Has Krugman been alive on the planet?

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2016

Both sides have a point: We continue to be amazed at Paul Krugman's recent reports on the press corps' campaign coverage.

For the most recent example, see this blog post from yesterday. In his headline, Krugman asks a highly sensible question:

"How Did The Race Get Close?"

For liberals, that's the key question of the age, but Krugman's answer makes almost no sense. Has Krugman been alive on the planet? Opinions differ. Here's part of what he wrote:

KRUGMAN (9/27/16): [H]ow did the race get so close? Why, on the eve of the debate, did polls show at best a narrow Clinton lead? What happened to the commanding lead Clinton held after the conventions?

You might say that Clinton ran a terrible campaign—but what, exactly, did she do? Trump may have learned to read from a TelePrompter, but was that such a big deal?

Well, my guess is that it was the Goring of Hillary: beginning in late August, with the AP report on the Clinton Foundation, the mainstream media went all in on “abnormalizing” Mrs. Clinton, a process that culminated with Matt Lauer, who fixated on emails while letting grotesque, known, Trump lies slide.

What happened to Clinton's commanding lead? Such things are hard to measure. In large part, we would be inclined to say that the "commanding lead" was built upon ludicrous conduct by Trump, especially his war with the Khan family.

When he fired Manafort and brought on Conway, these deeply ludicrous episodes largely stopped. The polls crept back to their pre-convention status.

Is that what happened to Clinton's lead? It's always hard to say. But surely, any sentient human being can see how crazy this analysis is:

"My guess is that it was the Goring of Hillary: beginning in late August, with the AP report on the Clinton Foundation, the mainstream media went all in on 'abnormalizing' Mrs. Clinton."

Can Krugman possibly be serious?

Once again, Krugman uses his recent analytical term, "the Goring of Hillary." The term suggests an obvious fact—the treatment to which Krugman refers didn't begin in late August!

Can we talk? The Goring of Gore began in March 1999. The Goring of Hillary Clinton started in 1992, perhaps with Pat Buchanan's famous convention speech about the fiendish "Clinton and Clinton."

Can anybody possibly think that the abnormalization of Hillary Clinton somehow started in late August with that AP report? We ask our basic question again: Has Paul Krugman, a New York Times columnist, been alive on the planet?

In its current iteration, the press corps' hunt for Hillary Clinton was well underway by the summer of 2014, with the Washington Post's astounding "coverage" of her speaking fees. That AP report to which Krugman refers was extremely small potatoes compared to the earlier ludicrous report about the scary uranium deal—an astounding, 4400-word report which appeared in Krugman's own newspaper, the New York Times.

We understand that the great professor doesn't want to damage his immediate interests; self-dealing has always been like that. But the idea that anything started with that AP report is a notion a skilled careerist would have to pull out of his ascot.

Might we review the history here? The Goring of Gore began in March 1999. From that day to this, self-dealers like the lofty Krugman have refused to pursue the truth about their guild's astounding behavior during this episode.

All of a sudden, Krugman has been throwing this concept around—referring back to journalistic misconduct which occurred in 1999. But as Krugman certainly knows, the Goring of Gore—and he now admits that there was such a thing!—emerged from the earlier Goring of Clinton and Clinton. As Krugman surely knows, the Goring of Hillary in this campaign is just the latest manifestation of this very old, deeply destructive, demented press corps campaign.

The Goring of Hillary Clinton! Telling the truth by half measures so late, Krugman should be ashamed.

(He blames it on the vile AP, thus letting the Times slip away.)

A truly pitiful tweet: In this truly pitiful tweet, Krugman explains why he failed to discuss the press corps' cataclysmic Goring of Gore until September 5 of this year.

No one would have listened to him! He wanted to speak, but just couldn't! (Commenters buck him up, unaware of the ways they've been played.)

Truly, that's pathetic. The truth? For reasons of social connection and career, the entire pseudo-liberal world let this important journalistic history go. Now it may be about to happen again, and people like Krugman are scared.

Not scared enough to tell you the truth. But deeply scared nevertheless.