Paul Krugman Rips 'Centrist' Commentators In New York Times Column

EW YORK -- New York Times columnist Paul Krugman didn't name names in Monday's column calling out "centrist" defenders of Rep. Paul Ryan's budget plan, but signs point to two fellow Times writers: David Brooks and James Stewart.

In "The Gullible Center," Krugman knocked those commentators whose "self-image, and to a large extent their professional selling point, depends on posing as high-minded types standing between the partisan extremes, bringing together reasonable people from both parties -- even if these reasonable people don't actually exist."

So does the moderate conservative Brooks see himself as the "centrist" in question?

"I really can't comment on a colleague's column," Brooks told The Huffington Post. "Tough enough to keep up with my own."

Well, if Brooks hasn't been keeping up, here's a brief rundown.

On Friday, Brooks slammed President Obama for his harsh critique of Ryan's budget days earlier, arguing that the president had taken the low road and distorted Ryan's proposal. Stewart suggested in a Saturday column that Obama's criticism was part of the "overheated partisan rhetoric" on the left surrounding Ryan's budget plan.

That same day, Krugman fired off a blog post about "Ryan apologists," arguing that they come in two types.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1413108.html

My intent was to post the Brooks article. What a divisive jacka$$ Krugman is. And we wonder why politics is what it is... people like him.

That Other Obama

By DAVID BROOKS
Published: April 5, 2012

President Obama is an intelligent, judicious man who can see all sides of an issue. But every once in a while he tries to get politically cute, and he puts on his Keith Olbermann mask.

I suppose it’s to his credit that he’s most inept when he tries to take the low road. He resorts to hoary, brain-dead clichés. He wanders so far from his true nature that he makes Mitt Romney look like Mr. Authenticity.

That’s pretty much what happened this week in Obama’s speech before a group of newspaper editors. Obama’s target in this speech was Representative Paul Ryan’s budget.

It should be said at the outset that the Ryan budget has some disturbing weaknesses, which Democrats are right to identify. The Ryan budget would cut too deeply into discretionary spending. This could lead to self-destructive cuts in scientific research, health care for poor kids and programs that boost social mobility. Moreover, the Ryan tax ideas are too regressive. They make tax cuts for the rich explicit while they hide any painful loophole closings that might hurt Republican donors.

But these legitimate criticisms and Obama’s modest but real deficit-reducing accomplishments got buried under an avalanche of distortion. The Republicans have been embarrassing themselves all primary season. It’s as if Obama wanted to sink to their level in a single hour.

First, there was his tone. Obama cast himself as the fiscal moderate who embraced the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles approach. (Perhaps we were all asleep during the Simpson-Bowles-Obama consciousness tour.) Then he unleashed every 1980s liberal cliché in the book, calling the Republicans a bunch of trickle-down, Trojan horse-bearing social Darwinists.

Social Darwinism, by the way, was a 19th-century philosophy that held, in part, that Aryans and Northern Europeans are racially superior to brown and Mediterranean peoples


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/op...bama.html?_r=1

But this isn't the article I was looking for. I just stumbled on this Krugman thing....

The White House Argument

By DAVID BROOKS
Published: April 16, 2012

I’ve been critical of President Obama’s budgets. I’ve argued that while I like the way Obama preserves spending on things like scientific research and programs for the vulnerable, he doesn’t do enough to avoid a debt crisis.

I’ve based that argument oncertain facts. President Obama’s 2013 budget will add roughly $6 trillion to the nation’s debt over the next 10 years. By 2022, Americans will be spending $915 billion on interest payments on the debt alone, a number far larger than that year’s entire defense budget.

If you look further out, the situation is worse. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, by 2050, Representative Paul Ryan’s budget would cut total public debt to 10 percent of G.D.P. Current law would put debt at 42 percent of G.D.P. Under the Obama budget, debt would skyrocket to 124 percent of G.D.P.

Extremely senior members of the administration believe these sorts of criticisms are completely unfair and vastly underestimate their fiscal hawkishness. In this column, I thought it only fair that I provide you with a summary of their arguments.

First, their goals. They argue that it’s foolish to try to solve the debt problem with some drastic magic bullet all at once. It’s smarter to stabilize the debt while also looking after other needs, like protecting the vulnerable and investing in things that boost growth and mobility.

They argue that the president’s 2013 budget is a step toward fiscal stability that will also pave the way for bigger steps in the years ahead. They estimate that their budget would produce $5 trillion in budget savings over a decade. It would raise $1.5 trillion in new revenue by raising taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year.

Would love to post the whole thing, but... http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/op...-argument.html

This is a great article. I, the so called extreme right wing ideologist, appreciated the constructive tone. I really like this author. What has become apparent to me is how EXTREME Krugman is - not to mention a douche. The man is truly loathsome, and all to supportive of what is truly wrong in politics - extremism. And if you read some of the comments - extreme left wing ideologues.

Are you kidding me? $6,000,000,000,000 more to this (http://www.usdebtclock.org/) in 10 years?

I thought "everyone" knew that ever increasing national debt is unsustainable?? Nothing good can come of this folks.