Yeah, he is a terrible wannabe jorunalist and a lefty political hack ...
HOWEVER, before his time on the editorial pages of the NYT he held a well earned, well deserved reputation as a quite brilliant economist, his serious, academic economic writing and quantatitive analysis on international exchange rate mechanism and emerging market economic growth pattern are first rate.
People have been expecting he will one day win the Nobel for economics since his days as a member of President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers (yup, really) and as a professor at MIT in the 80's.