Krugman sinks to a new low Tom Smith

The Tiller and Holocaust museum murders are the fault of conservative media icons such as Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh, according to Krugman.  Even from a Nobel Prize winning social scientist, what an unexpectedly dazzling insight.  

Thus from social scientist to hack to demagogue does the path spiral downward.  I would say Krugman should be ashamed of himself, but evidently that is precisely the capacity he is deficient in.  I really think this guy is not all there.  Whether it is some deficiency in his background, his natural endowments or the effects of fame and fortune, who knows.  As people who know serious math and science geeks may know, serious social deficits in this population are not exactly unheard of.  But it's a bad thing nevertheless, because the capacity to feel shame is a very important barrier to doing bad things, especially in the public arena.  A good reason not to throw around shameless and incendiary accusations, such as accusing people of being complicit in hate-motivated murders, besides their being unfair to their targets, and therefore morally reprehensible, is that they lower the tone of public discourse.  Not only do they lower the tone, but they are calculated not to engage, but to attempt to shut people up.  It's the style of a thug, a political bully boy, not a scholar or a professor.  You might  therefore think academic thugs are rare, but in fact, they're not, or not as rare as we all wish they were.  All I can say is, I'm glad he's no colleague of mine and that I have none like him.

Comments

[dearieme]

Krugman is a cad.

[Tom Smith]

Interesting word, cad. Is a cad the same as a card, a word my mother would use? And is a cad like a heel? Then there are all those mysterious British terms -- bounder, rotter, etc.

[Mike]

Isn't anti-semitism more of a left wing thing?

Most right-wing nut jobs I know are all about Israel. It's due to really weird religious beliefs. Still, that crowd really believes the Anti-Christ will arise in Israel, and that Jews are the chosen people.

So, on the facts, it doesn't make sense to blame the Right - even the fringe Right.

[dearieme]

Oh, no - a card is rather a fine fellow, in an idiosyncratic, upcheering way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Card

[William Sjostrom]

You have no colleagues as dishonest and thuggish as Krugman? Consider yourself very lucky. Anyone who thinks thugs are rare in academic life has no experience with it. They are more like sand in the Sahara: nearly inescapable outside of a rare oasis.

[Paul DeMott]

I took a look at column and was appalled. I think it is very telling to take a look at the comments it generated. For example, one comment suggests that we could eliminate a generation of republicans by requiring parents to have an I.Q. over 100. The comments are littered with similar thoughts. Quite seriously, Krugman should be concerned when the quality of comments degenerates to the level of those made in response to his screed.

[Jonathan]

In blaming conservatives Krugman is merely doing what Bill Clinton did after the Oklahoma City bombing. A dishonest and thuggish tactic to be sure but profoundly effective for Clinton: it effectively derailed the grass-roots anti-big-govt political movement that started growing rapidly during the presidency of GHW Bush and accelerated during Clinton. 9/11 put that movement on hold again, but it's returning now and the Left is attempting to use the same rhetorical tactics against it that worked for them in the past.