Jon Taplin: An angry, mediocre, Krugman-hating blogger who does not back up his claims
One Jon Taplin said recently here in TPM that Paul Krugman had made two judgment errors in the recent past:
1) Krugman predicted, Taplin noted, that our recession would not come to be as bad as the late 90's recession in Argentina, and
2) Krugman once said, (according to Taplin) that Hillary Clinton "was the only candidate that could beat the Republicans."
Taplin linked us to a recent op-ed authored by Krugman and dated March 22, and to a post in which Taplin sounded bearish in January, 2008, which made him a genius.
That's it. We are left clueless about whether the Argentinian recession was milder or graver than ours. Was it milder or graver? Taplin didn't say.
Now to the second claim: Did Paul Krugman ever say that Hillary Clinton was the only candidate who could win the general elections? We are once again left in limbo regarding the truthfulness of this claim as well. Is it possible that Taplin made this up and Krugman preferred Clinton because of her policies and not her alleged electability? Absolutely. It is perfectly conceivable, though not clear because he showed no links.
We are not supposed to go fishing for answers in google. It is your responsibility, Mr. Taplin, to provide evidence to back up your assertions.
