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Another Perspective
Nader Unfrocked as Lead Times Columnist
Not bad for a vegetarian who just turned 107.
In a bombshell announcement scheduled for 9 a.m. EST Friday, with simulcasts in other parts of the world, Bill Keller, the executive editor of the New York Times, is prepared to admit a major misrepresentation. Over the past eleven years, Ralph Nader has masqueraded under an invented name and character — the bearded and supposedly well-credentialed Princeton economist “Paul Krugman” — in penning more than 500 columns for the New York Times.
Inside sources at the Times say that the ruse was concocted in 1999. Coming up then on his 96th birthday, Nader felt that he (like “The Gray Lady” herself) had become a victim of ageism. Having lost in yet another presidential bid three years earlier, and finding dwindling audiences on college campuses for his old-style “consumer advocacy,” Nader convinced Times editors that he was fully capable of serving as the newspaper’s lead economic columnist. “You give me the ‘dismal science,’” he told the editors, “and I will give you a magic lantern that will shine an unflattering light on all your critics and allow you to summon me whenever you want as the all-seeing genie who is prepared to both justify and satisfy your every wish. All I want is my own column and a new identity that will cause people to pay attention to me once again.”
Thus a Faustian bargain was struck: Nader got his column and the New York Times invented “Paul Krugman” as a younger persona to provide the aging agitator with a fresh platform for espousing his views on everything from the evils of big business and the perils of global warming to the ever-present danger that the Democratic Party was not pulling hard enough to the left.
The rail-thin Nader, who attributes his longevity to a strict vegetarian diet and a strong aversion to all dairy products, had to grow a beard and bulk up for his photo shoot as “Paul Krugman.” He super-sized himself through a four-month-long eating binge at McDonalds and other popular eateries. Even with the beard, Nader mostly avoided Starbucks, with its rich pastries and double-chocolate mochas, out of a concern that the clientele contained far too many clever college kids who might be able to recognize him from the descriptions provided by their parents and grandparents in games of Trivial Pursuit.
Times insiders say that Nader was both amazed and repelled at the result of a steady diet of cheeseburgers, French fries and milkshakes. It caused the hollow cheeks to puff up, the deep-set eyes to come popping out of their sockets and the heavily wrinkled skin to turn smooth and pink and waxen. It turned the haunted expression of the Unsafe-At-Any-Speed Scold into the smug and fleshy visage of “Paul Krugman.” All in all, it was as if someone had painted over the veteran litigator’s face in broad, thick brushstrokes, turning an El Greco portrait into a leering and sneering Rubens.
At first, Nader delighted in his ability to pass off his opinions, and himself, as the young and increasingly well-known “Paul Krugman.” But as sometimes happens — think Dr. Frankenstein and his monster! — the creator began to tire of his creation and the newly forged creature began to take on a life of his own. Nader disliked the love of luxury that he saw in his alter ego — the taste for bespoke suits, fine wines and the like, and the desire to cozy up to the super-rich and super-famous (like Enron’s Ken Lay). More surprisingly still, the two began to have minor disagreements over policy issues.
You might think that one knee-jerk liberal is pretty much the same as the next, and not much different than your average dyed-in-the-wool socialist. But there are subtle differences.
Born in 1903 — the same year that the Wright brothers flew for the first time — Nader is more of the socialist. He has fond and vivid memories of almost everything that happened in the Great Depression. Truth be told, the Great Depression was a grand time from a Naderite perspective. He rejoiced in the equal sharing of miseries. He liked the purgative effect on so many lives of a sudden and irretrievable loss of personal wealth and comfort. Now they could live as he himself chose to live — as hermits and holy men.
Of course, his alter ego — and the face that everyone sees on each of his columns — has other ideas. Without any direct experience of his own, he (“Krugman”) foolishly insists on the idea that FDR could have “spent his way out” of the Great Depression — by ratcheting up spending to the levels that would later be reached during the height of World War II. He has used that argument in urging the current administration to plunge even deeper into debt and incipient bankruptcy than it has done so far in two disastrous years in office.
Though he can plainly see that “Paul Krugman” has become a serious nut case, Nader finds that he is powerless to stop the flow of Krugmanesque nonsense from coming out every time he sits down to write another column. And so he decided to take action — going to Bill Keller and insisting that he go public with the whole story.
