Paul Krugman: 9/11 Has Become “An Occasion For Shame”

Paul Krugman chose to mark the the 10th anniversary of September 11th with an odd blog post.

In a blog post that went live on The New York Times’ web site just moments before the 10th anniversary of the moment when American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the north face of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, Paul Krugman says that the events of September 11, 2001 have been tarnished by the events that occurred afterwards:

Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?

Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. Te atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.

Not surprisingly, as he is wont to do, Krugman has stirred up a good deal of controversy in the blogosphere, most of it quite negative. The column is being called unconscionable. Krugman himself, an idiot.  Red State’s Erick Erickson says the following:

If he speaks for liberals, liberals are truly disgusting. I assume and believe that most liberals reject this and hope many of them will be vocal about the disagreement. And the New York Times might want to rethink using Krugman’s conscience as that of a typical liberal.

For his part, William Jacobson seems to think that Krugman’s thinking is typical of many on the left:

Don’t think this is just Krugman.  It’s the way they really feel about 9/11, as expressed in this post by a blogger I quoted over a year ago, 9/11 Was “Right-Wing Christmas”:

Really, Mr. President, don’t you know that right-wingers love 9/11, and hold it sacred? It’s their favorite day of the year, their favorite day in living history; every year, 9/11 fills them with the unsurpassable bliss of self-righteousness. It’s a day that provided so many grievance points to them (and, as far as they’re concerned, to them alone, although those of us who, y’know, lived where the attacks took place might beg to differ) that they know they can’t possibly ever run out.

Right-wingers love 9/11 because it’s a day when they felt they became extraordinarily virtuous just for slathering their homes with flags, their vehicles with “Terrorist Hunting License” bumper stickers, their homepages with sentimental video of property destruction in a city they otherwise despise. They use 9/11 to justify hatred of Muslims, liberals — even Mexicans.

That’s how they feel, so in a sense I’m glad Krugman gave voice to it on this day.

I’m not sure that pointing to one blogger and one blog post by Paul Krugman are indicative of what people who may share particular political beliefs hold. Surely, Krugman’s post was idiotic and, considering the timing, more than just a little insensitive, but does he really speak for anyone other than himself? I’m not so sure.

As for Krugman’s post itself, the opening question strikes me as bizarre. What, exactly, would he have preferred to see to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks? Of course the ceremonies are subdued, we’re talking about marking the day that more than 3,000 people were killed in attacks that we all watched unfold on television. The people they left behind are still around, and many of them didn’t even have a body they could bury. Does Krugman want us to through a big party like the one that erupted outside the White House when Osama bin Laden was killed? Somehow I think not.

I’d also add that Krugman’s designation of Rudy Giuliani and George W. Bush as “fake heroes” strikes me as totally off base. I’m no fan of the former President, but there are few people who will or can deny that his leadership in the days and weeks after September 11th was something that history will always remember him positively for, as Vice-President Biden noted in his speech yesterday in Pennsylvania:

Biden said he also wanted to recognize “a man responsible for bringing our country together at a time when it could have been torn apart, for making it clear that America could not be brought to her knees, and helping us stand tall and strike back — President George W. Bush. ”

“In the darkest hour of our generation, your voice and leadership, Mr. President, helped us find our way,” Biden said of Bush. “And for that, you deserve our gratitude for a long, long time.”

The same can be said of Rudy Giuliani, who helped keep New Yorkers united at a time when their city faced a shock unlike anything American city had ever experienced.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a need to look back over the past ten years at the mistakes, the mis-steps, and the price that’s been paid over the past ten years. The retrospective pieces we’ve published here at OTB on the subjects (here and here) were meant to do just that. Additionally, one can look at the Afghan War, and the misguided adventures in Iraq and find much to criticize in the decisions that have been made over the past decade. One can do so, however, without the obvious vitriol and contempt that Krugman displays in his post today.

Interestingly enough, Krugman closed comments on his post today the moment he published it. Perhaps he wasn’t willing to hear what he knew would come from words that one would think he regrets on some level.

FILED UNDER: *FEATURED, Media, Terrorism, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. john personna says:

    Boy, does that guy know how to generate traffic or what!

    (I think his view would be more tasteful as a few-days-after-anniversary review. It is after all, even for elements of truth, not the main thing.)

  2. Andy says:

    @john personna:

    I pretty much agree John. What he wrote isn’t exactly something we haven’t heard before, but I thought the timing was pretty tasteless.

  3. jan says:

    Interestingly enough, Krugman closed comments on his post today the moment he published it.

    I found this to be cowardly of Krugman. He obviously knew that his words would go against the grain of the 911 day. But, the fact that he went ahead and did it anyway, then swiftly closed down the backlash of responses, is the same as throwing a bomb, then running away, and putting fingers in your ears so you don’t hear any of the screams.

  4. G.A.Phillips says:

    Why this idiot gets so much time and words here, oh well it’s your house.

  5. michael reynolds says:

    I think some liberals — not most, and not me — have a very hard time acknowledging any awful event which is anything other than “our fault.” They start from an assumption of guilt and twist events to fit that narrative. As though the world existed in a state of grace before “we” came along and screwed things up. It’s hair shirt narcissism.

    Life is complicated, full of pieces that don’t fit neatly into ideological or narrative frameworks. Ideologues can’t tolerate nuance or ambiguity. They can’t look at Giuliani and say, “He was a mediocre mayor, and then when things went horribly wrong he was a great mayor, and then later he turned into kind of a douche.” Everything has to be binary with these people, despite the fact that human history is a long story of individuals, peoples and nations behaving well one moment and poorly the next.

    The same tendency exists on the right of course where it’s somehow impossible to admit that the great narrative of America The Exceptional is a full of horrible crimes and violations of our own professed principles.

    This is why I see ideology as the great crippler of minds. We should build the framework around the facts, not try to hammer facts into a pre-existing structure.

  6. TBogg says:

    The fact that so many rightwingers (the warbloggers in particular) reacted so strongly to Krugman’s column would seem to indicate that those who should feel the most shame recognize themselves in it.

    As George Bush would put it: Mission Accomplished

  7. Susan says:

    Thank you, Mr. Krugman … you’ve put to paper the words and thoughts that have been in my mind since the moment “W” declared his “war on terror” and so many of our citizens became “patriots”. As GEORGE ORWELL said: ” During times of universal deceit, the truth becomes a revolutionary act …’.

  8. WR says:

    Yes, Bush, Giuliani and Kerik are all false heroes, because they used the occasion of the attacks as an excuse to further their own goals rather than help the country, whether those goals were invading a country that had nothing to do with the attack or using Federal money to construct a high-rise love shack disguised as a “command center.”

  9. Jacob says:

    This is wrong. Krugman’s point about the subdued nature of the 9/11 ceremonies is that they are laced with unspoken guilt.

    Furthermore, I have yet to hear anyone list one thing that George Bush did in the weeks after 9/11 that would qualify his leadership as exceptional. People say things like, “there are few people who will or can deny that his leadership in the days and weeks after September 11th was something that history will always remember him positively for”. But I’ve never heard any examples that persuaded me. The man was unremarkable, and so are the arguments of his supporters.

  10. Eric Florack says:

    What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. Te atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue.

    Oh, but it WAS a unifying event. THen the usual left wing politics took over and we started hearing about how Bush was Hitler, again. Didn’t take long, either, as I suggested it woldn’t at the time.

  11. Nick says:

    The world was on our side on 9/11. Within months, that goodwill was squandered.

    Ask yourself–how did Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld manage to squander such goodwill so rapidly, and alienate most of the rest of the world in the process?

    As Krugman noted, our government behaved dishonestly and dishonorably, using 9/11 to justify the invasion of Iraq, resulting in the deaths of at least 100,000 Iraqi citizens (a million, according to the Lancet study).

    I was assaulted at work a couple months ago, punched in the head several times before I managed to subdue my attacker. I would have been justified in hurting him, but I didn’t. I gained respect for my restraint.

    In contrast our national conduct following 9/11 was out of all proportion to the attack, and was legitimately shameful.

  12. ponce says:

    Shorter fringe right bloggers:

    “Yeah, we were awful people after 9/11, but pointing it out makes Krugman worse than Hitler.”

  13. While today was a horrible day to make the argument, in someways I agree with Krugman. 9/11 is all too often used as the ultimate appeal to emotion (by both the right and the left). Get the audience thinking of the fear, grief, and anger they felt that day and it’s far to easy to bypass critical consideration of whatever the speaker is going to pose next. I hate the fact that whenver the subject comes up, the first thing I have to ask myself is “Is this person sincere or are they just trying to manipulate me by pushing my buttons?”

  14. Stan says:

    The only question on the final exam in the American history course I took in 1958 was “Compare and contrast Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Be specific.” Let’s compare FDR and GWB. I didn’t see President Bush shelving his domestic program after the 9/11 attacks in the interest of national unity the way FDR did with his New Deal program after the start of World War II in Europe. I saw no counterparts in the Bush administration of FDR’s appointment of Republicans like Stimson and Knox as civilian heads of the Army and Navy, Winant as ambassador to the UK, and Stone as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. I saw no counterpart to Roosevelt’s courageous decision to renew conscription in 1940 against nearly unanimous Republican opposition. And finally, I saw nothing in the histories I’ve read about the 40’s like the McCarthyite campaign run by Saxby Chamblis in the 2002 Georgia senate race against the grievously maimed Max Cleland, and anybody who says the White House wasn’t involved believes in the tooth fairy.

    Krugman feels that President Bush could have brought the country together after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, but instead used them to further his own political aims. I agree, and I commend Krugman for saying so. So I guess I’m hateful too.

  15. Neil says:

    Paul Krugman is a burnt out lefty whose twenty year old Nobel Prize carries about as much weight as Obama’s Nobel Prize. He has about as much credibility as I would if I took credit for electric cars based on my high school science project.
    I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize. George Bernard Shaw.
    The Times is reeling with financial problems. It is time for a massive boycott of their customer base to put them out of business

  16. ponce says:

    The Times is reeling with financial problems.

    Haha,

    The New York Times’ website has more readers than the entire wingnut blogosphere.

  17. Nick says:

    One enjoyable result of the last 10 years is the complete destruction of the credibility of right wingers. What haven’t they got wrong in the past decade?

    The Bush presidency was one disaster after another–from the 9/11 attacks, to the misbegotten invasion of Iraq, to the failed response to Katrina, to the realization in the last months of his presidency that the economy was in a dire condition and needed immediate infusion of hundreds of billions in funds to keep the financial structure going.

    It’s amusing to watch right wingers declaim ‘lefties’ after this record of abject failure. At some point you expect people to notice the facts and start to think.

  18. William Teach says:

    I’m not sure that pointing to one blogger and one blog post by Paul Krugman are indicative of what people who may share particular political beliefs hold.

