Paul Krugman* is out of his mind. His New York Times op-ed column of this date, entitled "The Way It Is," consists of a series of assertions. No analysis. No argumentation. No explanation. Is Krugman implying that all of the problems he identifies are the fault of President Bush? The reason I ask is that this is a common theme in Krugman's columns. President Bush and the Republicans bad; Democrats good. Here's an assertion that shows Krugman's dishonesty:
When Senator James Inhofe, who has called scientific research on global warming "a gigantic hoax," called a hearing to attack that research, his star witness was Michael Crichton, the novelist.
Michael Crichton is a medical doctor, not just a novelist. His medical degree is from Harvard Medical School. That may not make him an expert on climate change, but it gives him more authority than that of a novelist, wouldn't you say? Suppose Krugman were called to testify before Congress on some economic matter and I ridiculed the person who called him to testify by saying that his or her "star witness" was a newspaper columnist. What I said is true, but it's misleading. Just as a person can be both an economist and a newspaper columnist, a person can be both a medical doctor or a scientist and a novelist. By the way, you don't have to have a Ph.D. degree in X to be an expert in X. Crichton has made himself an expert on junk science, which is what much of the scholarly work on climate change amounts to. (See here for several speeches.) That alone qualifies him to testify before Congress. But you wouldn't learn that from reading Krugman, would you? He is the most intellectually dishonest person I've ever known.
Addendum: I'm not the only person who thinks Krugman is out of his mind. See here.
* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).