A Matter of Perspective
So what right-wing columnist said this:
All this fuss about civility . . . is an attempt to bully critics into unilaterally disarming – into being demure and respectful to the president.
Actually, it was Paul Krugman, quoted in a Stephen Miller article titled “Anger Mismanagement,” published in the Wall Street Journal on March 19, 2004.
Hey, at least this can be one time where I totally agree with Paul Krugman. Oddly enough, apparently I am in fuller accord with Paul Krugman than . . . Paul Krugman.
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“… apparently I am in fuller accord with Paul Krugman than . . . Paul Krugman.”
It wouldn’t be the first time, and no doubt won’t be the last. Every time that guy says or writes something it blatantly contradicts something he said or wrote 3 years ago. He’s a partisan fraud.
The entire relevant quote:
All this fuss about civility, then, is an attempt to bully critics into unilaterally disarming — into being demure and respectful of the president, even while his campaign chairman declares that the 2004 election will be a choice ”between victory in Iraq and insecurity in America.”
And even aside from the double standard, how important is civility? I’m all for good manners, but this isn’t a dinner party. The opposing sides in our national debate are far apart on fundamental issues, from fiscal and environmental policies to national security and civil liberties. It’s the duty of pundits and politicians to make those differences clear, not to play them down for fear that someone will be offended.
Paul Krugman, The Uncivil War, NY Times, Nov. 25, 2003.
The fuller quote is even better – and I don’t mean that sarcastically. I wonder if Krugman even remembers writing that – or was that before his wife started writing his op-eds?
“It’s the duty of pundits and politicians to make those differences clear, not to play them down for fear that someone will be offended.”
Well good thing the left will stop demonizing Palin and others for remarks that are only intended to make those differences clear.
or was that before his wife started writing his op-eds?
If you compare the product of his first decade or so writing for general audiences with that of his second decade, you would have to conclude that the change in authorship occurred somewhere around 2000 or 2001.
Krugman’s wife/ghost writer, Robin Wells, sounds like a real piece of work:
“On the rare occasion when they disagree about something, she will be the one urging him to be more outraged or recalcitrant. She pushed him to denounce the filibuster. She wanted him to be more stubborn in holding out for the public option in the health-care bill.”
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/03/01/100301fa_fact_macfarquhar
Here is her advice to Obama in 2009:
“In the end, for better or for worse, whether he likes it or not, Obama is joined in a battle against the forces of anger, hate and grievance. A choice not to engage them on a moral level is an abdication. They will not go away, and they will stalk him the rest of his presidency unless he faces them and conquers them. President Obama, you need to go down into your soul and find those keys.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robin-wells/what-obama-needs-to-learn_b_254714.html
Translation: You just don’t hate those wingnuts enough!
Married to a bitter left-wing shrew. For the first time in my life I actually feel sympathy for Krugman!
That’s right on the money. It’s really been frustrating to watch conservatives (even Pat Buchanan) giving Obama credit for doing exactly what Krugman says here. It’s all about the timeline:
* Crazy guy in Arizona shoots some people.
* Left-wing politicians and media have a field day, slandering everyone on the right for basically putting the gun in his hand and the idea in his head, hoping for a repeat of the political advantage they got from doing the same thing after the OK City bombings, only this time they’re even nastier about it.
* Their leader sits quietly by the sidelines.
* After a few days, word starts to get out that the guy actually had none of the conservative connections that were reported, and may have been fairly left-wing if anything, but was mostly just nuts.
* Some die-hards like the New York Times keep pushing the party line, but you can see it starting to crack, and a backlash is building against the outrageousness of the lies and slander.
* The leader of the culprits now comes out and gives a “let’s all rise above this speech,” where he implies that we all need to settle down and stop placing blame.
Well, if we were all placing blame, that’d be fair, but it was only his own people who were doing that, and he didn’t have a problem with it until it wasn’t working very well anymore. That’s not statesmanship; that’s quitting while you’re ahead.
That article is disconcerting for what it recounts, but it appears to be true that his wife’s influence has been decisive. I would think a 47 year old man employed as a professor in social research would have acquired a fairly stable worldview, not to mention some sense of the frailty of others and himself. I guess not.
Mac, Maybe her father owns a liquor store, or she has a bass boat . . . Every dark cloud has a silver lining.
It would have to be either a very big bass boat or a huge liquor store indeed T. Shaw.
[SIGH]
I feel his pain.
She’ll be in a real snit when she sees this. Quinnipiac poll: About 15% of Americans believe that heated rhetoric had anything to do with the shootings Saturday by an addled brained leftish pothead that killed a GOP Federal Justice and five innocent people in Tucson.
More hypocrisy from the left:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/01/killing_politicians_and_other.html