    Go check out many of the threads at the Democratic Underground, head to the Huff Post, Daily Kos, and other Lefty sites. Sure, you will find some who aren’t following the Krugman way, but, you will also find a ton that are.

    That is, on the few lefty sites that actually mention 9/11.

  19. Rhodesway says:

    Wow – Nick
    Are you still carrying all that left wing pent-up rage about 9/11 – so that some one tries to clock you only two months ago ?
    Or was the comment about your being a wonderful person who respects chivalry – predicated on the fact that you probably ‘let your mouth overload your ass’?
    Krugman is the reason I keep encouraging the closing of the NYTimes – by riotous measures! You know – stones and cudgels along with occasional stink bombs – delivered on a single day by a large angry crowd – bent on making another Communist organ disappear .

  20. Rob says:

    You are a fool…

  21. William,

    Something shocking and offensive on the Internet? Surely, you jest.

  22. ponce says:

    Are you still carrying all that left wing pent-up rage about 9/11

    If it existed, it was expelled after Democrat Barack Obama killed the guy responsible for 9/11…

  23. Stan says:

    @Neil: Pardon me for asking, but what do you object to in Krugman’s work as an economist? Are there papers of his you think are really awful? Or books? Could you give examples of his more serious errors? Why do you think MIT and Princeton blundered by giving him tenure? How did he hoodwink the Nobel prize committee into giving him the prize in 2008 (not 20 years ago, by the way)? I’m waiting breathlessly for your answers.

  24. Neil says:

    @Stan: Stan you are obviously an elitist ass who never even read Krugman’s thesis! A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.
    George Bernard Shaw

  25. waltmichaels says:

    Susan, like Krugman, you don’t have enough class to let the families of the victims have this day to reflect without injecting your disgusting partisan nonsense. This isn’t about telling the truth, it’s about trying to raise yourself above the rest of us (you know, honest decent people) out of some misguided feeling of moral superiority. You and Krugman can burn in hell. You are disgusting, vile excuses for human beings. I hope you have a horrible day and continue living that obviously hollow awful life that you do.

  26. Wayne says:

    Liberals using a sacred day and\or tragic event to launch partisan attacks, nothing new there. They don’t even have issues with using funerals as a political event to bash their opponents.

    Yes many heroic acts often wouldn’t have happen without a tragic event. Tragic events by its nature are where heroic action is often needed. A tragic event often exposes some of a person’s true character whether it is bad or good. Bashing those who acted in a good way is disgusting. Belittling their action by saying those traits would never have been expose without them getting “lucky” of being caught in a tragic event is B.S.

    If you want to make the argument that they didn’t act in any way different than someone else would have in their position, go for it. That is different than bashing them for doing what was needed. I suspect your argument will fall short. Look at the Mayor of NO and the Governor of Louisiana in their handling of Katrina. Look at how Bush accepted some of the blame for that even though he couldn’t by “law” done much more without a request by the Louisiana Governor.

  27. Thomas says:

    @Stan: Wow, you are a moron!!! So I guess FDR never ordered the detention of Japanese-American citizens and send them into internment camps, right? You pathetic, worthless weasel!

  28. Pete says:
  29. Nick says:

    @waltmichaels:

    Walt sez:

    “Susan, like Krugman, you don’t have enough class to let the families of the victims have this day to reflect without injecting your disgusting partisan nonsense. This isn’t about telling the truth, it’s about trying to raise yourself above the rest of us (you know, honest decent people) out of some misguided feeling of moral superiority. You and Krugman can burn in hell. You are disgusting, vile excuses for human beings. I hope you have a horrible day and continue living that obviously hollow awful life that you do.”

    Honest, decent people like you, Walt, call those with a different view of things “disgusting, vile excuses for human beings”, whom you hope will “burn in hell”, and wish a “horrible day” on them?

    Really, that’s what honest decent people, in your opinion do?

    That’s what Krugman is talking about. That’s the right wing response to someone with a different opinion. And it gets worse from there. Yeah, we know–you’ve got the guns.

    And to think many of you call yourselves Christians. As if.

  30. Woody says:

    The timing of Mr Krugman’s post is certainly debatable, but that has little to do with the argument itself.

    9/11 remains a traumatic issue. Trauma is inevitable in this life. Therefore, how we choose to deal with that trauma is of paramount importance.

    I distinctly remember the days after the murders as days that everyone came together – in mourning, in anger, in determination to bring the killers to justice. These were days that Trent Lott and Paul Wellstone stood together with their colleagues and sang “God Bless America” in complete solidarity.

    All of the world joined us. We might have chosen a path of reconciliation: to forge a general agreement among governments and peoples that terrorist murder – especially in the Name of God – was as repellent as pogrom. This would not have stopped us from finding the killers – we might have found them much earlier, in fact – and exacting justice.

    Well, we now have a world in which a President proposes community service as a way to memorialize and honor the victims – and the reaction from the right is to scream “Socialism!”

    (One might find irony in the fact that the great majority of these screamers purport to follow a man whose message is Love One Another)

  31. Neil says:

    @Stan: But Stan, JUST FOR THE HELL OF IT!–
    Krugman somehow forgets that seizing capital from productive enterprises in taxes (or worse, borrowing against future legitimate production in deficit spending) to fund the “ditch cycle” has opportunity costs — namely, the opportunity to produce something other than pre-filled ditches, which have a real value of zero. That’s actually a significant part of what’s wrong now. Government spending doesn’t create economic growth; it takes money from actual production, and so should be used sparingly and only for necessities.

  32. Dave says:

    Krugman is, unfortunately, largely correct. The lack of depth or intelligence in responding to his post is proof of that. Yours is the first response that even began to think it through, the others simply called him idiot. As for tasteless, I don’t think so. Krugman did not denigrate the victims or justify the terrorists. He simply pointed out the obvious. Let me read someone here justify the conduct of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the rise of the national security state. All that was the fallout from the conduct Krugman described.

  33. Stan says:

    @Neil: You still haven’t answered any of my questions, but to show how big hearted I am, I’m going to give you a few tips: don’t comment on technical subjects unless you know something about them, and try to avoid ad hominem attacks. Your opinions about how President Bush conducted himself after the 9/11 attacks are as good as Paul Krugman’s, or as mine. Your opinions about Krugman’s abilities as an economist are worthless because you don’t have any standing in the field, and calling me stupid or Krugman a worn out lefty just makes you look like a fool. Pay attention to my advice. I mean it kindly.

  34. Ebenezer Arvigenius says:

    You and Krugman can burn in hell. You are disgusting, vile excuses for human beings. I hope you have a horrible day and continue living that obviously hollow awful life that you do.

    Ah those beautiful decent, honest people. Real salt of the earth those are …

  35. Andy says:

    @michael reynolds:

    Wow Michael, nicely said! Have you ever considered a career in writing?

  36. Neil says:

    @Stan: I did answer your question read it above!
    Kindly
    Neil

  37. Stan says:

    @Thomas: FDR’s detention of the Japanese was indeed shameful, and I should have remembered it. It was a terrible thing to do. But I still stand by the main thrust of my remarks. George Bush had a chance for greatness after the 9/11 attacks and he blew it.

  38. Andy says:

    Let’s compare Krugman to Zenpundit. Which one do you think deserves Op Ed space in the NYT?

  39. JayT says:

    The world would be better off with less minds like Krugman. Although I do not want to silence him I am ashamed of a paper like the NYT’s that pays him and provides his platform to the masses and backs it as gospel. Krugman is a Kook.

  40. Thomas says:

    @Stan: Okay, I am happy to see that you remembered that decision by FDR. I apologize for calling you a moron in the previous comment. But you posted one other thing that is confusing: Why do you highlight FDR’s decision to begin conscription in 1940 as a good thing? If any president today, whether it was Bush or Obama, decided to begin a draft during peacetime (as there was for the US in 1940 since America was neutral then), that president would be called a warmongerer, and deservedly so.

    That is why I am confused you posted that. Should Bush have called for a draft? That would have caused an uproar from Americans with memories of the Vietnam era.

  41. Stan says:

    @Neil: Well, Neil, from what I’ve read Krugman understands everything you said but feels that at the present time there’s no real justification for providing more wherewithal to the wealthy to get them to invest. His feeling is that corporations have more than enough cash on hand to expand their operations, and are refraining from doing so because of insufficient demand. Other people, for example the heads of PIMCO and Mark Zandi, feel the same way. From what I understand, so does Richard Posner, the polymath judge/professor/author in Chicago. So Krugman may be wrong, but he’s not a fool. And what do his economic views have to do anyway with his view of George Bush’s conduct as President?

  42. jan says:

    @Pete:

    Pete, that was a great piece you posted! I especially liked this part:

    Resistance to the organized mass can be effected only by the man, or woman, who is as well organized in his/her individuality as the mass itself.

    As, that may be applied to the Krugman topic here: it is less what Krugman said, then that he chose today to deliver an opinion that had no purpose than to be controversial to many and hurtful to some.

    Also, while I have never put Giuliani on a pedestal, I do acknowledge that he rose to the occasion following 911, exhibiting good leadership and stamina in the face of such an unexpected calamity. I thought GWB did the same, in demonstrating firmness, restrained anger, and encouragement to the country.

    IMO, the politics and actions of these men, in the years following 911, deserve to be on a separate page of criticism than the days, weeks and months that followed the initial trauma.

  43. Jacob says:

    Krugman won his Nobel in 2008. @Neil:

  44. KansasMom says:

    All I can say is that I’m glad that most of the commenters in this thread aren’t regulars. This is a forum where people can come together and discuss their views in a civilized, usually polite manner. Thankfully the crazies will go back to where they came from. Thank you to Michael and Stormy, as well as Nick, for their usual, thoughtful comments.

  45. Neil says:

    @Stan: Stan you are obviously confusing me with someone who actually gives a crap about your inane rantings about GW! Please point ,out if you will, anywhere I mentioned GW in relationship to Krugman’s despicable 9/11 desecration.

  46. Unfortunately conservatives were completely played by the Bush Administration after 9/11. As the two OtB links note, Bush et al used the attack as an excuse to implement programs that never would have passed if the nation had not been frightened into acquiescence and the nation is much poorer and less free as a result. Everyone who supported the war revealed his lack of self-control and gullibility, as well as a poor grasp of reason and logic and a distressing facility for ignoring any unwanted, contradictory evidence.

    But that’s all water under the bridge. Why look back when you can look forwards? And the last thing that war supporters should have to tolerate is the contempt and vitriol of those who were right and warned everyone else of the dangerous and irrevocable steps they were about to take, or those who came to understand that they were wrong and vowed never to be so criminally, murderously stupid again. It’s obvious Mr. Metaconis has learned his lesson; he examines Obama’s warmongering in minute detail, no doubt to make up for earlier lapses.

  47. Ebenezer Arvigenius says:

    Please point ,out if you will, anywhere I mentioned GW in relationship to Krugman’s despicable 9/11 desecration.