Keller is prepared to do so, but other higher-ups at the New York Times are in a state of revolt. If someone’s head has to roll, they are saying, it ought to be Nader’s, not Krugman’s. Their argument is that Nader — who turned 107 last week — has “lost touch with his inner Krugman.” They say there are at least five or six other people at the newspaper who can continue to churn out “Paul Krugman” columns that will be as good as or better than any Ralph Nader has written.
As this article goes to press, the outcome is undetermined. But one thing is certain: You will never see Ralph Nader and “Paul Krugman” in the same room. And if there is any moral to this tale, it is this: When you sup with The Gray Lady, make sure you have a long spoon.
About the Author
Andrew B. Wilson, a frequent contributor to The American Spectator, writes from St. Louis.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (35) | Leave a comment
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Leo in the woods| 10.7.10 @ 7:08AM
This story sounds a bit Onion-esque. Is it April first? Is someone buying jet packs for the LA police again?
Appleby| 10.7.10 @ 7:28AM
How many tweetheads will try to tune in for this important announcement? If enough do, this may start a trend that could be a lot of fun...
Curly Smith| 10.7.10 @ 7:56AM
The New York Times - unsafe in any font.
skedaddle| 10.7.10 @ 10:08AM
ROFL!
Petronius| 10.7.10 @ 7:59AM
I'm going to my club.
Jiggle the Handle| 10.7.10 @ 9:33AM
A great Laugh out loud column. I look forward to the MSNBC outrage.
A Smith| 10.7.10 @ 9:43AM
The shear kookiness of the beady-eyed Paul Krugman frothing leftist propaganda which has failed spectacularly every single time it's been tried simply defies being successfully parodied. The problem is the fiction will always fall short of the actual loon. Even Keynes admitted shortly before his death his model simply didn't work - but you want to quickly gloss over that footnote if your the head huckster pitchman selling totalitarian rule to a free people.
Redstateboy| 10.7.10 @ 10:40AM
Most I know think the NY Times is about as relevant today as having a dedicated land-line.
Tim*| 10.7.10 @ 11:14AM
Krugman's Keynesian Economics Is Warmed Over Spit .
Leo in the woods| 10.7.10 @ 11:27AM
Hey, go easy on Keynes... he lived in a time when countries controlled their own means of production. That stuff might have actually worked for a small Island country that was cut off by fascists from the rest of their continent. It might work for India or China, since they control their own means of production and government spending could be limited to their own producers.
It just isn't ever going to work in the west again, since we don't control our own means of production and any stimulous just stimulates foreign producers.
His theory isn't rocket science, it's accounting stuff, addition and subtraction like we teach first graders. I just wish a few first graders would advise Obama and Geitner...
Mad Hatter| 10.7.10 @ 5:47PM
Krugman economically gleans,
The theories of Ivy League deans.
There is slim elation,
Despite stimulation -
Over the faltering job growth he Keens!
NavyBrat | 10.7.10 @ 12:27PM
Well, as if I needed MORE reason to think Nader was a schmuck, the fact that he's a vegetarian seals it. I never trust a person who doesn't realize that we are omnivores.
"Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn.
To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living.
Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food. The body, these waterheads imagine, is a temple that should not be polluted by animal protein. It's healthier, they insist, though every vegetarian waiter I've worked with is brought down by any rumor of a cold.
Oh, I'll accomodate them, I'll rummage around for something to feed them, for a 'vegetarian plate', if called on to do so. Fourteen dollars for a few slices of grilled eggplant and zucchini suits my food cost fine."
— Anthony Bourdain
cpgrasshopper| 10.7.10 @ 2:12PM
YES! Exactly the levity the revelation calls for.
Bob S| 10.7.10 @ 4:33PM
Also- didn't I read somewhere that long-term vegetarianism causes a 5% loss in brain mass? Actually, now that I think of it, seems perfectly appropriate!
Mad Hatter| 10.7.10 @ 5:30PM
Nader's vegetarian? Oh, what a hoot!
No wonder he tries to get to the root!
Leader of the Greens,
He sure knows his beans!
Have these vegies now turned him into a fruit?
Leo Ladenson| 10.7.10 @ 9:04PM
The last line doesn't scan. You should have left out "now."
Sowell Disciple| 10.8.10 @ 2:33AM
I know your comments are meant to be lighthearted, but the cruelty involved in meat and dairy products is serious in these days of factory farming. If you are open to it, there's an excellent book by Matthew Scully, a speechwriter for GWB and now Palin, entitled Dominion. Like him, I am a conservative but tired of the childish tendency of many conservatives to boast about their meat eating while maintaining their blissful ignorance about their complicity in unbelievable cruelty to animals. It's not grandpa's farm anymore.
