'The Great Unraveling': An Accidental Radical

If you want to understand Howard Dean, read Paul Krugman. Krugman, who has compiled more than three years of columns for The New York Times (and some for Slate and Fortune) in ''The Great Unraveling,'' is to liberal journalism what Dean is to Democratic politics. Like Dean, Krugman is a relative newcomer to his field: Dean practiced medicine for a decade before running for office; Krugman enjoyed a highly successful academic career (he's still an economics professor at Princeton) before becoming a columnist. These unusual career paths have left both men with a sense of themselves as outsiders in their current professions. In particular, both Dean and Krugman are acutely aware -- and proud -- of not living in Washington.

This self-conscious distance from their colleagues is crucial to both men's emergence as what one might call ''accidental radicals.'' In the 1990's, neither Dean nor Krugman would have been obvious liberal-left standard bearers. Dean's fiscal conservatism angered many liberal Vermonters, and Krugman's unabashed support for free trade elicited attacks from the antiglobalization movement. But over the last year, both men have been radicalized by the presidency of George W. Bush -- more specifically, by the political and journalistic elite's docile response to the presidency of George W. Bush. Just as Dean caught fire by attacking Washington Democrats for acquiescing to upper-income tax cuts and the Iraq war, Krugman has repeatedly railed against Washington journalists -- including liberal Washington journalists -- for rationalizing and minimizing the Bush administration's extremism. ''During the first two years of the Bush administration, many pundits insisted that the radical conservative bent of that administration was only a temporary maneuver,'' he writes in his introduction. ''I was ahead of the curve in realizing that something radical was happening. As a professional economist, I was in a position to appreciate the disconnect between official claims and reality; as a media outsider I wasn't part of the Washington culture, in which it's considered bad form to suggest that leading politicians have ulterior motives that bear little resemblance to their stated goals.''
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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/05/books/review/05BEINART.html

If you have to choose between Franken and Krugman, buy Krugman.

Maybe that's part of the reason that I support Gov. Dean for President of the United States of America.

about half way through as of last night:)

PS_If anyone gets a chance, Peddling Prosperity (1994) is a must have for reading...its gotten me into and ahead of a lot of economic policy arguments!!

The way I read the book review is that Krugman nails both the specifics of Bush's faulty policies and the culture of accomodation in Washington news, literary, and political circles.

The reviewer applauds the former but nixes the latter. This suggests that Krugman is on the mark because nobody likes admitting they are wrong, least of all those who are supposed to get it right.

This excerpt from the book review captures the point.

"At one point, Krugman says he has ''a vision -- maybe just a hope -- of a great revulsion.'' Among liberals, that revulsion is now on full display, powering the candidacy of Howard Dean. But most Americans do not consider the Bush administration corrupt, and Paul Krugman cannot convincingly prove it is. He should stick to what he does so well: simply proving, on issue after issue, that the Bush administration is wrong."

Krugman convincingly proves (from his columns anyway, I haven't read the book yet) the admin. is corrupt by identifying corruption as the only possible motive for their actions. Nothing else can explain the recklessness with which they pursure destructive policies, and Krugman is consistent and convincing in proving such.

one of the few voices heard in big media that speaks the truth, and of course the rightwingers wish they could silence him...

The letters that Paul Krugman receives these days have to be picked up with tongs, and his employer pays someone to delete the death threats from his email inbox. "I can't say I never get rattled ... When it gets personal, I do get rattled."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1045302,00.html

I'd say that Bush has done more to "radicalize" moderates and even those who weren't paying that much attention more than any liberal could have done, given the status quo in D.C.

The author's statement that Krugman should stick to showing how Bush is wrong, but forget about the corrupt ignores the entire thrust of Krugman's articles over the last few years.

Over and over again he points to Bush's policies as examples of corruption...in other words, Bush wouldn't hold those policies if he and his crony crook administration weren't corrupt.

The reason more of the public doesn't think Bush is corrupt is because he gets too many media blow jobs instead of reportage based upon his actions.

certainly not as out there as those two, but I definitely USED to be moderate....

here, here.