    I think this is the best example of what Krugman was talking about. They hijacked a tragic event in such a way that any criticism of the leadership of the time or even certain decisions was suddenly a “desecration” of disaster, sacrifice and apple pie. A blatant despicable goal post shift that poisoned public discourse and the functioning of both the press and the public sphere.

    While it is debatable if today was the best day for this, we should all rejoice that such criticism is heard once again and that the press is no longer marching in lockstep.

  48. Stan says:

    @Thomas: When World War II started in 1939 the US army was smaller than Belgium’s, and it had only one general, Joseph Stillwell, who was capable of commanding army units larger than a division. George Marshall, one of FDR’s many inspired military appointments, was alarmed by how weak we were, and so were other figures in the administration. They were even more alarmed (scared out of their wits, probably) when France fell to the Nazis in the summer of 1940, and it looked like Great Britain was the next to go. So they persuaded FDR (or he persuaded them) to push the first peacetime conscription bill in our history through Congress. It passed, and thank God it did. If it hadn’t, I’m positive that the Churchill government in Great Britain would have fallen, the UK would have wound up with some British equivalent of Petain as Prime Minister, and Hitler would have conquered the Soviet Union and won World War II. So I disagree with you (to put it mildly) about whether FDR’s actions were wrong.

  49. ponce says:

    Hitler would have conquered the Soviet Union and won World War II.

    What a perfect day to inflate America’s contribution to the defeat of the Nazis.

    In reality, by the time America entered WWII, the Soviets had already halted the Nazis’ advance…

  50. Moderate Mom says:

    Krugman closed his comments because he knew he would be flamed. And it would be appropriate to flame him for posting what he did on this particular day. I guess there is no editor for the blogs, someone to say “Dude, you might want to think about this before posting it, especially on this particular day.” Shame on Krugman. He talks of politicization of the event, when he is politicizing it more than anyone.

  51. jack says:

    It’s a tough pill to swallow, but Krugman’s right. The US’s behavior after 9/11 was shameful. We destroyed a country that did nothing to us, a million people are dead, and we as a nation feel not an ounce of shame, we just shrug it off as ‘oh well’. Shameful indeed.

  52. steve says:

    In the immediate period after 9/11, Bush and Giuliani were both excellent. It was later that Bush went astray. Even then, for the last couple of years of his presidency, having gotten rid of Rumsfeld and learning to ignore Cheney, he was ok.

    Steve

  53. Drew says:

    Exactly what is the point of choosing such a key date to take cheap pot shots………..and then turn off the comments section? What a small person he is. And thanks for those supporting him in the thread for identifying yourselves as well.

  54. michael reynolds says:

    First before conservatives on this thread decide that liberals are ignoring this anniversary, why don’t you click on over to Huffpo or TPM or Kos. Because you’re wrong.

    Second, some things for conservatives to remember about 9-11:

    1) The largest target was New York City, home office of cultural liberalism. And those liberals showed more spine than a hell of a lot of panicky Nebraskans or whatever who instantly wanted to start rounding up Muslims.

    2) The Firemen and cops who ran into those burning buildings are employees of government. And they are union members.

    So while you’re busy huffing and puffing over this bear in mind that the WTC attacks happened in a liberal town, and the heros that day were government employees and union members. You might want to remember that the next time you’re denouncing everyone in government and everyone with a union card.

  55. vrfytix says:

    Bush’s comments and actions after 9/11 were not exceptional as far as we know. But, they were properly Presidential. He said the right things, the things that most Americans wanted to hear.

    The notion that the American invasion of Afghanistan was completely unrelated to 9/11 is just utter nonsense unless one is a convinced anti-American pacifist who thinks it’s ok for a group of terrorist to murder thousands of innocent people.

    The military strategy in Afghanistan was not appropriate and action to change it should have been taken sooner. Bush can be blamed for not realizing that soon enough.

    While I wouldn’t call Bush or Giuliani heroes, I’d call them effective leaders at an obviously very uncertain time.

    Since President Obama has continued Bush’s national security upgrades after saying he’d drop them, Bush must have done something right.

  56. michael reynolds says:

    @ponce:
    A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Yes, the USSR deserves the lion’s share of credit for stopping Hitler. But that does not mean Stalin could have done it alone. That’s a revisionist view, and the correction to the American tendency to inflate our contribution is due, but don’t take it so far to the other extreme that you end up just as wrong and requiring revision yourself.

  57. An Interested Party says:

    One can do so, however, without the obvious vitriol and contempt that Krugman displays in his post today.

    I assume you were just as offended by the vitriol and contempt shown by many on the right to those who opposed the Iraq debacle?

    Interestingly enough, Krugman closed comments on his post today the moment he published it. Perhaps he wasn’t willing to hear what he knew would come from words that one would think he regrets on some level.

    Oh my, now you can read minds in addition to being a lawyer…I’m curious about the righty blogs that spew the most revolting things and don’t allow comments at all…

    I think some liberals — not most, and not me — have a very hard time acknowledging any awful event which is anything other than “our fault.” They start from an assumption of guilt and twist events to fit that narrative. As though the world existed in a state of grace before “we” came along and screwed things up. It’s hair shirt narcissism.

    Indeed…and along with those particular liberals, there are some conservatives who have a very hard time acknowledging any awful event which we could have possibly played a part in. They start from an assumption of innocence and twist events to fit that narrative. As though we and our motives are pure and true and nothing that we do has any consequences at all. None of this is to say that I think we were responsible for 9/11, but merely to add to your correct statement that ideology, no matter what flavor it comes in, is the great crippler of minds…

    We should build the framework around the facts, not try to hammer facts into a pre-existing structure.

    Hmm…that reminds of how we got into Iraq in the first place…”smoking guns turning into mushroom clouds”, the alleged Mohammed Atta/Iraq connection, and all the rest…

  58. Jay Tea says:

    All references to Krugman should be phrased as “former Enron advisor Paul Krugman.”

    Oh, and the “JayT” above was NOT me, just to head off any potential confusion.

    J.

  59. Jay Tea says:

    @michael reynolds: To reinforce your point, the Soviets did do the lion’s share of the fighting in defeating Hilter — but even Stalin admitted that they would have lost to Hitler without the supplies and war materiel the Allies sent — at great cost to themselves.

    J.

  60. James Joyner says:

    @michael reynolds: “He was a mediocre mayor, and then when things went horribly wrong he was a great mayor, and then later he turned into kind of a douche” is almost precisely my take on Giuliani.

  61. Eric Florack says:

    The fact is, the one politicizing 9/11 is Krugman himself.
    His act shutting off comments the moment it gets posted is a tacit admission that he knows that’s precisely what he’s doing, and that if comments were left open he’d get called on it. I got was piece of slime , Krugman.

    his comments, however, are unsurprising.

  62. @michael reynolds:

    So while you’re busy huffing and puffing over this bear in mind that the WTC attacks happened in a liberal town, and the heros that day were government employees and union members. You might want to remember that the next time you’re denouncing everyone in government and everyone with a union card.

    An example of how the left uses 9/11 for emotional manipulation just as facilely as the right.

  63. michael reynolds says:

    @James Joyner:
    I think you being a professor and all you’ll probably want to swap “douche” for something more dignified.

  64. samwide says:

    For those unheralded save by those who loved them, Lower Manhattan, New York City, September 11, 2001.

    Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard

    The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
    The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea,
    The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
    And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

    Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
    And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
    Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
    And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

    Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
    The moping owl does to the moon complain
    Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
    Molest her ancient solitary reign.

    Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade,
    Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
    Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
    The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

    The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
    The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
    The cock’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
    No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

    For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
    Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
    No children run to lisp their sire’s return,
    Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share,

    Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
    Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
    How jocund did they drive their team afield!
    How bow’d the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

    Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
    Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
    Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
    The short and simple annals of the Poor.

    The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
    And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
    Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour:-
    The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

    Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault
    If Memory o’er their tomb no trophies raise,
    Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
    The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

    Can storied urn or animated bust
    Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
    Can Honour’s voice provoke the silent dust,
    Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

    Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
    Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
    Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway’d,
    Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:

    But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
    Rich with the spoils of time, did ne’er unroll;
    Chill Penury repress’d their noble rage,
    And froze the genial current of the soul.

    Full many a gem of purest ray serene
    The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear:
    Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
    And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

    Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
    The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
    Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
    Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country’s blood.

    Th’ applause of list’ning senates to command,
    The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
    To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land,
    And read their history in a nation’s eyes,

    Their lot forbad: nor circumscribed alone
    Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
    Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne,
    And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

    The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
    To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
    Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
    With incense kindled at the Muse’s flame.

    Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife,
    Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray;
    Along the cool sequester’d vale of life
    They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.

    Yet e’en these bones from insult to protect
    Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
    With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck’d,
    Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

    Their name, their years, spelt by th’ unletter’d Muse,
    The place of fame and elegy supply:
    And many a holy text around she strews,
    That teach the rustic moralist to die.

    For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
    This pleasing anxious being e’er resign’d,
    Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
    Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?

    On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
    Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
    E’en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
    E’en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

    For thee, who, mindful of th’ unhonour’d dead,
    Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
    If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
    Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, —

    Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
    Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
    Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
    To meet the sun upon the upland lawn;

    ‘There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
    That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high.
    His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
    And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

    ‘Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
    Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove;
    Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
    Or crazed with care, or cross’d in hopeless love.

    ‘One morn I miss’d him on the custom’d hill,
    Along the heath, and near his favourite tree;
    Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
    Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

    ‘The next with dirges due in sad array
    Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne,-
    Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay
    Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.’

    The Epitaph

    Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
    A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
    Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
    And Melacholy marked him for her own.

    Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
    Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
    He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,
    He gained from Heaven (’twas all he wish’d) a friend.

    No farther seek his merits to disclose,
    Or draw his frailties from their dread abode
    (There they alike in trembling hope repose),
    The bosom of his Father and his God.

  65. ponce says:

    His act shutting off comments the moment it gets posted…

    Was to give the Republicans yet another opportunity to act childishly, and it worked.

  66. anjin-san says:

    my take on Giuliani.

    I was watching Giuliani, as well as Rove being interviewed shortly after bin laden’s death. Aside from being torture cheerleaders, it was remarkable how moderate and reasonable they sounded compared to the current crop of GOP “leaders.” And these are guys that struck me as demi-fascists just a few short years ago.

  67. Neil says:

    @James Joyner: James thank you for digging deep into your background, education and experience to provide us with that valuable commentary!

  68. Jay says:

    We have to differentiate between economist Krugman and columnist Krugman. The person that earned the nobel is not the same person who writes Conscience of a Liberal. The columnist-Krugman takes every possible opportunity to rage against Republicans. This is no secret. He is pandering to his Upper East Side readers, who agree with everything he is writing. The only odd thing about this particular column is that it is angry in a way that is more-than-is-strictly-necessary for what I assume is his goal to get onto the Board of Economic Advisers.

