Posted on 01/12/2011 9:24:56 AM PST by freespirited
I agree completely with Pete that Krauthammer’s column is a great blow to Krugman. It’s made all the more forceful by the fact that Krauthammer is not only a brilliant columnist but also a psychiatrist by training.
I also agree that this may be a tipping point in Krugman’s disgraceful career as a columnist. For one thing, he is intellectually lazy and seems to operate on the principle that a Krugman assertion is, ipso facto, an established fact. He rarely buttresses his assertions with evidence. His one bit of evidence that ”eliminationist rhetoric” in American political life is overwhelmingly on the right was to quote Rep. Michelle Bachmann as saying that people who oppose the Obama agenda should be “armed and dangerous.”
Far worse, however, he is intellectually dishonest. Even the Times’s first public editor, Daniel Okrent, said that Krugman has a “disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults.” He is no less cavalier with quotes. As John Hinderacker at Power Line shows, complete with a recording of the entire interview, Michelle Bachmann was merely using a metaphor. She was holding a town hall meeting with constituents regarding the cap-and-trade bill and said, “I’m going to have materials for people when they leave. I want people armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax, because we need to fight back.” She was arming them with information, not bullets, so they could successfully oppose a terrible bill, not shoot politicians.
On June 19, 1954, Joseph Welch asked Senator Joe McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” It turned out to be the tipping point in McCarthy’s career, the moment when public opinion turned decisively against him. By the end of the year, he had been censured by the Senate. He died a few years later, the object of public scorn, which he remains for most.
I hope that Krugman’s column on Monday, when he shamelessly used a tragedy to smear his political opponents, will be his have-you-no-decency-sir moment. He deserves one. He is the Joe McCarthy of our times.
Krugman is arguably worse than McCarthy.
He was a flawed individual who was essentially on the right track. See the Venona Files.
Sorry, that comparison is completely inappropriate. McCarthy was a hero fighting against a real threat.
Krugman is just noisy bag of foul smelling wind.
Krugman is a vile delusions of grandeur neurotic.
He is to political discourse (and economic acumen) what Fred Phelps is to Christian ministry.
The Democrats are an embarrassment. They need to be rejected and publicly shamed. Arguing with them has become pointless.
Exactly!
Joe Welch said this as McCarthy was trying to rid the U.S. of communists that were trying (then and NOW) to overthrow our republican government.. by sedition and treason.. with a tactic called Cloward-Piven..
This was before communists and other types of leftists took complete control of the democrat party.. like now.. Not only that but by many stealth leftists are who are presently in the republican party although they call themselves "progressives"..
An indecent affair to be sure.. McCarthy was extremely decent.. in that he didnt propose hanging the perpetrators.. but merely exposing them..
The Rooseveldt cell in Washington D.C. allowed and made possible the theft of out atomic secrets(Atomic bomb) by the Rosenberg's(and others)[communists].. and precipitated the cold war..
The question has never been asked; "Was Joseph Welch DECENT?".. Did he have the slightest amount of decency?.. Obviously not since he knew of the known communists in Roosevelt administration and besides that Trumans that followed him..
Ann coulter has a great book showing the McCarthy was right. I wish he was alive to have seen it.
A lot of what he was trying to prove was later proven true by the Ruyssian communists themselves
There is one benefit of Zero and RATs on the US scene:
They showed what is their ultimate goal - the complete dominance and conversion of US to failed model of comietocracy.
Now people get it more and it is time for final cleanup of this scourge. Vote the RATs out into oblivion.
What with all the vitriol and asinine rhetoric on display over the past few days, I must admit that I had seen neither krugman’s screed nor Krauthammer’s rejoinder. I heartily recommend that everyone should, at least for context, read both.
krugman:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/opinion/10krugman.html?_r=2&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Kruathammer:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011106068.html
Masterful smackdown of krugman and about G-D time!
Wow! Thanks for posting those links.
Krauthammmer hit the nail on the head and to say the least, he’s not known for his defense of Palin.
His creation of a graph from, literally, a single data point and an assumed completely arbitrary function operating on that point, is hall of fame hilarity.
When speaking of Krugman... The answer is "No, none what so ever."
Well said.
We should all aspire to be the McCarthy of our times. The man was a hero and he was right - as the Venona transcripts have proven beyond all doubt.
I can’t believe that people on FR are still accepting the Left’s portrayal of McCarthy.
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