You will not be surprised to learn that Media Research Center writer Joseph Vazquez continues to suffer from Paul Krugman Derangement Syndrome even though Krugman has officially retired from the New York Times. This was demonstrated in a June 9 post sneeringly headlined “Paul Krugman Couldn’t Smell ‘Corruption’ If It Rolled Over and Died In Front of Him”:
The same deranged, former columnist for The New York Times who spent years praising President Joe Biden as the best thing since sliced bread is now trying to sound the alarm on so-called “corruption” within the Trump administration.
“Wake Up and Smell the Corruption,” read the June 6 load of Substack blather from Bidenomics simp-in-chief Paul Krugman. He capitalized on the ongoing feud between X owner Elon Musk and President Donald Trump to underscore his half-cocked thesis:
Trump and Musk deserve whatever is coming, good and hard. But don’t let the schadenfreude of this psychodrama distract you from the fundamental point — America has fallen into a deep pit of corruption.
Did Krugman forget that the internet he claimed in 2005 wouldn’t really amount to anything still exists? Krugman is literally on record calling Biden in 2024 “the best president of my adult life” just months before CNN anchor Jake Tapper released his book confirming what anyone with eyes knew about the corrupt cabal that covered up the former president’s cognitive decline for years.
But now Krugman is supposedly ready to convince everyone he knows what “corruption” smells like, right? In comparing Republicans to Democrats, Krugman actually had the nerve to put in writing that “[y]ou don’t have to love the Democratic Party to recognize that it does, in fact, expel politicians who engage in egregious corruption.” Talk about writing while under the influence! We say this politely to Paul, with tears in our eyes: Gag us with a spoon!
Vazquez didn’t disprove anything Krugman had to say, and he offered no evidence that the Trump administration is not corrupt. Instead, he continued to play whataboutism and calling him a “flailing has-been,” concluding with one more sneer: “Either Krugman’s brain is ‘a-broke’ too like his favorite president or he’s the embodiment of the very smelly ‘corruption’ he’s projecting onto his political opponents. Take your pick.”
Vazquez is not going to discuss the possibility that he’s the one who’s projecting.
Vazquez turned in more KDS in an Aug. 5 post:
Economic dunce-in-chief Paul Krugman knows as much about intellectual consistency as he does about the meaning of “transitory” inflation. His proverbial brain aneurysm to that effect was put on full display during the August 5 edition of PBS’s Amanpour & Company, which also airs on CNN International.
Krugman went on a sanctimonious rant against President Donald Trump over his suggestion that the Bureau of Labor Statistics was rigging jobs numbers under former Biden-appointed commissioner Erika McEntarfer, of which FEC records indicate was a Democrat donor. “This is Banana Republic stuff. This is — I wrote about it, I called it Caracas on the Potomac. It’s — this is the kind of thing we only see in authoritarian regimes,” Krugman cried. Trump fired McEntarfer, after a record of her BLS being extremely wrong on the true state of the jobs market.
“This is — the BLS is the most professional, I mean, as — agency — well, I shouldn’t dis other agencies, but it’s incredibly professional,” pontificated Krugman. Then Krugman went on a tear against Trump for even suggesting the BLS was “cooking the books,” and never mind his own record:
[…]This ignored the fact that the self-aggrandizing economist did that very thing five years ago.
Well, not quite. Krugman did suggest that BLS numbers might have been tampered with for Trump’s benefit during the early days of the COVID pandemic as an election-year stunt — but Vazquez ignores that Trump is effectively complaining that the BLS isn’t cooking the numbers for his benefit now. He also offered no evidence to back up his suggestion that McEntarfer cooked the numbers because she’s a Democrat. Still, he raged that “In effect, Krugman’s self-righteous rant against Trump for questioning the integrity of BLS now is pot-calling-the-kettle-black juiced with steroids.”