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 Schadenfreude  |
This is the New York Times Schadenfreude Ping List. Freepmail me to be added or dropped.
Posted on 07/16/2003 4:18:01 PM PDT by Timesink
HE'S BAAAACK.... Paul Krugman is back from vacation, and bashing Bush for a new boss -- Bill Keller. It's been nice these last two weeks, not having to dirty my hands taking Krugman's New York Times columns apart one lie at a time every Tuesday and Friday. But now it's back to the routine -- it's dirty work, and all that... But I must say, with Krugman back I'm looking forward to an end to the recurring nightmares I've been having. You see, rumor had it that he was cycling in France. In my nightmares, I see a gnomishly handsome Krugman, suited up in skin-tight cycling gear, decked from head to toe in day-glo logos, looking like some kind of midget NASCAR race-car... an announcer's voice booms... "After 10 stages, it's Armstrong... then Vinokourov, 21 seconds behind... then Mayo, 1:02 behind.... and then -- what's this?! -- it's that dark-horse from Princeton... it's Krugman, just 1:05 behind and coming up fast...!" That's where I wake up in a cold sweat. So I'm easing in to this. I've been traveling on biz, too, so this post will be just a couple links to stuff my fellow Krugman-watchers have already put up. He'll get the full treatment from me on Friday's column (if Keller hasn't fired him by then). Robert Musil, on the Man Without Qualities blog, leads off with an hilarious welcome back to Herr Doktorprofessor. Read the whole thing, but here's a sampler: "The column is nothing more than a desiccated rehearsal of the inadequately supported anti-Bush, 'he lied,' 'Blair lied,' 'the intelligence services lied because Bush and Blair made them lie' memes that have been cluttering the media for the last week or so. Those charges have already been answered by various people in the Administration, the Blair administration and the media. Matthew Hoy, on the HoyStory.com blog, speculated last week that Krugman was not on vacation at all, but had been "designated an unlawful combatant and shipped off to Gitmo -- I was apparently incorrect." Now that Krugman's back, Hoy is all over him as usual. There's lots more in his full post, but here's a sampler: "Normally I wouldn't be skeptical about solid numbers (with the exception of some poll numbers), but with Krugman, experience has taught me to be wary. According to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on yesterday's 'Meet the Press,' the number of troops we currently have in Iraq is about 147,000. Now, not all of those are 'combat' troops, though everyone over there, even the supply clerk, has a firearm. According to the Defense Department, the total number of Army personnel as of April 30 (the latest figure available) is 491,309. There is a stop-loss order in effect, so that number isn't going down. That leaves 344,309 Army personnel who aren't in Iraq.
"Herr Doktorprofessor adds nothing new. His arguments are but Ka hovering among funerary models of real world objects. We are moved to leave him to his eternal peace.
"Herr Doktorprofessor does emit one tentative sign of life at the very beginning of the column, where he notes ambiguously:
"More than half of the U.S. Army's combat strength is now bogged down in Iraq ... We have lost all credibility with allies who might have provided meaningful support ... All this puts us in a very weak position for dealing with real threats. Did I mention that North Korea has been extracting fissionable material from its fuel rods?
"At first this might be read as arguing that Herr Doktorprofessor thinks the U.S. Army's combat strength may be needed soon to strike at North Korea. Herr Doktorprofessor seems as though he wants to say (the way frustrated spirits want to send messages to us from the afterlife) that the new Korean War he thinks that we need is just not possible because the strength of the U.S. Army has been bogged down and our former allies will just not help now that we have lost 'all credibility.'
"But, since Herr Doktorprofessor doesn't complete the thought that almost emerges from his pretty damn peculiar semi-suggestion, we are left to conclude that this was no sign of life after all. Just some burp resulting from inadequately purged decomposition gases, perhaps."
"In fact, a May 7 report by the Christian Science Monitor has the Army deploying 'more than one-third' of its combat troops in Iraq. Journalists like easy fractions -- 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, 1/3, 2/3 -- you'll seldom see them use any others. And they always pick the nearest one to the ratio they need to report.
"Is Krugman exaggerating for effect? Well, lessee 'bogged down?' Yes, I'd say that Krugman is exaggerating. In fact, if I were Krugman and Krugman was (God forbid) the president, then I think I (Krugman) would accuse him (the President) of lying."
Posted by Donald Luskin at 12:41 AM | link
2 posted on 3/6/02 7:30 AM Pacific by grammymoon:
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