For what it's worth, I've stopped reading Paul Krugman's semiweekly op-ed columns in the New York Times. You will never again see the term "Bush-Hatin' Paul" in this blog. Some time back, my friend Peg asked why I bother reading Krugman, since I find him intellectually dishonest. It was, and is, a good question. When I began reading Krugman, about the time I began blogging in November 2003, I couldn't believe that a man with training in economics, and who was hired specifically to write about economic matters for the Times, was devoting so much time to bashing President Bush. It became clear to me in short order that Krugman hated the man. I was unable to resist the temptation to read his columns. "What will he say next? How low will he go?" It was like being drawn to the scene of an accident.
Now that we have a new president, my original motive is gone. I'm sure Krugman will continue to bash George W. Bush from time to time, but it's not worth the time or effort to wade through his bile. I still, in all honesty, have never met anyone as intellectually dishonest as Krugman. He exhibits few (if any) of the intellectual or scholarly virtues, such as being charitable to those with whom he disagrees. You might object that I've been reading his op-ed columns, not his scholarly essays. True, but isn't Krugman a public intellectual? Don't at least some scholarly standards carry over to public-intellectual work? One would think so.
I'm proud to say that Krugman now joins the list of other Times columnists I don't read: Bob Herbert, Gail Collins, Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd, Charles Blow, and David Brooks. I can't think of any sense in which Brooks is a conservative. I suppose that to the others at the Times, he's a conservative, but that merely shows how fanatical they are in their progressivism. Goodbye and good riddance, Paul. Get some help with your Bush Derangement Syndrome.