  69. jan says:

    @michael reynolds:

    So while you’re busy huffing and puffing over this bear in mind that the WTC attacks happened in a liberal town, and the heroes that day were government employees and union members. You might want to remember that the next time you’re denouncing everyone in government and everyone with a union card.

    When attacks happen, like 911, people forget their politics, whether or not they belong to a union, and simply coalesce around what is happening at the moment —> saving other people’s lives. After the fact, I guess social progressives, like you, can tout whether the state/city was blue or red, liberal or conservative, unionized or not. But, it has no relevancy to the heroics shown on 911, or in the days or months that followed.

    those liberals showed more spine than a hell of a lot of panicky Nebraskans or whatever who instantly wanted to start rounding up Muslims.

    Also ‘panic’ attacks were not just isolated to Nebraskans, although I’m sure there is a plucky link you can provide, in order to prove this isolated point. There was fear and anger throughout the country, as well as sudden bravery and volunteerism arising out of that fear and anger. IMO, it was the worst and best of times, as people’s character, augmented by a unified commitment to not be subjugated to terror, came to the forefront, and functioned as one nation, instead of constituencies and factions like is so common today,and representative of the remarks you’ve made in your post.

  70. G.A.Phillips says:

    If it existed, it was expelled after Democrat Barack Obama killed the guy responsible for 9/11…

    Um, the Navy Seals killed Osama. Obama Killed the economy, millions of jobs,Trillions of dollars, and a crapload of nicer used cars then I have ever owned!

  71. ponce says:

    Um, the Navy Seals killed Osama.

    Haha, the wingnuts will never forgive Obama for doing what their guy couldn’t do.

    Never.

    Seventy years from now, the Republican crackpots will be lying about Obama like today’s Republican crackpots lie about FDR.

  72. john personna says:

    Very strange:

    “John” 2 to 10

    “Agree with John” 8 to 5

    Reading comprehension problems?

  73. mannning says:

    @michael reynolds:

    Michael: First of all, the citizens in NYC are Americans first, whatever their political bent. And, firemen are firstly Firemen, not unionists. Do you really believe that the firemen would not have performed just as valiently had they not been unionized? Do you mean to suggest that had NYC citizens been mostly conservatives it would have made a difference? I find your views rather strange.

  74. G.A.Phillips says:

    Ponce, I gave him props for giving the order if you remember.You can imagine all the donkey poop I felt on my face when I found out after sticking up for this poser for more then a week that the other less affable people in the room pretty much had to force him to give it. Your the one rewriting history, I am the one making jokes about the sad truth.

    I have also been holding my fingers about how the libs undermined the war effort to win elections out of respect for this day.

  75. Jay Tea says:

    @michael reynolds: You know, now that you mention it, I do recall hearing that we intercepted Al Qaeda messages bragging about how they were going to kill a whole bunch of liberals and union members. The bastards.

    I think of myself as an American first. My political identity ranks several slots down from that.

    It saddens me that you apparently put your political identity ahead of all else.

    J.

  76. ponce says:

    I found out after sticking up for this poser for more then a week that the other less affable people in the room pretty much had to force him to give it.

    Haha, the first lie of many from the fringe right.

    I have also been holding my fingers about how the libs undermined the war effort to win elections out of respect for this day.

    GA, you’re by far the most abrasive poster here on OTB, why are you holding back today?

    Are you admitting you behave poorly every other day?

  77. john personna says:

    [edit, no need to single anyone out]

    Look at yourself. You spend 9/11 on divisive political bullshit? Serious?

    As I said in the first post above (voted down by people who want to spend the day arguing?), this isn’t the time.

  78. jan says:

    @ponce:

    It’s a good thing it was under Obama’s presidency that Bin Laden was assassinated. If Bush had approved the same secret mission, killing Bin Laden swiftly, with little opposition, and then mysteriously disposing of his body at sea, social progressives would have had a cow, demanding Bush be tried for war crimes, or the like. As it is now, being it’s ‘your’ guy behind the kill, he’s a hero!

  79. michael reynolds says:

    @jan:

    Also ‘panic’ attacks were not just isolated to Nebraskans, although I’m sure there is a plucky link you can provide, in order to prove this isolated point. There was fear and anger throughout the country, as well as sudden bravery and volunteerism arising out of that fear and anger. IMO, it was the worst and best of times, as people’s character, augmented by a unified commitment to not be subjugated to terror, came to the forefront, and functioned as one nation, instead of constituencies and factions like is so common today,and representative of the remarks you’ve made in your post.

    See, when I write, “Nebraskans or whatever,” as I did, that’s obviously meant to broadly include any number of people and regions who were not directly affected.

    And spare me the “constituencies and factions” baloney. The Right wing has made their life’s work denigrating liberals, union members and government employees as worthless, even treasonous. At the same time you want to wrap yourselves in the mantle of 9-11. When it serves your narrow political purposes you sh-t all over liberals, union members and government employees. Day in, day out, for decades now. Suddenly when it comes to 9-11 we’re all just Americans.

    Yeah. Right.

    When it serves your narrow political agenda we’re all just Americans. And that lasts right up until you need to sh-t all over liberals and union members and government employees in order to carry on your vitally important work of making sure the rich get richer.

    Liberal New Yorkers = Americans only on 9-11. The other 364 days a year they’re useless leeches destroying the moral fabric of this country with their perverted values.

    NYFD and NYPD and Port Authority = Americans on 9-11. And the other 364 days a year they’re overpayed, underworked union members screwing the “job creators,” and destroying the economy.

    Government employees = Americans on 9-11. The rest of the year they’re worthless leeches who do nothing useful and suck at the taxpayer’s teat. (Incidentally, the people who died on that day at the Pentagon are also government employees.)

    It’s 364 days a year of seething contempt and hatred for liberals, union members and government employees. And one day of sanctimonious bulls–t about us all being Americans. (And of course Muslim Americans are excluded all 365 days a year.)

  80. michael reynolds says:

    @Jay Tea:

    I think of myself as an American first. My political identity ranks several slots down from that.

    I’d say you were delusional, but I actually think you know that’s baloney, which makes you a liar.

  81. john personna says:

    Meanwhile, I observe that Krugman knows how to generate traffic … look at all he has pulled in so far:

    Discussion: JustOneMinute, The Confluence, Big Journalism, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, American Power, Washington Times, Firedoglake, Flopping Aces, The Gateway Pundit, Nice Deb, Weasel Zippers, No More Mister Nice Blog, Scared Monkeys, Outside the Beltway, Washington Monthly, Hot Air, Pirate’s Cove, Atlas Shrugs, Althouse, Vox Popoli, PoliPundit.com, Moonbattery, RedState, Corrente, Suburban Guerrilla, Questions and Observations, The Raw Story, Prairie Weather, The Right Scoop and The Lonely Conservative”

    An economist would look at the incentives.

  82. michael reynolds says:

    @jan:

    It’s a good thing it was under Obama’s presidency that Bin Laden was assassinated. If Bush had approved the same secret mission, killing Bin Laden swiftly, with little opposition, and then mysteriously disposing of his body at sea, social progressives would have had a cow, demanding Bush be tried for war crimes, or the like. As it is now, being it’s ‘your’ guy behind the kill, he’s a hero!

    You’re, shall we say, mistaken.

    Obama ran on a policy of supporting more Predator strikes in Pakistan.

    It was your guys, McCain and Palin, who denounced him for it. Look it up.

    Obama did exactly what he said he’d do. And when he did it about half of what we heard from your side was rationales for how he didn’t really deserve credit.

  83. Dorothy says:

    Krugman = PIG ! Get in line with those 19 pigs that flew those planes into AMERICAN buildings.

  84. David M says:

    @jan: How is that not more offensive than anything Krugman wrote? Of course it’s not only insulting, it doesn’t come close to matching up with the facts of the last 10 years. I’m pretty sure the “Iraq was a distraction from the real targets in Afghanistan” sentiment was said by more than a few Democrats.

  85. anjin-san says:

    Do you really believe that the firemen would not have performed just as valiently had they not been unionized?

    I know you are not stupid, so it is pretty obvious that you are deliberately misconstruing this. It’s not complicated. If conservatives want to make a manta out of villaifying government employees and union members, liberals are going to point out that cops and firemen – the guys we call when we are in trouble because we know they will put their asses on the line to help us – are government employees, and often union members. For that matter, the troops that conservatives are so happy to use as political props work for the government.

    Sorry if having this hypocrisy pointed out makes you uncomfortable. You can join Rick Perry in his quest to thin the ranks of firefighters, and it will be less of a problem in the future. That approach is working pretty well in Texas, no?

  86. Ladylaw says:

    @Jacob:

    You might want to look for a transcript of Bush’s speech at the National Cathedral in the aftermath of September 11th. I think of it as one of his finest hours as President of the United States.

  87. anjin-san says:

    If Bush had approved the same secret mission, killing Bin Laden swiftly,

    Well, Bush said he was not terribly concerned about bin laden, and that he was not a priority. Then he disbanded the unit that was tracking bin laden. So that never happened, did it?

  88. Rick says:

    Paul speaks the truth and the right wingers explode. Remember when the Dixie Chicks correctly said “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.”, and the country exploded. They knew the truth early and it all finally caught up with us. Sometimes the truth hurts. Thank you Mr Krugman !

  89. jan says:

    @michael reynolds:

    I’ve given Obama credit, albeit, there are some strange components to the mission. The bottom line, though, is that Bin Laden is gone.

    However, I still think if Bush had accomplished the mission, under those same circumstances, those on the left would have taken issue with him, and not have considered his actions positively.

  90. anjin-san says:

    Obama Killed the economy

    Gee, I had forgotten how the economy was humming along when Obama took office. Thanks for reminding me.

  91. jan says:

    @David M:

    How is that not more offensive than anything Krugman wrote?

    What and why? Explain.

    @anjin-san:

    Well, Bush said he was not terribly concerned about bin laden, and that he was not a priority. Then he disbanded the unit that was tracking bin laden. So that never happened, did it?

    I won’t disagree. You’re right.

  92. jan says:

    @michael reynolds:

    At the same time you want to wrap yourselves in the mantle of 9-11. When it serves your narrow political purposes you sh-t all over liberals, union members and government employees. Day in, day out, for decades now.

    No one is wrapping themselves in a flag today. People simply are recognizing this as a day of “sorrow.” My husband described it that way, and I agree with him.

    And, regarding ‘narrow political purposes,’ you seem to be losing your way in the discussion. What I said, as well as others, is that 911 is not about separation or division into parties or labor unions. It’s a day unifying people’s remembrance of those lost, as well as what happened that day.

    You, Michael, are the one who it seems is stubbornly sticking to orthodoxy or demagoguery, more than anyone else.

    Why are you so bitter-sounding?

  93. Drew says:

    I hadn’t intended to come back to this thread, but out of boredom have now read the last 30 or so comments.

