Tuesday, June 22, 2004 KRUGMAN, AN AMERICAN UNORIGINAL Paul Krugman's New York Times column today -- his second about John Ashcroft -- has generated an even greater than usual volume of emails and blog postings (here's my quick-take from last night, and here's an excellent email from a reader). Reader Jeffrey Jacobson notes that Krugman's column today on the supposedly under-publicized conviction of William Krar is a recycled (none dare call it plagiarized, what with Moore-inspired war-rooms gearing up all over left-wing Amerika) version of a March 14, 2004 UPI column by Jim Kessler, and a May 14, 2004 column by DeWayne Wickham. Reader Jim Glass points out an excellent post on Tom Maguire's Just One Minute blog, in which Maguire notes that even Krugman's fellow Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof made much the same point almost two years ago. Maguire goes on to wonder why Krugman is so quick to accuse Ashcroft of political bias and racism in seeking so little publicity for the Krar arrest and conviction -- yet while other media outlets such as CNN covered the story thoroughly, "...why did the NY Times not cover it? A search of their website for "Krar" turns up one previous story. Has Krugman declared the death of investigative journalism? Does this mean that the 'All Abu Ghraib, all the time' era never happened?" Maxwell Argent, blogging at Advisory Opinion, takes on Krugman's claim that "Mr. Ashcroft is very close to the gun lobby.... After 9/11, he ordered that all government lists including voter registration, immigration and driver's license lists be checked for links to terrorists...except one: he specifically prohibited the F.B.I. from examining background checks on gun purchasers." Argent writes, "...the Brady law requires the records' destruction...JANET RENO -- the long-time denizen of the gun lobby -- actually wrote the regulation making clear that records could not be searched for solely law enforcement purposes (as advocated by Krugman)...[and]...the LEGAL OPINION from the Office of Legal Counsel actually EXPLICITLY says that a search of the records solely for law enforcement purposes is illegal..." Hmmm... so that means that when Krugman says of Ashcroft that "he ordered" that, what he means is that "he ordered" that the law be obeyed. Amazing.
Posted by Donald Luskin at 8:53 PM
More evidence that Paul Krugman's June 22 column wasn't entirely original, shall we say. Leftist blog New Partisan isn't happy about the "uncanny resemblance to our David L. Steinhardts April 8 dispatch."
Posted by Donald Luskin at 6:00 PM