Paul Krugman, serial liar:
Here’s what Newt Gingrich, the Republican former speaker of the House — a man celebrated by many in his party as an intellectual leader — had to say: If Democrats pass health reform, “They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years” by passing civil rights legislation. . .
I want you to consider the contrast: on one side, the closing argument was an appeal to our better angels, urging politicians to do what is right, even if it hurts their careers; on the other side, callous cynicism. Think about what it means to condemn health reform by comparing it to the Civil Rights Act. Who in modern America would say that L.B.J. did the wrong thing by pushing for racial equality? (Actually, we know who: the people at the Tea Party protest who hurled racial epithets at Democratic members of Congress on the eve of the vote.)
So there you have it: opposing health care nationalization is racist. A little later, he actually comes out and says it: “It was racial hate-mongering.”
The attack on the tea party as racist is a standard rhetorical flourish. Some Democrats claim they heard racial epithets from the crowd. There’s no way to disprove it, and in a crowd of thousands, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a few cranks. No one is taking that line of attack seriously, which is why Krugman only uses it as a throwaway line. The center of his attack is that Newt Gingrich is a racist, and by association, anyone else who opposes health care nationalization must be too.
But that attack is false, as the New York Times sheepishly admits:
This column quotes Newt Gingrich as saying that “Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years” by passing civil rights legislation, a quotation that originally appeared in The Washington Post. After this column was published, The Post reported that Mr. Gingrich said his comment referred to Johnson’s Great Society policies, not to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
What a fool. Krugman poses as the expert commentator who can tell us what is really happening and why. He frequently attributes thoughts and motives to his enemies based on nothing more than speculation. In fact, this column makes clear that Krugman hasn’t a clue what motivates his opponents. If he actually knew anything about Newt Gingrich, he would know that Gingrich would never say that. Gingrich has a substantial record — if Krugman cared to look at it — and it makes clear that Gingrich believes the Civil Rights Act was right and has been vindicated by history. LBJ is vilified for many things in Republican circles, and justly so, but the Civil Rights Act is not one of them.
But Krugman doesn’t achieve his insights into his enemies’ character through studying their writings and speeches. He gets it all from his own fevered imagination, in which all are rendered as mere parodies of themselves. Paul Krugman is nothing more than a curiously respectable Keith Olbermann.
The New York Times gets credit, I guess, for having the honesty to run the correction. Usually they don’t correct errors and lies in columns. But then they give most of that credit back for refusing to take the blame. Trying to shift blame to the Washington Post? Lame. The New York Times purports to be a major newspaper, but they can’t even bother to check an obviously bogus quote on which an entire column is erected?
But the Washington Post gets a full helping of blame of its own. First, the story was obviously wrong. (Gingrich’s record aside, here’s another hint the story was wrong: the direct quotation includes no mention of civil rights legislation.) Worse, they never affixed a correction to the article, and instead relegated to a post on the Washington Post blog.
(Via Instapundit.)
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