In his most recent column, Paul Krugman wrote (it's behind that blasted firewall):
We should welcome the recent epiphanies by conservative commentators who have finally realized that the Bush administration isn't trustworthy. But we should guard against a conventional wisdom that seems to be taking hold in some quarters, which says there's something praiseworthy about having initially been taken in by Mr. Bush's deceptions, even though the administration's mendacity was obvious from the beginning.
According to this view, if you're a former Bush supporter who now says, as Mr. Bartlett did at the Cato event, that "the administration lies about budget numbers," you're a brave truth-teller. But if you've been saying that since the early days of the Bush administration, you were unpleasantly shrill.
Similarly, if you're a former worshipful admirer of George W. Bush who now says, as Mr. Sullivan did at Cato, that "the people in this administration have no principles," you're taking a courageous stand. If you said the same thing back when Mr. Bush had an 80 percent approval rating, you were blinded by Bush-hatred.
How very, um, not shrill of Krugman. And Gawd knows, if there is someone with the right to be mean about this it is Paul Krugman. But that does not stop Sully from whining:
With his usual accuracy and fairness, Paul Krugman smears yours truly today. Since he's too important to have his columns available to non-subscribers, I can't link. He has one decent point: yes, I lionized George W. Bush for a while after 9/11, and, in retrospect, my attempt to place trust in him at a time of national peril was a misjudgment. . . . But some of us, in the days after 9/11, did not immediately go into partisan mode, put aside some of our other objections (like the fiscal mess and the anti-gay policies), and rallied behind a president at war.
Oh, the pooor misunderstood baby. So Sully did not go into "partisan" mode after 9/11? Well, he certainly did go into New McCarthyism mode. On September 16, 2001, Sully was already rooting out the traitors:
The middle part of the country--the great red zone that voted for Bush--is clearly ready for war. The decadent Left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead--and may well mount what amounts to a fifth column.
Note: Scientist points out that Sully misleadingly added a phrase after the fact that I have now stricken through. It did NOT appear in his September 16, 2001 London Times column. (Emphasis mine.) And now Krugman is being soooo mean to him! Thank Gawd Sully didn't get partisan after 9/11. But, to be fair, Sully sort of owns up to being a teensy weensy bit mean:
And yes, I criticized many whose knee-jerk response immediately after 9/11 was to blame America, and whose partisanship, like Krugman's, was so intense they had already deemed Bush a failure before he even had a chance. But it is a gross exaggeration to say, as Krugman sweepingly does, that "I used to specialize in denouncing the patriotism and character of anyone who dared to criticize president Bush."
(Emphasis mine.) Oh really? Sure if you can ignore what you actually wrote. Sully lies about it:
Five days after 9/11, in an aside in a long essay, I predicted that a small cadre of decadent leftists in enclaves in coastal universities would instinctively side with America's enemies. . . . Krugman's sweeping charge against me is unfair. Long-time readers will know this. And the record is out there.
(Emphasis mine.) It damn sure is Sully. This is what you ACTUALLY wrote:
The middle part of the country - the great red zone that voted for Bush - is clearly ready for war. The decadent Left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead - and may well mount what amounts to a fifth column.
No "enclaves in coastal universities." No "small cadre." Sure, days later you got called on it and tried to say you were talking about the Ward Churchills of the world. But that's not what you wrote. And you refused to retract.
More on the flip.
Sully cited
George Orwell in defense of his New McCarthyism:
In so far as it hampers the British war effort, British pacifism is on the side of the Nazis, and German pacifism, if it exists, is on the side of Britain and the USSR. Since pacifists have more freedom of action in countries where traces of democracy survive, pacifism can act more effectively against democracy than for it. Objectively the pacifist is pro-Nazi."
Well, Orwell was just plain wrong and, dare I say it, Orwellian there. We in the United States categorically reject that view of dissent. I stand with the guy you called a nutcase (How's that civility working for you Sully?), General Wesley Clark, on dissent:
This New American Patriotism is not just about waving the flag and guarding our borders," General Clark said. "It's about guarding what makes us distinctive as Americans - our personal liberties, our right to debate and dissent. We are not a country that manipulates facts, ignores debate, and stifles dissent.
You and Orwell and the Bush Administration notwithstanding, opposing a lunatic, unnecessary, disastrous war is not treason. It is the highest form of patriotism.
But the most laughable thing is your protesting that Krugman is being mean and unfair to you, the Krugman Truth Squad senior member, using as a reliable source in your attacks on Krugman the Stupidest Man Alive, Donald Luskin.
Mark Kleiman said it best:
Krugman is a very smart fellow: scary-smart . . . The Times hired him to do a column mostly about economics, and by a quirk of timing he started to write just as George W. Bush started to spread his particular brand of bushwa all over the question of taxation and budget deficits. Krugman was appalled both by how transparently false Bush's arithmetic was and how unwilling the media were to call his lies for what they were. . . .
So Krugman got madder and madder about that, and started to notice that Bush's talent for plain and fancy prevarication wasn't limited to economics, and that the tendency of the media to treat his assertions that 2 + 2 = 22 and that the world is flat as legitimate opinions worthy of serious discussion wasn't limited to economics either. That led Krugman to stray from writing about economics, where he was and is an expert, into writing about other matters, where he's just a smart amateur. Being an amateur, and being filled with rage by the constant lying of Team Bush, led Krugman to make some mistakes, and to be insufficiently willing to admit it when he had made them.
That created the opportunity for a group of right-wing bloggers -- Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Reynolds, and Mickey Kaus chief among them (I'll call Kaus "neoliberal" rather than "right-wing" when he remembers that there's actually a difference) -- to attack Krugman's credibility, not merely on the political stuff where he is an amateur but on the economic stuff where he's the expert and they're the amateurs. For ammunition in that campaign, they relied on Donald Luskin, a bush-league quasi-economist who has never (to my knowledge) had an academic appointment or published in a learned journal, and who makes his living touting stocks.
By quoting Luskin as if his views were entitled to consideration as expert views, Sullivan, Reynolds, and Kaus managed to convince themselves, and the more credulous of their readers, that Krugman was what Luskin is: a mere political hack, with no professional reputation to protect or intellectual self-respect to lose, writing whatever nonsense might convince an unwary voter. It should have, but apparently did not, worry them that Luskin was an obvious lunatic -- he once wrote after attending a Krugman lecture that he was "worried that I'd gotten too close to something infectious" -- and a thug, who used a transparently meritless lawsuit and the threat of forcing Atrios to reveal his identity to bully Atrios into ceasing his (perfectly accurate) criticism of Luskin.
. . . One should be very reluctant to believe that a respected academic expert such as Krugman, speaking within his domain of expertise, is simply full of hot air, and one should never do so on the mere say-so of a hack such as Luskin. (That's why the good Lord gave us telephones and email accounts: so we could check with real experts before making buffoons of ourselves.) But error is human, and if Drezner [Guestblogging for Sully] had backed off quickly and gracefully it would be poor manners for anyone else to crow over him for it.
Alas, being a fill-in for Sullivan, who is often wrong but never in doubt and who never, never admits error, seems to have had a bad influence on Drezner, who has yet to retract and apologize, as he certainly should. . .
(Emphasis mine.) Forgive me Sully, but chutzpah does not do justice to your whining. This is a shamelessness for which a word has not yet been invented. Better to have just taken your lumps silently.