Paul Krugman is nicer than I am.
I read David Brooks' column today and came away with the usual mixture of contempt and wonder that the NY Times continues to give this charalatan a twice-weekly forum. The column is a warmed-over stew of right wing themes disguised as "thoughtful" commentary -- this time about inequality. It follows the now familiar Brooks litany of (1) cite some study; (2) attack any left economic idea as "class warfare" (this time it's the evil minimum wage) and (3) assert that the real problem is single mothers (shorthand for "morality trumps economics").
But Professor Krugman's blog (no doubt largely because they are colleagues) mildly references Brooks' discussion of the "five percent" and then talks about how it's much more relevant to talk about the gains of the one percent (which are exponentially higher).
When the Nobel Prize winner really wants to go after Brooks, he does so without referring to his colleague by name. For example, in May of 2012, Brooks wrote an ignorant column about supposed structural unemployment. Later the same day, without mentioning Brooks or his column by name, Krugman destroyed it by blog, writing that it was just a way to deny the real problem of low demand, which requires Keynesian solutions. Here, the Professor did not mince words:
I know that some people like to project their own crudity onto others, but what they’re actually demonstrating is their own ignorance.
(Now that's "shrill" I can believe in.) His link was to a conservative economist named Mike Shedlock, but there was no question that he was primarily responding to the guy on the other side of the op-ed page.
Of course, the definitive word on Brooks usually awaits analysis by canine, through Moral Hazard, the Irish setter owned for photo-op purposes by Brooks, who hangs around at the "Young Fogies Club," where his Master, of course, is a member. (I have it on good authority that Moral Hazard usually speaks through Charlie Pierce of Esquire.)
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not also link to another ruthless and effective Brooksologist, Driftglass.