Krugman's Hypocrisy: GOP Should Be Shunned for Comparing Dems to Hitler, but Rush = Stalin?

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There’s liberal hypocrisy on the part of New York Times economics columnist and left-wing blog-follower Paul Krugman in his Monday nytimes.com blog post, "Proposed extensions of Godwin’s Law."

Leading into a discussion of how he thinks people should discuss inflation and interest rates, Krugman said:

Godwin’s Law -- which says that in any sufficiently long online discussion, someone will compare his opponent to Hitler -- is often interpreted to mean that if you do, in fact, start making Nazi comparisons, you’ve lost the argument and can no longer be taken seriously. I’m all for that. (Does this mean that we should no longer take any significant figure in the Republican Party seriously? Yes, it does.)

Not only is that way overstated (Krugman provides no actual examples), it's also pretty bold, given that Krugman takes seriously and often utilizes ideas from left-wing blog sites like Daily Kos, where comparing President George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler was pretty much the password for entry.

And such concern for civil debate didn’t stop Krugman from comparing conservative host Rush Limbaugh to Communist dictator Joseph Stalin in an April 13 column:

Speaking of Mr. Limbaugh: the most impressive thing about his role right now is the fealty he is able to demand from the rest of the right. The abject apologies he has extracted from Republican politicians who briefly dared to criticize him have been right out of Stalinist show trials.