    Is it it possible for the left to put their hatred in check, even for one day, and focus on what this anniversary was supposed to be about?

  94. G.A.Phillips says:

    Are you admitting you behave poorly every other day?

    I have done that many times and apologize, much of it has been in character, or a mimic.
    I told you! I am still half liberal, mostly in the bad way, lol…..and I still say anything I want,regardless. Well not everything….some of it gets stars now:)

    P.S.Krugman sucks!

  95. Ben Wolf says:

    Whether one agrees with Krugman or not, I don’t really see the controversy here. It’s no secret America hasn’t covered herself in honor and glory over the last ten years, regardless of which president you’re talking about.

  96. anjin-san says:

    Is it it possible for the left to put their hatred in check, even for one day

    Well, it’s obviously not possible for you. Why should it be for anyone else?

  97. David M says:

    @Ben Wolf: I couldn’t agree more. I’m pretty sure there are some Iraq War / Torture supporters that may not share your sentiment though.

  98. case1973 says:

    @ponce: Obama didn’t kill anyone! Navy Seals did!!!!

  99. anjin-san says:

    jan says:
    Sunday, September 11, 2011 at 18:30

    You, Michael, are the one who it seems is stubbornly sticking to orthodoxy or demagoguery

    jan says:
    Sunday, September 11, 2011 at 18:00
    @ponce:

    It’s a good thing it was under Obama’s presidency that Bin Laden was assassinated. If Bush had approved the same secret mission, killing Bin Laden swiftly, with little opposition, and then mysteriously disposing of his body at sea, social progressives would have had a cow, demanding Bush be tried for war crimes, or the like.

  100. G.A.Phillips says:
  101. Thomas says:

    @michael reynolds: The FDNY and the NYPD both endorsed George W. Bush for reelection in 2004 over John Kerry. The union bosses of both unions stood beside President Bush at campaign rallies.

    I am a little confused about you comments on unionization. That comment stands in contrast to the phenomenal comment you posted at the beginning of this discussion.

  102. pinc says:

    email Kugman at pk******@pr*******.edu

  103. MarkedMan says:

    Just to go on the record here, I thought Krugman’s column was both correct and done at a necessary time. Bush and company disgraced the county and made us into a torture nation. But, to paraphrase, it was worse than a crime, it was a mistake. During the first gulf war, Iraqis lined up in the desert to surrender to Americans because they knew they would be treated fairly. What enemy combatant in their right mind would willingly surrender to American soldiers now? How many people who were predisposed to support America have been turned into cheerleaders against us or worse because they or someone in their family were tortured by Americans? George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and even Teddy Roosevelt didn’t foreswear torture just because they were decent men trying to steward a decent people, they also knew it was ultimately the worst possible policy.

    PA and upstate NY have communities descended from Prussian mercenaries who were captured or surrendered and then paroled to farms away from the fighting. Does anyone doubt that they would have fought to the bitter end if they knew they would have been tortured when captured. Washington was a genius. Bush and Cheney were small men inflicting their fears on us and the rest of the world.

  104. Will says:

    Rudy Giuliani said today that 9/11 “changed the U.S. in good ways”. I think that is a far more shameful statement than anything Professor Krugman has offered:

    http://www.politico.com/blogs/politicolive/0911/Giliani_911_changed_the_US_in_good_ways.html

  105. john personna says:

    @Drew:

    Is it it possible for the left to put their hatred in check, even for one day, and focus on what this anniversary was supposed to be about?

    Serious, Drew? You read this thread and only see left-hatred?

    I have not participated myself, except to call it all out, and to note that it is one big traffic event on the blogs …

  106. Terrye says:

    It would be nice if Krugman could just let this day be about respect for the dead and then get back to his usual hateful biased babbling in a day or so.

  107. Nick says:

    @G.A.Phillips:

    “…Obama Killed the economy….”

    WRONG!!!

    In September 2008, Bush’s Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, convened an emergency meeting of key members of Congress and told them to give him $750 billion or the economy would melt down in days. That’s beyond dispute.

    8 years of Republican economics brought the economy to the brink of collapse. To blame Obama for dealing with this mess is absolutely dishonest.

  108. OzarkHillbilly says:

    So much stupid in one little thread, I wonder, does anyone ever listen to themselves????

    I thought not.

    ps: @Drew: ,

    Is it it possible for the left to put their hatred in check, even for one day, and focus on what this anniversary was supposed to be about?

    Still waiting Drew, for you to tell us what exactly this anniversary is supposed to be about…. Pray tell, please tell me how my money is so much better in your pocket than it is in mine. I await with bated breath…..

  109. sub says:

    f*** paul krugman. he’s the biggest a-hole in the “journalism” sphere, and of course the vile NYT proudly carries him. f*** them all.

  110. RAH says:

    @Eric Florack: @Eric Florack: False. We–liberals along with everyone else– were rooting for Bush. We wanted him to succeed. And he blew it. He used the occasion as an excuse to augment executive power and to start an unrelated war for personal reasons. We at last had to admit that Bush was as grasping and corrupt as we always knew him to be. And his use of mass sentiment, national and Christian symbolism, the media (especially the vast right wing dedicated media) had a distinctly fascist feel to it.

  111. sub says:

    @Drew: >:

    the left has no self control. they are vile, divisive, scum.

  112. ponce says:

    Looks like Krugman has upset exactly the right people with his truth telling.

  113. Terrye says:

    As for Bush, I respect the man. I think he did his best to keep this country safe and I pity Krugman and his ilk for being so small and so petty that they can not even show a little bit of grace at a time like this.

    BTW, following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, we locked up the Japanese in prison camps..we listened to every international call coming into and going out of the United States without anything like a warrant. We firebombed cities, we dropped nuclear bombs and yet I have never heard a Democrat say that he or she was ashamed of the United States or the American people or FDR. Nor should they have. And after 9/11 the American people and the Congress of the United States supported the efforts of people like Bush and Gulliani to keep Americans safe. It is easy now years later to make remarks like this, but at the time, that is not what people wanted to hear.

    People like Krugman are disgusting. Right now, he is one American I can honestly say I am ashamed of.

  114. Terrye says:

    @ponce: Truth telling my ass. The man is a coward.

  115. @samwide:

    In a Parish

    Were I not frail and half broken inside,
    I wouldn’t be thinking of them, who are, like me, half broken inside.
    I would not climb the cemetery hill by the church
    To get rid of my self pity.
    Crazy Sophies,
    Michaels who lost every battle,
    Self-destructive Agathas
    Lie under crosses with their dates of birth and death. And who
    Is going to express them? Their mumblings, weepings, hopes, tears of humiliation?
    In hospital muck and the smell of urine,
    With their weak and contorted limbs,
    And eternity close by. Improper. Indecent.
    Like a dollhouse crushed by wheels, like
    An elephant trampling a beetle, an ocean drowning an island.
    Our stupidity and childishness do nothing to fit us
    For this variety of last things.
    They had no time to grasp anything of their individual lives,
    Any principium individuationis.
    Nor do I grasp it, yet what can I do?
    Enclosed all my life in a nutshell,
    Trying in vain to become something
    Completely different from what I was.

    Thus we go down into the earth, my fellow parishioners,
    With the hope that the trumpet of judgment will call us by our names.
    Instead of eternity, greenness and the movement of clouds.
    They rise then, thousands of Sophies, Michaels, Matthews,
    Marias, Agathas, Bartholomews.
    So at last they know why
    And for what reason?

    –Czeslaw Milosz

  116. Terrye says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: How about respect for the dead? Is that so hard to manage? One day where we don’t have to listen to a bunch of sanctimonious morons babble about how America sucks.

  117. Terrye says:

    @Nick: Actually, it was two years after the Democrats took control of Congress. Look how that turned out.

  118. David M says:

    @Terrye: You’re scenario with FDR is a little off, for it to make sense in this context FDR would have had to retaliate against Japan by attacking some other country like Mexico.

  119. Terrye says:

    @Stan: Bush did not lock up the Arab Americans and Muslims in prison camps and he did not censure the press either. And the Republicans did not use the war dead in an effort to gain political power either. If you must compare the two.

    And btw, I think FDR would be absolutely appalled at the kind of column Krugman wrote today.

  120. G.A.Phillips says:

    @Nick: lol dude, Obama killed it,allmost turned it into a Zombie and is trying to kill it again!!!!

    I love Liberals, lol, blame people for crap they make up. Ok man, listen, Trying to fix is much different from, ******* it up beyond repair while trying to fix.

  121. @MarkedMan:

    PA and upstate NY have communities descended from Prussian mercenaries who were captured or surrendered and then paroled to farms away from the fighting. Does anyone doubt that they would have fought to the bitter end if they knew they would have been tortured when captured. Washington was a genius. Bush and Cheney were small men inflicting their fears on us and the rest of the world.

    Hessian mercenaries. The Prussians were on our side during the revolution

  122. BM says:

    @Neil:
    You would be referring to Ricardian equivalence, which only occurs during periods of full employment. Needless to say, we don’t have full employment, so a large GDP output gap, thus we need gov’t spending to fill the void that private investment does not. This is Macro 101

  123. Nick says:

    Krugman made a moral judgement–American behavior after 9/11 was shameful.

    What does Krugman think was shameful about it? (1) 9/11 was used to justify the invasion of Iraq (which had nothing to do with 9/11), (2) it was used as a political wedge issue (you’re either with us or against us), and (3) that various people used 9/11 to cash in. (4) Additionally, he laments that political pundits failed in their duty of oversight to the lies and corruption.

    What part of that is upsetting, and why? Killing people in Iraq and justifying it on nonexistent connections to 9/11 is a gross violation of the Golden Rule as well as much of the Sermon on the Mount (Blessed are the Peacemakers, etc.).

    Using 9/11 as a political wedge issue to create hatred between people similarly violates the Golden Rule.

    I don’t know enough about (3) to comment, but clearly the pundit class failed to call bullshit on the Bush administration (4).

    You can have different moral standards. Krugman’s, and that of liberals generally, is derived in large part from the Golden Rule, often as elaborated in the Sermon on the Mount.

    I don’t know from where right wingers derive their moral standards, but they clearly have a problem with the idea that we should treat others as we would want to be treated.

  124. anjin-san says:

    babble about how America sucks.

    Hmm. Exactly where did anyone say that?

    Do you honestly think we honor the dead by pretending that we don’t make mistakes? By claiming a moral high ground that we have abandoned? What is America about if not debating ideas and issues – or is your point simply that you are right and those who disagree with you are wrong?

  125. KansasMom says:
  126. Nick says:

    @G.A.Phillips:

    “@Nick: lol dude, Obama killed it,allmost turned it into a Zombie and is trying to kill it again!!!!

    I love Liberals, lol, blame people for crap they make up. Ok man, listen, Trying to fix is much different from, ******* it up beyond repair while trying to fix.”

