Vodkapundit - He Gets Paid for That?

He Gets Paid for That?

Posted by Stephen Green · 28 October 2003

Aw, hell -- Paul Krugman is at it again. Read:

I wrote about why Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia's prime minister — a clever if loathsome man who adjusts the volume of his anti-Semitism depending on circumstances — chose to include an anti-Jewish diatribe in his speech to an Islamic conference. Sure enough, I was accused in various places not just of "tolerance for anti-Semitism" (yes, I'm Jewish) but of being in Mr. Mahathir's pay. Smear tactics aside, the thrust of the attacks was that because anti-Semitism is evil, anyone who tries to understand why politicians foment anti-Semitism — and looks for ways other than military force to combat the disease — is an apologist for anti-Semitism and is complicit in evil.
Yet that moral punctiliousness is curiously selective. Last year the Bush administration, in return for a military base in Uzbekistan, gave $500 million to a government that, according to the State Department, uses torture "as a routine investigation technique," and whose president has killed opponents with boiling water. The moral clarity police were notably quiet.

The point Krugman is trying to make is the usual one of sinister partisanship (on the other side, not his own.) He claims:

Any American who tries to go beyond "America good, terrorists evil," who tries to understand — not condone — the growing world backlash against the United States, faces furious attacks delivered in a tone of high moral indignation.

Unlike, of course, the furious attacks, delivered in a tone of high moral indignation, Krugman writes twice a week for America's most widely-read newspaper. But let's go back to the first bit I quoted.

Krugman wrote that he was accused of horrible things "in various places." Which places? Letters to the editor from the usual Black Helicopter cranks? Internet message boards? Or -- gasp! -- on blogs?

So a few fools accused Krugman of things not entirely disconnected from reality, and he received the same idle death threat every columnist of any stripe gets each time he writes. Big whoop.

And what about those insufferable fools on the right? What is their crime? Why, they aren't upset enough about our alliance-of-temporary-convenience with Uzbekistan.

If Krugman actually had a point somewhere in his column, I couldn't find it. Then again, I couldn't get past the fifth paragraph. So a point might be hidden in there somewhere, like a cast pearl in a swine's mud pit -- to hear Krugman tell it.

Comments

In other shocking news, American presidents have in the past allowed Soviet leaders (who imprisoned and killed thousands of innocent Soviet citizens) to visit the White House. And I seem to remember at least one well-known terrorist getting a nice Rose Garden ceremony in the 1990s. Shockingly, he went back where he came from and started another civil war. Not that Krugman would know or remember these things, mind you.

Since when is this about the "moral clarity police"? It's really about the "Paul Krugman apparently doesn't know jackshit about anything except his little subfield of economics but parades his ignorance as an apparent badge of honor in front of the nation police." Good lord, if PK actually talked about things he knew something about (as opposed to barely-sourced things he reads on someone's blog and decides to blow by whoever passes for the editing staff at the Times op-ed page) he might actually get back some of the respect he's lost lately.

Posted by: Chris Lawrence at October 27, 2003 11:23 PM

I routinely disagree with most of the NYT columnists, but after watching Krugman complain for months, I give most of them credit for having hide.

In comparison, Krugman has wax paper covering his organs and sinew. And one quick tap from some nude blogger who never leaves his room is enough to send PK into quivering palpitations and a new column. The NYT should be embarrassed not by his blatant partisanship, but by his teenage whining.

And his impending-martyrdom routine is getting tiresome...I know he believes himself to be the last bastion of free speech against the awful Bush machine, but that doesn't quite explain why he's paid oodles to pop out of his shack twice a week and remind us again that dissent is dead.

Posted by: Joe Baby at October 27, 2003 11:36 PM

I'm planning to dress up as Donald Luskin and swing by Krugman's house on Halloween.

BOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Posted by: RLG at October 28, 2003 07:14 AM

Krugman is easily the most consistently adolescent, self-absorbed, and egocentric pundit working for a major media outlet, which, considering the competition, is quite an accomplishment.

Posted by: Will Allen at October 28, 2003 08:36 AM

Will, I completely agree though Krugman has some serious competition in his self-absorbed egocentrism, sigh.....

That is why Stephen's fisking falls far short. It was a lazy and incomplete fisking. I hope I will be able to find a more complete pointed and intelligent fisking of Krugman to accurately expose his weak and partisan "economics" commentary.

Mike

Posted by: Mike at October 28, 2003 09:54 AM

Can't we take up a collection and hire an Afghanii budmash to properly Fisk our boy Krugman about the head and upper body? Ought to cost ~$.85 or so (he's an economist, after all. We'll pitch in a dollar and let him tend to the details). I suspect the poor jackeen just feels left out. A few scratches, some high-pitched squealing, a lingering series of extra-large bandaids artfully arrayed for maximum photo-op effect...and he'll be back on his knees in no time.

Posted by: Carl at October 28, 2003 10:49 AM

Donald Luskin doles up all the Krugmanfisk that one can eat. Check out "Conspiracy to keep you poor and stupid"

One aspect of Krugman that is alternatively fascinating and scary is his sycophantic following bordering on the cult-like status. Check out the website linked at Luskin's. These folks, I am quite sure, would present themselves with actual foam dripping out of their mouths and wild and unfocused eyes - unless presented with an op-ed by the Almighty himself - Paul Krugman.

Posted by: Colorado Conservative at October 28, 2003 11:03 AM

thanks for the heads up am going to check out Luskin's fisk. I should have figured he was eagerly waiting the little weasel's next installment and I imagine he had his sharpest witticisms ready.

Posted by: Mike at October 28, 2003 12:47 PM

As I blogged about, the most astonishing thing is this, IMO:

In the world of Krugman, anybody who disagrees with him is willfully ignorant, and the man who has one of the biggest pulpits in the world-- the NY Times oped page-- is being 'shouted down'.

One wonders if Krugman understands that one can be intelligent and still disagree with him.

Posted by: John Q. at October 28, 2003 06:11 PM

Hasn't Krugman also argued for engagement with China, against the war to remove Saddam, and in favor of a Palestinian state? Oh and he's never uttered a peep about the billions we pour into the humanitarian paragon of Egypt, now has he?

Yeah, "stupid" Bush has Krugman chasing his tail like a puppy on a kitchen floor. You'd think a columnist for the NY Times could at least put together a coherent argument from week to week but that breaks down when all he does is screech in polar opposition to whatever Bush does.

A halfway intelligent 9th grader could read the paper and write Krugmans column every week.

Posted by: Mike M at October 28, 2003 06:21 PM