for candidate A:

And somehow many people believe that Candidate A is the true progressive -- he wasn’t really saying that Reagan was right -- and that Candidate B, despite the progressive talk, is just Bush the third.

I respect Columnist C; I too find some of candidate A's rhetoric distasteful, and don't see him as nearly the progressive some claim. When it was just a matter of comparing health care plans I thought C was contributing to the discussion, and not simply cheerleading for (or against) a single candidate. But at some point this seems to have become personal: How does contrasting cherry-picked quotes contribute to the debate?

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Where was Krugman's disdain for Republican talking points when Candidate B unleased them on social security and taxes in general, in New Hampshire and Nevada?

Where was the outrage?

I hate to say "I told you so", but a lot of Obama supporters got vilified for saying Krugman was just engaging in demagogy during the health care debate, and now it's becoming increasingly clear that those charges were accurate.

Krugman has conveniently ignored all evidence that contradicts his narrative, misconstrued statements to create evidence for his narrative, and in general produced of late works that cannot be considered anything better than run-of-the-mill political hackery. And I saw this as someone who owns Krugman's books and was previously a devout reader of his.

It's disappointing, to say the least.

Posted by mopper8
January 21, 2008 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink

I too have been a loyal reader of Krugman's. But also found his column today too partisan and I could not help wondering if he is in the pay of the Clinton machine or hoping for a job in her administration. I'm losing my faith in his objectivity here. Very sad, really. Very sad.

Posted by TheraP
January 21, 2008 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink

I don't think he's being paid or angling for a job. He has a legitimate point of view, which he lays out in his latest book, that we're at a sort of historical inflection point, and that progressives should therefore push hard now to move the discussion back to the left as far as possible. He thinks health care is a key part of this, so it made sense to focus on the candidates' plans. But with Edwards tanking in the polls, Krugman's kind of up a creek now. To Krugman, Clinton looks marginally more progressive than Obama on health care, so she's his least-worst option at this point.

As I've said before, I wish we had the pre-Bush Krugman back, the one who spent more time educating the public about economics than breathing partisan fire. He's still in there -- read Krugman's blog -- and hopefully he'll come out from hiding in 2009.

Posted by Mister Foo in reply to a comment from TheraP
January 21, 2008 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink

I don't know that's true anymore, to be honest.

dnA gets it right:

I realize that Krugman is not a journalist, but if he's going to denounce someone for not saying something they actually said, he might want to do himself the favor of actually watching or reading the interview.

Bill Clinton knew that in 1991, when he began his presidential campaign. “The Reagan-Bush years,” he declared, “have exalted private gain over public obligation, special interests over the common good, wealth and fame over work and family. The 1980s ushered in a Gilded Age of greed and selfishness, of irresponsibility and excess, and of neglect.”

Contrast that with Mr. Obama’s recent statement, in an interview with a Nevada newspaper, that Reagan offered a “sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”

Maybe Mr. Obama was, as his supporters insist, simply praising Reagan’s political skills. (I think he was trying to curry favor with a conservative editorial board, which did in fact endorse him.) But where in his remarks was the clear declaration that Reaganomics failed?

Oh, I don't know, maybe it was in the very same interview you're criticizing him for?

“The Republican approach I think has played itself out. I think it’s fair to say the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time over the last 10 or 15 years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom. Now, you’ve heard it all before. You look at the economic policies, when they’re being debated among the presidential candidates, it’s all tax cuts. Well, we’ve done that, we’ve tried it.”

I don't believe that Krugman is stupid or careless enough to have made that mistake. He deliberately misrepresents Obama's statement on Reagan in this column, exactly the same way that Bill Clinton did in the lead up to the Nevada Caucus.

link

Krugman is a hack. He's not the first to sacrifice his credibility in the name of politics. Sean Wilentz also deserves to have his name thrown in that group for his wonderful "work" for TNR this primary campaign.

sigh...

Posted by mopper8 in reply to a comment from Mister Foo
January 21, 2008 7:37 PM | Reply | Permalink

Ugh. Well, let me extend to Krugman some of the benefit-of-doubt he doesn't extend to Obama. He's still a legitimate academic, many of the other posts on his blog contain at least as much economics as politics, and I'm sympathetic to his basic point about this being the time for radical change.

I guess it gives me a taste of what right wingers have always felt about his columns. He may be on the side of Truth and Right (er, Left) a lot of the time, but he's also a partisan.

Posted by Mister Foo in reply to a comment from mopper8
January 21, 2008 10:04 PM | Reply | Permalink

What's Krugman's deal?

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