    Earlier this month, President George Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson convinced the nation that if taxpayers didn’t provide a massive infusion of cash to the nation’s banking industry, banks would stop lending, the credit markets would seize, and the entire world economy would sink into a depression.

    http://www.credit.com/blog/2008/10/what-was-that-750-billion-for/

    The last year of Bush’s second term was dominated by an economic recession. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) marked December 2007, the month with the highest payroll employment numbers, as the high point of American economic production with output declining from then on to the present.[71] GDP declined by an annualized -0.5% in the third quarter and -3.8% in the fourth quarter of 2008.[72] The two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth met the “rule of thumb” definition of a recession, confirming the NBER’s declaration of a recession
    ….
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_George_W._Bush_administration#2008_economic_crisis_and_recession

    Right wingers, consistently wrong on just about everything.

  127. Terrye says:

    @David M: What are you talking about? 911 happened right here in the United States and we ended up in Afghanistan and yes Iraq..in WW 2 we ended up in a lot more places and about 60 million people died. We lost more than 80,000 men in the Battle of the Bulge, most of which was fought in Belgium.

    And what is more, whatever Bush did, he had the support of Congress. But that is not the point.. The point is that this day is about the dead, it is not about the usual grudge match the left has to fight every single time someone says or does anything that might lead us to believe that America is one country. You people can not stand it.

  128. Terrye says:

    @KansasMom: That sanctimonious little speech would be a lot more effective if the whole point of this thread was not Paul Krugman doing a column in which he claims that he is ashamed of America. I guess that means he is ashamed of a lot of those first responders and firefighters too.

  129. EW says:

    I might take the award winning liberal with a speech impediment Krugman more serious if he learned how to spell check his work.

  130. Terrye says:

    @anjin-san: Oh please, the man writes a column about how he is ashamed of this country and then he closes the comments and here you are wondering who said America sucks. Pathetic.

    Maybe he should have gone to ground zero and burned a flag or something. Just to make his point.

  131. Nick says:

    @Terrye:

    Read the article. Krugman spells out what he’s ashamed of, and it has nothing to do with first responders or firefighters.

    He’s ashamed of the way 9/11 was used to justify the Iraq invasion, the way it was used as a political wedge issue by the right, and the way it was used to cash in by Bush, Kerik, and Giuliani. Also, he felt the pundit class failed its duties of oversight. READ.

    I guess there’s a reason why so many people on the right believed the hype about Iraq. What is really stunning is that after being proven so wrong, they have failed to take an honest look at how they got it so wrong.

  132. David M says:

    @Terrye: Plenty of people think Iraq was at best a gigantic mistake because it wasn’t related to 9/11 at all. Iraq is not comparable to the other European countries Germany was occupying during WWII.

  133. G.A.Phillips says:

    Nick I ain’t wrong about anything having to do with Obama and his sad sad record. I think it was the Dem controlled congress for two years but more the idea that a socialist was going to be elected that sunk the economy, Bush maybe 10-15%…..

    And now look where we at…heck we was screwed when the college kids had full control for not even a year!

  134. Lazlo says:

    @michael reynolds: Bullshit. You used the word “Nebraskans” with the same invective and intent as a racist uses the word “nigger”.

  135. David M says:

    @G.A.Phillips: If it was the idea that Obama was going to be elected that caused the recession, why would he still win? Also, please list the Democratic initiatives or spending that started in 2007/2008 that caused the recession, because I don’t recall much.

  136. KansasMom says:

    @Terrye: He didn’t claim to be ashamed of America, he claimed that America’s behavior has been shameful. I agree. “For one to love his country, his country must be lovely.” Edmund Burke

  137. anjin-san says:

    the man writes a column about how he is ashamed of this country

    Thats simply not what he said, and I think you know it. If you don’t, I can only feel sorry for you. Learning from our mistakes is a critical part of success in life, for an individual, or for a nation. We made some whoppers in the wake of 9.11. Can we be grown ups, admit we made mistakes, take an honest look at them and try and do better going forward? Or will we just keep the loop going and attack the messenger as some sort of traitor?

    Imperfections, failures, mistakes and so on are part of life. I know they are part of my life – yet admitting that does not mean that I think I suck, any more than admitting America suffers from the same means I think America sucks. My job is to self-analyze and self-correct. If I can’t do that, I am in big trouble. It applies to us all as individuals and it applies to us as a group.

    Krugman can live anywhere he wants to. Do you honestly think if he hated this country he would stay here?

  138. Drew says:

    I just watched the remarks of former President Bush and current President Obama at ground zero today. Short, appropriate and respectful.

    And then we have this thread. Variously overpopulated by the crass to the creepy, and most certainly in that category Mr. Krugman and his defenders.

  139. ponce says:

    We lost more than 80,000 men in the Battle of the Bulge

    Only a 400+% exaggeration.

    Not bad for a wingnut

  140. G.A.Phillips says:

    If it was the idea that Obama was going to be elected that caused the recession, why would he still win?

    Most Obama Voters did not hide their money, stop hiring people and cut overhead?

  141. G.A.Phillips says:

    Also, please list the Democratic initiatives or spending that started in 2007/2008 that caused the recession, because I don’t recall much.

    lol I can start in the early 1900s if you want?

  142. anjin-san says:

    And then we have this thread. Variously overpopulated by the crass to the creepy, and most certainly in that category Mr. Krugman and his defenders.

    Thats great Drew. People who you disagree with are creeps, and just bad in general. Thanks for stopping by.

  143. David M says:

    @G.A.Phillips: Only 2007/2008, as you said the recession was directly a result of the actions of that Congress.

  144. An Interested Party says:

    The point is that this day is about the dead, it is not about the usual grudge match the left has to fight every single time someone says or does anything that might lead us to believe that America is one country. You people can not stand it.

    Oh please, spare us all your own sanctimony…if 9/11 is/was only about the dead, than it would not of been politicized and used as a tool to invade Iraq and trash those who were against that invasion…oh, and by the way, being ashamed of George W. Bush, Rudy Giuliani, and Bernie Kerik, among other characters, is hardly the same thing as being ashamed of our country…

    lol I can start in the early 1900s if you want?

    The perfect example of what John Personna referred to in a Steven Pearlstein column–“Repeal the 20th century. Vote GOP.”…

  145. Thomas says:

    The fact that Krugman disallowed for comments is hypocrisy given that part of his point was that 9/11 was used to take away basic freedoms like speech. If that is what Paul feels, why does he disallow for feedback and reaction? Like what Doug said at the beginning, why today? Why the tenth anniversary to print such an incendiary piece?

    No martial law was declared after the tragedy. No habeas corpus suspensions were announced. No internment camps were set up for citizens (like there was in 1942 by President FDR for Japanese-Americans).

    President Bush made a ton of mistakes as president. The Iraq War was one of them. Big time! But, you cannot deny that in those dark months following the tragedy, the country rallied behind him largely because he spoke of unity, not division!

  146. Ron Henzel says:

    If Paul Krugman’s opinion was any more significant it would be utterly irrelevant.

  147. ponce says:

    If Paul Krugman’s opinion was any more significant it would be utterly irrelevant.

    Sure, Ron.

    That’s why the entire wingnut blogosphere has its panties in a bunch over a few sentences he scribbled on his way to breakfast this morning.

  148. anjin-san says:

    The fact that Krugman disallowed for comments is hypocrisy given that part of his point was that 9/11 was used to take away basic freedoms like speech.

    His blog, his rules. Anyone that does not like them is free to not visit his blog.

  149. anjin-san says:

    But, you cannot deny that in those dark months following the tragedy, the country rallied behind him largely because he spoke of unity, not division!

    I would tend to agree with that.

    Then he invaded Iraq, and everything went into the crapper, where it has pretty much stayed.

  150. Drew says:

    I hope you will forgive me. I’m usually all up for mixing it up with the natives. Admittedly, a bad habit. Sort of like pulling the wings off of flies.

    But today, maybe because I lived in NY metro on 9/11, and emerged from an AM meeting to see smoke coming from the towers, I really don’t have the zeal for debating the zeros who in increasing numbers inhabit OTB.

  151. marie says:

    Reply to Mr. Krugman who was too cowardly to allow replies on his post, from a “Liberal who’s been mugged.”

    Unfortunately, you would not allow comments to The Years of Shame rant “for obvious reasons”. I am also shocked that you would choose a public forum to post your feeling, and not allow a rebuttal or support. Reminds me of the bully who throws a verbal grenade into a situation and then deflects by blaming those he has hurt.

    The atrocity was a unifying moment that showed the amazing strength of all New Yorkers and its leadership. The commemorations offer both pain and hope, but never shame.
    And for whatever mistakes, such as the Iraq war that were subsequently made post this atrocity, during 9/11, the day in question, Rudy Giuliani and George Bush kept this country together at a time when its very fabric could have been destroyed in panic, hatred, and chaos. Just as I wholedheartedly disagree and believe your post was in poor taste and not correct, I still respect your work as an economist. One does not undo the other.
    As an employee of Aon at the time, in CT that day because of the school directory that I had until Tuesday to add in a new student, we inadvertently became the call center for the world as our number on the crawl worked and 800 numbers didn’t. By the end of the day, we mentally knew who was missing and who wasn’t. Instead of the TV version, where I’d run home and hug my family, I asked everyone to leave me alone, and went into my family room, and flipped all the broadcast channels searching for someone I thought missing so that I could make a call and offer hope rather than the day of endless calls asking me if I heard from a loved one.
    After fielding calls the entire day, and emptying voice mails, and cross referencing the WTC phone directory with calls, the tv instead offered a horrible first glance at what really happened, interspersed with Giuliani seeming stoic, shaken, but always in control and with a plan for our future. The next day, I stopped into the Greenwich office and a man called and said his wife didn’t work for Aon, but maybe she called me. We cried for awhile, and hung up. That’s how it went.
    That week, I had a dream that I hope will shed some light to you as to how the leadership of our mayor during this crisis (note during this crisis, not as a future president) helped me carry on to coordinate efforts with families going forward in targeted media and web work. In the dream, my home in CT bordered on the side with the Brooklyn Heights promenade, where I used to sell t shirts at the arts fair, and had a beautiful view of the WTC. There was a potato sack race with colleagues and friends living and murdered in the WTC, and their kids (knew this in the dream even though I never met their children). The parents were running the race, and the kids weren’t quite following the rules or winning, and they were all being given ribbons by Mr. Giuliani who was on the promenade side of my yard. I went over to him and told him that he was giving ribbons to some of children who didn’t really win, and his reply to me was that “isn’t it time that everybody won for a change just by being here?”
    Now I hope you see why I mention this. In my subconscious traumatized mind, Mr. Giuliani was a source of strength and reason, blending the horror with hope. I know I was not alone in that thought. Even Rosie O’Donnel was on some show that week saying she loved Rudy and George Bush before she later joined the conspiracy crowd.
    So Mr. Krugman, don’t lump the egregious mistake of going into Iraq with heroism and strength of 9/11. Just like those who said that only Japan after the tsunami did they see strength of a people, they forgot about the heroism on 9/11. They forgot about the heroes I just saw on TLC channel, those I knew who stayed on the 78th floor with wounded colleagues, the street vendors who usually overcharge giving away free sneakers and water to fellow citizens, and the leadership and strength Rudy Giuliani and our president served up those first weeks not with flower speeches, but with newsclips of them in the face of danger helping others. And please don’t speak for liberals as the conscience of us all.
    People are reading names right now of loved ones. Are you so insensitive to make the anti-Bush agenda by calling this event shameful? Would you go to a funeral and tell a surviving family that even though their loved one died, they should somehow feel shame?
    This is exactly the kind of rant which brings more pain and serves no purpose other than to inflame. Turn off your pc, either watch one of the programs to remember the psyche again of that day, or at the very least go give blood. But don’t make a name for yourself on the pain of others on a very painful day.
    And if you are bold enough to make a statement, please be there to hear the reply. You are actually the coward du jour.

