Paul Krugman vs. The Washington Post

I just love watching debates unfold day-by-day over the internet. Especially ones that involve Paul Krugman vs. the world. First came Greg Mankiw's column in the New York Times about health care and Krugman's own column (which was a not-so-subtle retort against Mankiw himself). But now, the Washington Post is berating Krugman for comments he made about Barack Obama and social security. You can find the full, ridiculous article here.

According to Krugman's recent blog post The Post attacked him by "selectively quoting" articles that he had written a decade ago. Bravo to The Post for once again knocking the media down another step on its gradual degeneration towards being a medium composed entirely of fabrications. Oh, and even if Krugman did, in fact, make the firm argument ten years ago that the social security system was in desperate need of reform, that was ten years ago. To his point, projections then were much different than they are now. It is not entirely unreasonable for one to change his opinion based on new evidence after a full decade.

This is precisely why I'm not so quick to blame Hillary Clinton or any of the other Democrats for supporting the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Not that I'm saying it was the right thing to do (I was anti-war), but if you take a look at major polls from 2001-2003, a majority (an overwhelming one at that) of people in the country truly and sincerely believed that, based on the Bush administration's evidence, Iraq was developing or had in its possession weapons of mass destruction that it was planning on using against the United States. Colin Powell's presentation in 2002 was quite convincing, and if Powell was convinced, then so were most people (yes even those that were left-of-center). Indeed, that evidence turned out to be exaggerated, but that does not mean that all the parties who supported invasion back them should be scolded and criticized for information they did not have in the past.

But, I digress. The point here is: Boo to the Washington Post and boo to disgusting media tactics. As Brad Delong writes:

As I have said before, there is something very wrong with everybody who is currently helping to put the Washington Post in newsprint on the streets of Washington these days.

That might be a tad harsh, but you get the idea.