The most self-unware/self-important person of the year prize goes to ...

....Paul Krugman.

//Here’s what I learned: Republican institutions don’t protect against tyranny when powerful people start defying political norms. And tyranny, when it comes, can flourish even while maintaining a republican facade.

On the first point: Roman politics involved fierce competition among ambitious men. But for centuries that competition was constrained by some seemingly unbreakable rules. Here’s what Adrian Goldsworthy’s “In the Name of Rome” says: “However important it was for an individual to win fame and add to his and his family’s reputation, this should always be subordinated to the good of the Republic … no disappointed Roman politician sought the aid of a foreign power.”//

Does Krugman mean rules like not trying to get Electors to break their oath?

Does he mean the unwritten tradition that the campaign does not extend to the Electoral College?

Does he mean unwritten norms like the one about Electors voting as they are instructed?

Because he didn't seem concerned about his side pushing the envelope on that one.

Paul Krugman's Denver Moment.

Paul Krugman debates Joe Scarborough and chokes.

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman sat down with Charlie Rose last night to debate the debt crisis, a topic the two have sparred over recently. And the former congressman came away the winner in a unanimous decision against the Nobel Prize winner, a judgment joined by none other than Paul Krugman himself. Krugman conceded that the debate did not go his way even before it aired last night, writing on his blog that it was his “Denver moment,” a reference to President Obama’s lackluster first presidential debate.

Scarborough pushed for immediate attention to the debt to spur economic growth while Krugman urged for further public investment and running deficits for now.

Scarborough went on the offensive for most of the discussion by referring to Krugman’s past works and predictions to expose contradictions and other weaknesses in Krugman’s case. Krugman responded–ineffectually–by telling Scarborough to stop “playing gotcha” and using his old works as “ad hominem attacks.”

Later in the debate, Scarborough called out Krugman–who, by his own later account, was out of sorts–for “being childish” and “tak[ing] cheap shots.” He compared Krugman’s behavior to Al Gore’s famous presidential-debate mannerisms in 2000, as the professor was sighing and commenting under his breath as Scarborough talked. Scarborough continued to advocate for serious reform to Social Security and Medicare, while also paying attention to economic growth and job creation. “We can also do what’s responsible for our children and for our grandchildren, and be concerned about long-term debt,” he said. “That seems pretty damn rational to me.”

All in all, Scarborough usefully exposed that Krugman is better at excoriating conservatives at a distance in his columns than at actually debating them. Well done, Joe.

"After a lifetime of suggesting that there are many kinds of truth,** Krugman is now asserting that there is only ONE truth, and it is absolute. And it is his."


The Anchoress writes:

What we fear is our vulnerability to what we do not know, from our neighbor’s secret sins, to the next madman with means; our future is scaring the hell out of us, and because we are afraid, we cling to what we are sure of — those things about which we are absolutely sure we have gotten right.


Krugman is sure of what he knows — so sure, in fact, that he cannot imagine that anyone else does not know it, as well, “even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not,” he writes in his screed, “in its heart, the nation knows…”

It must know it, because Krugman couldn’t possibly be wrong.

It strikes me that Krugman is, in his own way, taking an ironic stand against the dictatorship of relativism that our pope so frequently decries. After a lifetime of suggesting that there are many kinds of truth,** Krugman is now asserting that there is only ONE truth, and it is absolute. And it is his.

Pretty amusing. Of course, he is confusing truth with opinion, which often has nothing to do with reality. But then most of us do that, because we are uncomfortable with what reality means; it is an unwelcome concept.

Death Panels - the real solution for Medicare....

...according to Pual Krugman.



This is a video from last year, according to The Anchoress.