People have sent Paul Krugman's comments on 9/11 and I admit to having a mixed reaction. As many of you know, I have not supported the U.S. wars abroad and even had a conversation with Krugman in 2004 about my opposition to them, especially the Iraq war.
However, Krugman seems to use the post-9/11 tragedy to play his usual games of political partisanship, and that is what bothers me most. George W. Bush hardly is the first politician to hype and politicize a tragedy. Yes, it is disgusting, but Bill Clinton hyped Oklahoma City and trotted out legislation that was every bit as terrible as what we saw in the Patriot Act. (In fact, much of what was in the Patriot Act was what Clinton tried to get passed but could not in the face of Republican opposition.)
Furthermore, now that the Obama administration continues the odious CIA rendition programs, sends assassination squads abroad, and keeps the prison at Guantanamo open, we hear nothing from Krugman. Nothing.
This is not a guy who support civil liberties; this is a guy who supports Democrats. Krugman will use the civil liberties weapon when it fits against Republicans, but is silent when Democrats engage in the same horrible conduct.
Yes, the Bush administration's reaction to 9/11 was shameful, just as Bill Clinton's was after Oklahoma City. Both administrations engaged in the slaughter of innocent people -- and received praise from the usual quarters.
Furthermore, when Bush was president, war was terrible. With Obama in the White House, it now is a "stimulus." Enough said.
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13 comments:
Amen.
Krugman has always been a hack, a court intellectual for the statist elite and economically illiterate. But to use the anniversary of this tragedy in the way he did has now reduced him to the status of a pathetic, despicable human being.
"A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?"
The same thing could be said about Keynesian economics and their champions.
Anderson, don't play false equivalence between Clinton's and Bush's policies.
Clinton's actions in no way measure up to the international and domestic catastrophe that Bush brought upon us after 9/11. That man is responsible for the killing and maiming of countless civilians and soldiers over the past 10 years.
As far as I know, there have been very few Democrats (least of all Krugman) who have acted as cheerleaders for maintaining our foreign wars.
Dan, is Obama responsible for the killing and maiming over the past 2.5 years?
Yes to the extent that he escalated in Afghanistan. He's taken heat from his own party for this, however. Which is a far cry from the days when objectors to the Bush wars were shouted down as unpatriotic.
I'm not saying that Democrats don't have blood on their hands, but Anderson's attempt paint both parties and their pundits in the same stroke is misguided.
How are Democrats significantly different from Republicans again?
"As far as I know, there have been very few Democrats (least of all Krugman) who have acted as cheerleaders for maintaining our foreign wars."
Care to point out how many "anti-war" opinion pieces Krugman has penned in the past 2.5 years? Then compare that to the previous 7.5 years? Oh, but I'm sure there's some good excuse he didn't need to yell about Iraq anymore because those were no longer "combat" troops, just 50,000 "peace-keepers" to justify Obama's Nobel "Peace" Prize.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...
There's one party, two sub-parts. They fight it out between the 47 yard lines and let no one else in the game.
High Lordship Lord Keynes is on a roll. We're all Nixonians now:
The Post Keynesian remedy for inflation has always been some form of incomes policy combined with commodity price stabilisation.
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2011/09/mark-hayes-on-post-keynesian-economic.html
That fussy-wussy fuss-budget totalitarian mind comes blazing through:
Industry could function quite well without the equity market, given alternative institutions focused on enterprise rather than speculation.
Just let them blab.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bob_roddis/3520131008/in/set-72157600951970959
I struggle to find anything Bill Clinton did in repsonse to the Oklahoma City bombings did that begins to compare to Bush's response to 9/11.
Forget about the Patriot Act, the invasion of Iraq under the pretense of fighting terrorism was Bush's biggest example of taking advantage of a tragedy to do what he would never have otherwise gotten away with.
Just one observation I keep repeating:
Which other economist do you guys know who is so ploitical? A truly professional, non-ideological economist would stay above the fray, but not Krugman.
He is nothing but a political HACK of the worst kind.
Dan, you won't find too many supporters of the Bush regime on this blog. But you plumb forgot all about Libya -- hard to blame Bush for that one.
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