Tim*| 10.7.10 @ 12:53PM
Keynesian Warmed Over Spit :
" Government deficit spending would provide additional market demand, pushing prices up and stimulating more hiring. Public-works projects would “prime the pump.” This policy would continue until “full employment” was attained. But since, in Keynes’s view, businessmen were usually shortsighted and irrational in their fears about investment prospects, the private sector would always lag behind in creating jobs. The government would have to be constantly at the monetary and fiscal controls, injecting spending into the economy to prevent it from sinking back into unacceptable levels of unemployment."
Francis W. Porretto | 10.7.10 @ 1:17PM
According to Thomas Sowell in his book The Vision of the Anointed, an unnamed Congressional staffer once said of Nader, "Ralph's a bully and know-it-all, consumed by certainty and frequently in error." That does sound a lot like Krugman, doesn't it?
Ned| 10.7.10 @ 1:34PM
Booger? Is that you, Bud?
Radioman777| 10.7.10 @ 1:42PM
Nader a vegitarian? That figures, since he has mashed potatoes for brains.
Radioman777| 10.7.10 @ 1:44PM
Sorry, that's vegetarian... For all you spell nazis.
MrPhlegm| 10.7.10 @ 2:49PM
lol wut?
Chevy Charlie| 10.7.10 @ 4:45PM
I'm still mad a Nader for taking my favorite Chevy-the Corvair off the assembly line.
Pat| 10.7.10 @ 5:12PM
Amusingly, the New York Times has finally out CIA’d the CIA in the case of Paul Krugman, something this author doesn’t yet realize. The guy who writes as Krugman is a very talented, but unknown, actor who also performed as Steve McQueen’s stunt double at one time. With McQueen’s unfortunate illness, this actor found himself out of work and was generously paid to take the place of Ralph Nader after the famous “people’s advocate” was assassinated by a corporate hit man from Mercedes-Benz’s infamous Dirty Tricks dept. in Stuttgart, Germany. Nader, the real one that is, had been planning a 900 page expose of Mercedes’ line of “C” class cars which was to be titled “Unsafe at Most Speeds”. The Germans were far less understanding than General Motors and arranged for Nader’s disappearance, some believe he’s buried under a football stadium in New Jersey, a popular cadaver depository, also thought to be the eternal home of Jimmy Hoffa.
Since Nader’s “accident”, the actor, not to be confused with the real Nader, has run for president several times as Nader, although the voters weren’t any more impressed with him than they were with the original Ralph. But the singular triumph of this secretive non-entity is that he also writes as Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post and Maureen Dowd. Robinson’s writing style was easy, something any high school sophomore can emulate, but, for the mysterious Mr. X, changing his pigmentation and accent was the hard part. Of course, the ultimate tribute to his acting skill was his creation of the writer “Maureen Dowd” – she (or rather he) never appears in a bikini for that very reason. Like the fictitious assassin in the movie “The Jackal”, we may never know who Paul Krugman, Eugene Robinson and Maureen Dowd really is – it’s enough to know Mr. X exists – and maybe to wonder if Barack Obama could be his ultimate impersonation.
Mad Hatter| 10.7.10 @ 5:21PM
Lady's suitor Ralph: "You may be Gray, dear,
New Yawkas still whistle and say, 'Hey dere!'
Want a good money read?
I'm now safely on Speed!
At the Zenith of my career, not the Nadir!"
steve conn| 10.7.10 @ 7:54PM
Moronic.
Other Mr. T.| 10.8.10 @ 11:53AM
Andrew B Wilson is a pen name for LiLo-Paris-GAGA-Shnooky - it's all the same person. Hysterical drama queens of the world, UNITE !!!
weddingdress | 7.1.11 @ 1:08AM
I'm still mad a Nader for taking my favorite Chevy-the Corvair off the assembly line.
Adult toys | 7.4.11 @ 3:41AM
three drunk friends made a bet whoever can make their wives scream the longest during sex win 1000.next day when they met.
first guy:I made love to my wife 2.5hours and she screaming for 1.5hours;
second guy:I licked my wife for 2hours and she was screaming whole time and even 1/2hour after I was done;
third guy:that’s nothing,I made love to my wife 10mins and I came twice,wipe my dick on the curtain and my wife still screming at me up to now!