Suddenly There’s Krugman

Posted on 03/29/2009 at 2:04 pm by Bob Cesca

Boehlert nails it:

Looking back on the Bush years, Krugman’s track record was rather impeccable. But you’ll note he didn’t appear on the cover of Newsweek back then. And for years Krugman only occasionally appeared on the pundit talk shows.

And:

But now a Democrat is in the Oval Office, Krugman is still hitting the president from the left, and suddenly the Beltway press thinks Krugman’s work is fascinating and newsworthy. Trust us, it is. (For years he’s been our pick as the country’s premier columnist.) We just think everyone would have been better off if the press had paid this much attention to Krugman’s work between, say, 2002 and 2006.

The key factor in Newsweek‘s decision is, as I wrote earlier today, DRAMA! When Krugman opposed President Bush, he was ignored as just another shrill lefty. Now that he’s disagreeing with President Obama on a few key areas, it’s that familiar establishment media script: The Liberal Are Fighting Themselves Again! Oh Those Silly Liberals.

While I’m thrilled that a very smart liberal is gaining some traction (same goes for Olbermann and Maddow and some others), it’d be nice if this had always been the case.

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  • Erin

    I was excited when I saw that Krugman would be on the cover, but I wasn’t too impressed with the actual article. It was more a shallow profile of Krugman than about his economic ideas (I mean, those were touched on, but briefly), with Newsweek pumping up the “drama” of the supposed “feud”. I was surprised that Krugman and Obama have NEVER met though. I thought it was a little weak for Newsweek to make it sound like the Obama team bends over for Brooks and virtually ignores Krugman, since at the end of the article it says that Summers had called Krugman last week and they had been playing phone tag. Marc Ambinder also reported a couple of months ago that Krugman was one of the liberal columnists that was chosen to attend one of those meetings with Obama, but he didn’t go. I figured he either didn’t want to or was busy, but I felt like Newsweek just wanted to shit stir a little on that front, making it seem like the Obama team and Krugman hated each other or something. There could have been more focus on the policy dispute.

  • SillyRatfacedGit

    <PSA>If anyone sent an Email to Mike Doogan protesting his outing of AK Muckraker and received a reply from Mr. Doogan AKM wants to know about it.Please go to http://www.themudflats.net/forum/index.php/topic,6710.0.html</PSA>Isn’t it odd that they discover Mr. Krugman now. The corporate propaganda dispensers always ignore things until it suits their agenda.

  • Matt McD.

    I thought that, according to Newsweek, we’re all Socialists now.Krugman must be some sort of extra-super-mondo-Socialist.

  • ceu

    Oliver Willis agrees with you, Erin, about the article. He called it “amazingly stupid”.

  • D. C.

    One thing that I think is going on is that lockstep worship of the authority figure is the norm on the right. So, when Bush is in office, the only criticism he receives to any appreciable degree is from the left, so Krugman gets crowded out in favor those that make for more lively (that is to say, less factual) debates. The media then expects the same lockstep worship from the left when a democrat takes office. But when they see someone on the left criticizes a democrat, they’re shocked! Shocked I tell you!

  • Erin

    Thanks, ceu. Yeah, that was my problem with it. I thought it would have been about WHY Obama is wrong, which would have been fine, but it was more like “See, there’s this guy named Paul Krugman. He won a nobel prize and you often get the feeling he is right, but he is sort of a sour puss. See, look at this picture we took of him and an umbrella! He thinks Obama is wrong about a lot of things. We can’t tell whether it’s personal or not, even though we think he’s probably right. But we won’t examine WHY we think he’s right”, blah blah blah.

  • ceu

    Agreed, D.C. They can’t understand the concept of liking & supporting a president and still being able to disagree with some of his policies. To many of them, loyalty equals blind faith and ceding independent judgment.

  • Nanotyrannus

    I fell in love with Krugman way back when I heard him on NPR explaining the slight-of-hand behind the Bush administration’s plans to privatize Social Security. From then on I was a fan and followed his columns when I could. He’s awesome. Love him mucho.

  • SillyRatfacedGit

    It’s the fascist mentality that you are describing. This is a basic gut-level difference between liberals and conservatives. It’s one of the things that Conservatives just don’t grok about us.They expect us to all agree on everything, and even though history shows that liberals always disagree on many things, they are shocked to discover disagreement. They think we are somehow defective by having differences of opinion. And we think that they are defective in having unquestioning blind faith in the party line.This difference is what makes it harder for Democrats to get anything done. We often have to spend more time getting all of the democrats on the same page than we do countering the obstructionism from across the isle.At least that’s how it appears to me. I’ve been watching this circus since the mid sixties.

  • hielo

    “They expect us to all agree on everything, and even though history shows that liberals always disagree on many things, they are shocked to discover disagreement.”I am truly amazed that my Republican friends actually listen to Limbaugh… and they actually want Obama to fail!But I finally figured it out. “Republican” is not a political party to them. It is their religion.

  • chris galkin

    the most insightful comment so far is that corporate america ignored Krugman for the last 8 years and is using him now to support their agenda. I hope he is too smart to allow them to use him but you can never overestimate the need for ego stroking once you have the spotlight. Paul..don’t go to the dark side…resistance is not futile….

  • http://freeforallpolitics.multiply.com/ Cody

    Are we worried perhaps a lil too much on whether the right has fuel or not?That seems to be where the GOP is right now. Worrying about the politics of it all.Let’s focus on “our” plan… and if it works or not.

  • oderfla

    D. C., ceu, SillyRatfacedGit, and hielo: if you haven’t done so yet, I strongly recommend you to check http://www.theauthoritarians.com. The link takes you to an easy-to-read, free online book that quite reasonably explains the lockstep, no-disagreement behavior of “right wing authoritarian followers”. A very interesting reading!

  • DrToketee

    Here’s a more inclusive perspective on Krugman: (1) he has never managed a single major financial system while Geithner is probably one of the top most-experienced financial experts in the nation, (2) he was an economic advisor for only one year of his career – for Ronald Reagan!, (2) his area of expertise is in international TRADE, not financial, (3) Geithner has assimilated and analysed the advice of a dozen top financial experts working on many dimensions of our economic distress and has made very, very big decisions based on it while Krugman listens only to himself, (4) the Obama vetters long ago came to understand that Krugman would never be a no-drama team player with the ability to compromise, and (5) contrary to what this article asserts, Krugman has been wrong on several major financial issues during the Bush administration – his track record is very checkered, indeed.I’m going with the pro, not the protagonist.

  • veralynn

    thanks for the link oderfla

  • D. C.

    Thanks for the link, odorfla. I recommend the book Conservatives Without Conscience by John Dean. He applies a lot of the theories on the website to explain the behavior of people like Dick Cheney other neocons.

  • veralynn

    Broken Government by John Dean is also very good

  • 24hourjack

    lately,since the nyt has been critical of pres. obama,i must have heard at least six or seven conservatives reference various times columns and articles.one of them was complaining that the pres. didnt call on the nyt or wash post at the last press conf,”these are the best journalists we have…”yes,the best we have…unless theyre telling the truth about george bush.then its simply another shitty liberal rag.