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Friday, April 22, 2011

Below I complain that Jon Chait has a Climited* view of possible taxes but this post is brilliant.

He askes why Paul Krugman and David Brooks hate each other. My thought was that, while Krugman ruthlessly criticises Brooks, he ruthlessly criticises almost everyone, so that doesn't show much, and of course Brooks hates Krugman, I sure would.

But I have noticed that Krugman seems to be dumping on Brooks a lot (without naming him as per NY Times rules).

Before moving back to praise, I think Chait's case that Brooks hates Krugman is weak. It depends on assuming that a statement about "most people" is presented as applying to Trump, when Brooks is drawing a contrast between Trump and most people.

But I am convinced that Krugman has it in for Brooks and not just for the reasons he states. Chait found this strange and horrible artifact




I think that Chait is right that the hippy holding the New York Times is meant to be Krugman even though he doesn't look at all like that. The article must give good reasons to ruthlessly criticize Brooks forever, but I fear that, for Krugman, there is one particular of the image which went tooooooooo far. Hippy Krugman is portrayed as balding. Now I have a receding hairline as you see (and a bald spot as you don't) but Krugman doesn't. He is very firm on this point.

I cut and past a post on the topic in full (fair use returns when the NY Times paywall is torn down)




* from To climit verb : To accept Bill Clinton as the left wing of the possible.

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