Recently in Krugman Category

PAUL KRUGMAN -- what is wrong with this guy?  Doing the work so you don't have to, Dan Klein has read 654 of Paul Krugman's New York Times  articles (Klein's pdf article here), and he comes to the conclusion that all of the partisanship, all of the shading of the truth, all of the sacrificing of the good of the poor for the cause of the left -- all of it -- come down to to a narcissist's resentments and ambitions to wield elite power in a struggle with rival centers of control from which he has been alienated:

Robert Nozick (1986) has suggested that "[t]he intellectual wants the whole society to be a school writ large, to be like the environment where he did so well and was so well appreciated." Nozick suggested that "wordsmith" intellectuals resent "capitalism" for not according them the high status they come to feel entitled to from their experience in school. I am inclined to see such high strata statist intellectuals as indulging the mythology of society as organization because that mythology gives structure and vision to the yearning to see oneself as part of the governing set--a mentality betokened in phrases like "the best and the brightest." It is a mentality of those whose selfhood places them "near the top," and who from such high station gaze upward. That such a penchant would be selected for in the environment of evolutionary adaptation is certainly plausible. It's good to be the alpha male or one of his close companions. To my mind, Krugman typifies the profile. I find especially telling the enmity he holds toward Republicans in power. He seems to resent not being among or not being able to identify with the people at the top. I suspect that Krugman's ideological direction has been determined more by a will to see oneself a part of what one perceives to be society's leadership than by infatuation with the people's romance. That penchant contributes to his dedication to a kind of politics that, given his setting and personal history, serves him in pursuing such sense of self and that, by delineating and inculcating a "society" that like an organization has and requires "leadership," accommodates the governing-set mentality itself.

JOHN MCCAIN: "I'm going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated [about economics]".  That was McCain speaking with Stephen Moore in Nov. of 2005, at the Senator's office in Washington, D.C. In the same interview McCain identifies former economics professor and U.S. Senator Phil Gramm as his leading economic adviser on economic issues.  Here's the whole incident as recounted by Moore:

On a broader range of economic issues, though, Mr. McCain readily departs from Reaganomics. His philosophy is best described as a work in progress. He is refreshingly blunt when he tell me: "I'm going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated." OK, so who does he turn to for advice? His answer is reassuring. His foremost economic guru is former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm (who would almost certainly be Treasury secretary in a McCain administration). He's also friendly with the godfather of supply-side economics, Arthur Laffer.

The always reliable "Huffington Post" re-writes history, and transforms this incident into a recent meeting with editorial board of The Wall Street Journal, one in which Sen. McCain is made to say he "doesn't really understand economics."   A pure fabrication, and a rather nasty one at that. Here's the opening paragraph from Sam Stein's article "Short on Economic Understanding, McCain Brings Phil Gramm to Meeting" in the Huffington Post:

At a recent meeting with the Wall Street Journal editorial board, Republican presidential candidate John McCain admitted he "doesn't really understand economics" and then pointed to his adviser and former Senate colleague, Phil Gramm - whom he had brought with him to the meeting - as the expert he turns to on the subject, The Huffington Post has learned.

The incident was confirmed by a source familiar with the proceedings of the meeting.

Perhaps no surprise this -- Paul Krugman has picked up the fabrication and he's spreading it via the New York Times.

John McCain did in fact have a recent meeting with the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal -- but note well that Phil Gramm wasn't present, and John McCain didn't tell anyone that he "doesn't really understand economics".