  152. ponce says:

    Rudy Giuliani and George Bush kept this country together at a time when its very fabric could have been destroyed in panic, hatred, and chaos.

    Marie,

    You must not think much of America if you think a relatively minor attack like 9/11 could have destroyed our country.

    For example, thanks to our invasion of Iraq, the Iraqis experienced the equivalent of a 9/11 attack every single week for over two years.

  153. marie says:

    It’s all a matter of perspective. The purpose of my post was not to argue the merits of the invasion or Iraq, which, for the record, I view as an atrocious act and never viewed as connected to 9/11. Just as our former president wrongly connected those dots, I find fault with Mr. Krugman doing the same, and denigrating the 9/11 commemoration in the process.

    BTW I have the greatest espect for America and my fellow citizens. This is not contrary to acknowledging leadership during the crisis that shored up rather than let down those affected. One need only replay riots after sports events to realize how the herd mentality can take over under the wrong set of circumstances.

  154. anjin-san says:

    Admittedly, a bad habit. Sort of like pulling the wings off of flies.

    Another self- anointed blog smackdown champ. How very special. Bithead and Jay Tea have company.

  155. michael reynolds says:

    @jan:

    What I said, as well as others, is that 911 is not about separation or division into parties or labor unions. It’s a day unifying people’s remembrance of those lost, as well as what happened that day.

    A sentiment you hold for exactly one day. And tomorrow you’ll be telling us how useless entire classes of Americans are.

    You can’t spend all year telling us liberals are traitors, union members are criminals and government employees are leeches and suddenly throw your arms around them one day a year.

    How is that hard for you to understand?

  156. anjin-san says:

    I guess that means he is ashamed of a lot of those first responders and firefighters too.

    I guess this means your argument is so, so weak that you have to resort to utter fiction to support it. You should really be embarrassed about this one.

  157. michael reynolds says:

    @Drew:
    As for you, what a fraud you are.

    Your entire politics, all of it, 100%, is about Drew, Drew, Drew and screw anyone else. Now you want to get mawkish and sentimental? Don’t make me laugh.

  158. anjin-san says:

    I think of myself as an American first. My political identity ranks several slots down from that.

    Hmm. This is coming from the guy who warned us to remember that “my side has all the guns.”

  159. ponce says:

    This is not contrary to acknowledging leadership during the crisis that shored up rather than let down those affected.

    IIRC, right after 9/11, “Where is the president?” was a more pressing question than “Who is behind the 9/11 attacks?”

  160. marie says:

    “The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. ”

    My memory of 9/11 is innocent people going to work, and being murdered. It is one of a colleague sitting with another on 78 whose legs were mangled until the building fell on both of them. It is of strangers helping strangers. It is of firefighters going into hell and staying there to help even when told to evacuate. It is the grief families will carry forever. It is about humans being the best they can on the worst day of their life. How dare Mr. Krugman refer to the memory of this day as an occasion of shame, and worst, on the very day when families are commemorating the lives of their loved ones.

    Sorry– it’s inexcusable, insensitive, and without any merit. An article discussing how America’s capital has suffered after the invasion of Irag after having the world on it’s side after9/11 would be respected. Lumping the memory of 9/11 as shameful is wrong.

  161. Lit3Bolt says:

    Today on 9-11-11, ten years after the attacks of 9-11, right wingers everywhere took time to commemorate the event by attacking liberals.

    Thank you Dr Krugman for pointing how the Right wing in America still hates free speech, still defends Bush, still defends torture, still defends the Iraq War, and still does not feel an iota of shame for their actions post 9-11.

  162. Carlo says:

    I’m having trouble grasping exactly what Krugman did here that’s so terrible. Are people offended by what he wrote? Or that he wrote it on this particular day? Is it the content or the timing that’s so offensive?

  163. David M says:

    @Carlo: There are a certain number that dislike the timing, but I think it’s the content that matters more. For some reason it’s surprising to some commenters that plenty of people don’t feel proud of the post 9/11 aftermath of the Iraq War, torture, etc. And the ones that were right about the Iraq War and general lawlessness of the Bush Administration were on the receiving end of some pretty nasty politicized 9/11 rhetoric for a quite a while, so I have zero sympathy if some war cheerleaders have some hurt feelings now because not everyone is willing to clap for them on 9/11.

  164. ponce says:

    I’m having trouble grasping exactly what Krugman did here that’s so terrible.

    It’s a mistake to assume there’s logic behind all the wingnut moaning.

    If you want to understand them, just assume they need to vent their bile each day (The Daily Outrage), so each day they collectively select a random “librul” target to whine about.

  165. Melissa says:

    I don’t even want to go into detail, but Paul Krugman is a pussy. -comments closed-

  166. Skippy-san says:

    While I think Krugman’s timing could have been better-he was quite on the mark about the actions that followed 9-11.

    Yes the United States was attacked. Visciously. The results were tragic and beyond human comprehension. We have extracted our vengance for that horrible day a 100 times over. The cost of doing so has been huge-and we will debate the wisdom of those subsequent decisions for years.

    Guys like Dick Cheney, and George Bush and others-believe the horror of 9-11 gives them a pass on responsibility for flawed decision making subsequent to the event. I say no. The rat holes of the wars that have been pursued in the years following , and the very avoidable -and equally tragic-costs, cannot be just wiped away just because we were the victims on a particular day.

    We can though, remember that day with honor-and vow to move forward into a better future than what those murderers tried to inflict upon us. All of our worlds changed that day-and I for one wish that day could be undone. I want my world of September 10, 2011 back. But its never coming back.

    9-11 will always be with us. But we can work hard to restore the world that once was before.

    That’s the point Krugman was making and what useless idiots like Jacobsen and the rest missed.

  167. john personna says:

    @Skippy-san:

    Krugman probably should have (waited a few days and then) written something as reasonable as you just did.

  168. snarky bastard says:

    @Jay: Krugman has stated many times that serving in government (of any party) in any position of authority would be hell on earth for him. He finds more value and satisfaction as being an outside critic [see most recently his blog post on holding onto the embargo Obama speech for a good example] Getting on the CEA would be punishment, not a prize from his point of view.

  169. Rob in CT says:

    The substance of his argument is sound: our country did a bunch of shamefull stuff after 9/11, and 9/11 was the thing used to justify that shameful stuff.

    So, while I too remember that day with sorrow and, yes, anger, I am ashamed of (some of) what came afterward. Not ashamed of the bravery of New York’s Bravest & Finest, certainly.

    Iraq & Torture are the big faults for me. Yes, our country has done other shameful things in the past (internment of Japanese-Americans in WWII being the obvious one). So? That makes our post-9/11 behavior A-ok? Logic FAIL.

    The timing of the post… yeah, I probably wouldn’t have posted it on 9/11. Not because I think he’s wrong, obviously, but rather because so many people’s logical brains shut down when the flag waving & music starts (which, of course, is Krugman’s point), so the reaction is predictable: all sound & fury, but little thought.

  170. MBunge says:

    @marie: My memory of 9/11 is innocent people going to work, and being murdered.

    And what the Krugster wants to make sure is you don’t deliberately forget is all the stuff that happened in the years after that.

    Mike

  171. While I think Krugman’s timing could have been better-he was quite on the mark about the actions that followed 9-11.

    Yes the United States was attacked. Visciously. The results were tragic and beyond human comprehension.

    No, they weren’t. Iraq had a 9/11 every day thanks to us.

    We have extracted our vengance for that horrible day a 100 times over. The cost of doing so has been huge-and we will debate the wisdom of those subsequent decisions for years.

    There’s nothing to debate. Our illegal invasion was a crime, by definition.

    Guys like Dick Cheney, and George Bush and others-believe the horror of 9-11 gives them a pass on responsibility for flawed decision making subsequent to the event.

    No, they think their power gives them a pass on very deliberately using 9/11 to institute their neo-con agenda. They are right.

    I say no. The rat holes of the wars that have been pursued in the years following , and the very avoidable -and equally tragic-costs, cannot be just wiped away just because we were the victims on a particular day.

    We can though, remember that day with honor-and vow to move forward into a better future than what those murderers tried to inflict upon us.

    Krugman’s point is that no, we can’t, because we didn’t behave with honor. A few people did and the rest tried to wrap themselves in the glory of much, much better people, some of whom have been slandered for years now because they are union members.

    All of our worlds changed that day-and I for one wish that day could be undone.

    No, it didn’t. My world wasn’t changed by 9/11 and neither was most people’s; what changed our lives was the actions of our leaders, who used the tragedy to screw us over politically and economically. What people want back is a feeling of invulnerability, exceptionalism, and macho toughness. That’s what they lost on 9/11 and they should never have had it in the first place.

    I want my world of September 10, 2011 back. But its never coming back. 9-11 will always be with us. But we can work hard to restore the world that once was before.

    That’s the point Krugman was making and what useless idiots like Jacobsen and the rest missed.

    No, it itsn’t. But it’s interesting to see people (many, many people) rewrite history to make us out to be innocent and heroic victims.

  172. john personna says:

    @Susan of Texas:

    No, it itsn’t. But it’s interesting to see people (many, many people) rewrite history to make us out to be innocent and heroic victims.

    My thought, at the time, was “sucks to be on the wrong side of history.”

    That is true for all the little people as the powerful play their world-changing games.

    But certainly, it’s hardest for the little people on the wrong end of an air strike.

  173. marionnigro says:

    you are a bastard writing something with no truth in it. only someone from te NY Times would publish this.

