Obama Campaign Staffer Sends Out Email Bashing Paul Krugman And The 'Firebagger Lefty

[Denny Crane]

Obama Campaign Staffer Sends Out Email Bashing Paul Krugman And The 'Firebagger Lefty Blogosphere'

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/17/new-mexico-ofa-firebagger-lefty-blogosphere_n_929231.html

WASHINGTON -- The Obama campaign's point person in New Mexico recently sent an email to supporters defending the president's position on the debt deal and bashing the Nobel Prize winning New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and the "Firebagger Lefty blogosphere."

On the evening of Aug. 1, just after Congress passed legislation to raise the debt ceiling, Obama for America (OFA) New Mexico State Director Ray Sandoval sent an email to supporters with the subject line, "Please take 5 minutes to read this, Please."

"I know many of you have raised frustrations, but please, I implore you, please take 5 minutes and read the article below. It does a great job of explaining the Debt Ceiling deal," Sandoval wrote in bold text.

The rest of the email was a blog post taken from a blog called "The People's View," run by Spandan Chakrabarti. Chakrabarti writes that he has "been participating in online and offline liberal activism since 2003, when Gov. Howard Dean ran for president."

 

[Denny Crane]

Re: Obama Campaign Staffer Sends Out Email Bashing Paul Krugman And The 'Firebagger L

I've read plenty of Krugman's opinion pieces in the NYT, and I am amazed that anyone would give his ideas any credence.

 

[maxiep]

Re: Obama Campaign Staffer Sends Out Email Bashing Paul Krugman And The 'Firebagger L

I've read plenty of Krugman's opinion pieces in the NYT, and I am amazed that anyone would give his ideas any credence.

Krugman gets slack because of his genius as an economist. Even though his ideas on international trade actually proved incorrect when applied to the real world, they advanced basic Riccardian ideas of comparative advantage so much that many use his work as a foundation to discuss the subject.

However, when he discusses politics or even economic solutions for political problems, he has no fucking idea what he's talking about. For many NYT readers, it's enough that he hates George W. Bush.

 

[BrianFromWA]

Re: Obama Campaign Staffer Sends Out Email Bashing Paul Krugman And The 'Firebagger L

I've been reading a lot of Krugman (and criticism of him) for some work on Economic Assistance to Lesser-Developed Countries, and in his columns he's blatantly and brazenly partisan. To the point that he once wrote that Sen. Kyl's opinion (on unemployment benefits reducing the willingess to go back to work) was "bizarre", when it was revealed that Kyl was basically quoting word-for-word from Krugman's textbook on macroeconomics.