Krugman almost scary-good lately

Paul Krugman is one of the most powerful, rational voices in America. I'm sure he won't mind me excerpting the following from his latest blog post:

[T]oday’s Republican party is an alliance between the plutocrats and the preachers, plus some opportunists along for the ride — full stop. The whole party is about low taxes at the top (and low benefits for the rest), plus conservative social values and putting religion in the schools; it has no other reason for being. Someday there may emerge another party with the same name standing for a quite different agenda; after all, the Republicans were once defined by opposition to slavery, and the Democrats by rural voters (hence the donkey) and Tammany Hall. But that will take a long time, and it won’t really be the same party.

Finally, it’s true that there are some Republican intellectuals and pundits who seem to be truly open-minded about both economic and social issues. But I worded that carefully: they “seem to be” open-minded; indeed, they’re professional seemers. When it matters, they can always be counted on — after making a big show of stroking their chins and agonizing — to follow the party line, and reject anything that doesn’t go along with the preacher-plutocrat agenda. If they don’t deliver when it counts, they are excommunicated; see Frum, David.

Anyone who imagines that there is any real soul-searching going on is deluding himself or herself.

Knocked it out of the park. Amazing.

Krugman this morning

Paul Krugman is my hero. He says stunning things in such a simple way. No one else is as clear. I liked a phrase in his blog post this morning:

"[T]hese are times of madness, dressed in good suits."

He's got at least one zinger every day. It's a treat to read him. Now, if only the world was listening. 

All hail Krugman!

I love Paul Krugman all the time but I love him even more today. He whomped the Mayor of Money big-time on his blog.

Go read Michael Bloomberg, Ignoramus. I hope Mikey's ears are burning and his face is beet red. If not, he's an even bigger jerk than I think he is.

Next up: Mikey tells the police to go full jackboot on the OWS demonstrators. You know it's coming.

9/11: the postmortem

Krugman is the only one who hit the nail on the head today. A large excerpt from his blog post for today:

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

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 memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.

Indeed.