The American Spectator

AmSpecBlog

A Nobel Calling

By Joseph Lawler on 11.3.09 @ 5:42PM

Reihan Salam bemoans Paul Krugman's latest attack on a right-ish economist, this time Krugman's fellow Nobelist Edmund Phelps.

[Krugman] brings a valuable, informed perspective to bear on vitally important debates. I welcome that. But his intolerance and his near-constant mischaracterizations of his interlocutors are having a coarsening effect. Moreover, Krugman has enabled the rise of an unthinking, reflexive interventionism that is, in my view, doing real damage to our economy and our democracy by creating unreasonable expectations of what bright, well-intentioned planners can realistically accomplish.

Salam also explains that not only did Krugman badly mischaracterize Phelps's piece, he did so while admitting that he did not take the time to read beyond the first paragraph.

Of course, Krugman also did a hatchet job on two other prominent economists on his blog just yesterday: Greg Mankiw and Allan Meltzer, who he said "should be ashamed of themselves" for saying something that turns out to be true and reasonable. Mankiw rightfully called it an "illogical cheap shot."

Krugman was legitimately a great economics commentator. But nowadays the ratio of partisan screeds or sloppy mischaracterizations of other people's views to insightful commentary is way too high.