Wonky Krugman

A week or so ago, I was talking with our department chair. She asked why I was so negative about Paul Krugman. My response was,

I think he's gone a bit wonky, especially since he started writing editorials for the New York Times.

It turns out that, in more precise terms, Daniel Okrent, his [now former] editor, agreed with me:

"Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults.

"...some of Krugman's enemies are every bit as ideological (and consequently unfair) as he is. But that doesn't mean that their boss, publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., shouldn't hold his columnists to higher standards."

This quote is reproduced (and linked to) by Krugman nemisis, Donald Luskin, who adds,

To be sure, Okrent could have gone much, much further in blowing the whistle on America's most dangerous liberal pundit. He could have cited the dozens upon dozens of Paul Krugman's partisan distortions, uncorrected errors, deliberate misquotations and flat-out lies that we've caught over the years. For that matter he could have said what N. Gregory Mankiw, the universally respected former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, told Fortune in a recent interview -- that Krugman "just make[s] stuff up."

Luskin has much more, including how Krugman claims Okrent has "lost his marbles" and been under "constant pressure from conservatives".

Wonky.