  174. Eric Florack says:

    I note Reynolds commenting today:

    http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/127750/

    Understand it for what it is, an admission of impotence from a sad and irrelevant little man. Things haven’t gone the way he wanted lately, his messiah has feet of clay — hell, forget the “feet” part, the clay goes at least waist-high — and it seems likely he’ll have even less reason to like the coming decade than the last, and he’ll certainly have even less influence than he’s had. Thus, he tries to piss all over the people he’s always hated and envied. No surprise there. But no importance, either. You’ll see more and worse from Krugman and his ilk as the left nationally undergoes the kind of crackup it’s already experiencing in Wisconsin. They thought Barack Obama was going to bring back the glory days of liberal hegemony in politics, but it turned out he was their Ghost Dance, their Bear Shirt, a mystically believed-in totem that lacked the power to reverse their onrushing decline, no matter what the shamans claimed.

    And I note also a comment posted to his mail:

    Te atrocity was a unifying issue, Bush’s way to deal with te atrocity garnered over 70% approval. Krugman and his ilk drove a wedge and claimed Bush, after eight whole months in office should have prevented te atrocity, Bush’s calmness and continued reading My Pet Goat showed he was not presidential, not fit for office.

    10 whole years later, Krugman would prefer some hysterics to highlight the “gutsy” call to kill the guy hidden in a cave (metaphorically), and diverts attention away from the doubledip recession. The double dip caused mostly by the One listening to Krugman and his ilk. After three years, it’s still Bush’s fault for a lousy economy.

    Indeed. The “have you no shame” shtick is more than slightly old, particularly given the source.

  175. anjin-san says:

    Krugman and his ilk drove a wedge and claimed Bush, after eight whole months in office should have prevented te atrocity

    I’m curious, when does a President’s duty to defend the country become fully vested? After one year? Two? Is the first year sort of a warm up period?

    irrelevant little man

    As was pointed out above, he is so irrelevant that the entire right wing blogsphere is in hysterics about him.

  176. marie says:

    I agree that we should not forget what happened afterward, and I haven’t. Again, read his post. He didn’t say that he said, and I quote: “The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. ” And he published this five minutes to the 10th anniversary of the first plane hitting. My memory of 9/11 is not poisoned. It’s all the things I remember it for, most of all the courage my friends, strangers, and the world showed to our beloved country under attack. Had he said the memory of the aftermath of 9/1 or the memory of Iraq invasion, I wouldn’t have even posted. That’s about all I have to say, and unlike Mr. Krugman, eveyrone is welcomed to respond, and even villify my comment, but I stand behind it. The memory of 9/11 is of 9/11. My memory of the Iraq invasion is quite different.

  177. Nick says:

    Ron Paul echoes Krugman:

    :We should never forget those in our government who used the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history as an excuse to launch completely unrelated wars, to do unprecedented damage to Americans’ historic liberties, to run roughshod over the Constitution, and to betray the Founders’ vision by savaging some of our most deeply held values.”

    http://www.ronpaul2012.com/2011/09/11/never-forget/

  178. Drew says:

    “As for you, what a fraud you are.

    Your entire politics, all of it, 100%, is about Drew, Drew, Drew and screw anyone else. Now you want to get mawkish and sentimental? Don’t make me laugh.”

    Sniff. Why must you hurt me so??

  179. Mylostrepublic says:

    All you liberal-fascist will go in the dust-bin of history very soon with callous staements that a$$ and the co-founder of code pink—should be code yellow. We can’t be rid of you pigs soon enough. Hope Krugman runs into one of the family members who lost their loved ones, I hope he gets shredded bare-handed, his eyes plucked out and his fingers and thumbs bitten off so he will never offend true Americans again—-that also goes for all the people supporting this creature.

  180. Mylostrepublic says:

    When is your president going to pull the troops out, and where is the protest—we are in another new war aren’t we? You people make me ill, hypocritcall insects are all you people are, that and liars.

  181. Bag o Cheese says:

    Sir:

    This is a very measured response to Professor Krugman’s outrageous and poorly timed remarks…(some have called them sociopathic). I can only disagree with one sentence in your essay….To think that Krugman has even the faintest notion of regret is to misunderstand the effete, smart-ass, liberal congnescenti…..It’s just not in them.

  182. Nick says:

    9/11 was used to justify torture and the invasion of Iraq wherein over 100,000 people were killed.

    That’s shameful. It’s a violation of core American values. No one has been held to account for it. If you’re not outraged, there’s something wrong with you.

  183. Anne Leonard says:

    Paul Krugman was right during the Bush years, and he’s right now. Paul Krugman told the truth about those who manipulated the aftermath of 9/11 for political purposes – but now the professional distorters want him to pay the price.

    ENOUGH. We stand with Paul Krugman – join us if you’ve got Paul’s back too:

    http://other98.com/i-stand-with-paul-krugman

  184. Rhodesway says:

    Fools are easy to find when they only have a small set of numbers to hide behind – let’s see you are crouched down behind a tiny wall of fourteen numbers in total – looming above you are combined numbers that reach into the sky – man up Rob – stand and be counted – a zero says it all!
    @ponce: @Rob:

  185. Eric Florack says:

    @RAH:

    False. We–liberals along with everyone else– were rooting for Bush. We wanted him to succeed.

    Bull. The dust hadn’t even settled yet before the left was already back at the old game.
    Sorry, try that with someone who wasn’t there, OK?

    As to he rest, I’ll echo Glenn, here:

    Don’t be angry. Understand it for what it is, an admission of impotence from a sad and irrelevant little man. Things haven’t gone the way he wanted lately, his messiah has feet of clay — hell, forget the “feet” part, the clay goes at least waist-high — and it seems likely he’ll have even less reason to like the coming decade than the last, and he’ll certainly have even less influence than he’s had. Thus, he tries to piss all over the people he’s always hated and envied. No surprise there. But no importance, either. You’ll see more and worse from Krugman and his ilk as the left nationally undergoes the kind of crackup it’s already experiencing in Wisconsin. They thought Barack Obama was going to bring back the glory days of liberal hegemony in politics, but it turned out he was their Ghost Dance, their Bear Shirt, a mystically believed-in totem that lacked the power to reverse their onrushing decline, no matter what the shamans claimed.

  186. Barry says:

    @Neil: “twenty year old Nobel Prize ”

    https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Paul_Krugman

    “In 2008, Krugman won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his contributions to New Trade Theory and New Economic Geography. “

  187. Barry says:

    Doug: “Paul Krugman: 9/11 Has Become “An Occasion For Shame””

    This title is false.

  188. Barry says:

    Oh, f*ck it.

    Doug, you’re a liar here. You and every other right-winger commenting are stung by the truth that when push came to shove, and principles and moral courage matters, you didn’t have any.

    You cheered for Bush and Cheney and the crew while they trashed the country, and now blame it on everybody but yourselves.

  189. Helen says:

    It was partly cloudy on Sunday. It poured on Monday and Tuesday and ruined crops. On Friday the weather week in review author noted that it rains even harder in one part of the world and there are droughts in yet another. As a result, instead of reporting the weather as it occurred each day, he reports that it rained on Sunday so people will not forget it rained on Monday and Tuesday oh yeah And people should be ashamed of commemorating Sunday because of the rain later in the week That’s our political climate.

  190. WR says:

    @Helen: Does anyone here understand what Helen is trying to say? I’m concerned she might have had a stroke and is now typing gibberish.

  191. anjin-san says:

    Sorry, try that with someone who wasn’t there, OK?

    You were there? Dude, you spent about five years hiding under the bed going “Oh God, oh please, don’t let Osama hurt me”. Every once and a while you would crawl out and remind us “The Constitution is not a suicide pact.”

  192. Helen says:

    It is gibberish. Ever play madlibs where u replace words?

    Substitute 9/11 for Sunday substitute Iraq invasion for Tuesday and Wednesday. Refer to the posts above about all the 9/11s every week for the monsoon comparison. Substitute weather reporter for Paul krugmen

    As you noted. Gibberish

    Stroke of luck

  193. WR says:

    @Helen: I see. So now if I substitute elephant for cloudy, Pez dispenser for crops, Shelagh Delaney for droughts and Screaming Yellow Zonkers for weather, and then I drink three quarts of cheap Bourbon, this will begin to make sense?

  194. Helen says:

    Your Freudian slip is showing. Elephant?

  195. DC says:

    Krugman, quickly bitter that America did not instantly ‘florish’ into a Liberal, Socialist, Mecca once President Obama was sworn in, went further off the deep end when trillions in baseless dollars were created and wasted without essentially anyone in the country thanking him and his other misguided High Priests of The Church of Forever Debt for another failed attempt to destroy Successful America.

    So now all he has left is his impotent rage that America has somehow managed to survive his theories failures, and hurl the very language of the terrorists at us.

    Actually, I almost feel pity for him. Almost. He does not deserve pity, however; so I think that more scorn for him is much more appropriate.

  196. DC says:

    @ponce:

    Congratulations Ponce, on being an unrelenting idiot.

  197. DC says:

    @Anne Leonard:

    You stand with a fool who keeps trying to push the same failed concept of spending mountains of money that we don’t have.

    What part of stop spending what you do not have is unclear to you? Since your parents obviously didn’t explain it to you, let me help. Run out and consume every single dollar of credit available to you, fail to pay it any of it back for years, and then go try asking for more.

    Oh, they’ll let you have more, later; AFTER you go through bankruptcy.

  198. Jason Richards says:

    I think it’s time to start boiling tar and plucking feathers.
    What a despicable person.

  199. Randall says:

    At best a mediocre economist, the only thing notable about Krugman is his ability to say the things he knows the left wants to hear and draw attention to himself. Al Simpson of Obama’s Deficit Committee said it best: “I doubt Krugman could pass a saliva test”. His comments don’t deserve a response. If the NYT wants to save what credibility they have left should drop him, ditto for “This Week”.

  200. Joel says:

    I don’t have any problem with someone saying that we made some terrible decisions after 9/11, such as Iraq and torture (I basically agree). I do think it’s very poor taste to link our later foreign policy with the short-term aftermath on the tenth anniversary. Whether Bush made good decisions in the years following (he didn’t) is a different issue from whether he showed good leadership when we were first recovering from the attacks.

  201. Eric Florack says:

    @Nick:

    Ron Paul echoes Krugman:

    Thus reinfocing my initial percetion of Ron Paul as someone who doesn’t need public office. He needs watching

  202. jackBruce says:

    Right wingers are so full of it. First they sit back and let it (9/11)happen. Just imagine the #$%&-storm of blame any Democrat would have been subjected to had they been in power. Then they bog us down in two unwinnable wars, both paid for with debt. All the while their crony capitalizt corporations bleed every corrupt cent they can out of the bloody horror. On top of all of that, the eonomy collapses as a result of their policies of loose money and little regulation. Then when Obama tries to restore some simbelance of reason to the situation, they make the insane charge that he’s a Socialist. Hell, he’s not even liberal in my book. Klugman takes way too easy on the right. They are a bunch of delusional, liars, who are anything but patriotic. They care ONLY about the filthy rich, who crave money like a junkie craves dope. I say tax the hell out of the SOBs!!!