19 January 2002
Krugman's Fall
If one didn't know Andrew Sullivan's recent discoveries about Paul Krugman, then Virginia Postrel's comments about Paul Krugman would still resonate:
It's a tragedy, really, a classic, Aristotlean tragedy in which a great man falls to a terrible end because of a fatal flaw, hubris. Krugman, a high-powered economist and gifted economic popularizer, took a job that turned him into a parody of himself. No one can write that often, as a part time job, and be good at it, but he apparently thought he could because he's Paul Krugman. His non-parody self is arrogant and vicious. The parody is arrogant, vicious, and stupid. (I had at least a half dozen unsolicited conversations at the American Economic Association meetings in which economists, mostly political liberals with MIT connections, brought up their disappointment with Krugman's op-ed columns.)
Now, given Sullivan's discoveries, it only reinforces that Krugman was a crass opportunist of a columnist. Of course, popularity often tempts one towards opportunism, whether it's in the publishing world of books (Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin come to mind) or journalism (the local Chron frequently steals from the local alternative weekly) or blogs or what have you. Pathetic? Yes. Tragic? I'm not so sure.
[Posted @ 12:38 PM CST]
