Lefty Paul Krugman Urges More Bias, Wants Journalists to Denounce G.O.P Extremism
By Scott Whitlock | July 29, 2011 | 16:11
Liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on Friday denounced the "centrist cop-out" of balance. Krugman specifically singled out the Associated Press for not exclusively blaming the ongoing debt ceiling impasse on the Republican Party.
Complaining about too much fairness, the author derided his journalistic colleagues, "But making nebulous calls for centrism, like writing news reports that always place equal blame on both parties, is a big cop-out — a cop-out that only encourages more bad behavior. The problem with American politics right now is Republican extremism, and if you’re not willing to say that, you’re helping make that problem worse."
In fact, as a July 26 Media Research Center report found, journalists have not made an effort to be "centrist." The MRC found that 66 percent of network stories mainly blamed the Republicans for the debt ceiling impasse. Only 20 percent found the Democrats at fault.
Krugman began by flatly denouncing the House GOP for having "taken America hostage, threatening to undermine the economy and disrupt the essential business of government unless they get policy concessions they would never have been able to enact through legislation."
In fact, Krugman even blamed his journalists and their "cult of balance" for bringing America to the "edge of disaster":
The cult of balance has played an important role in bringing us to the edge of disaster. For when reporting on political disputes always implies that both sides are to blame, there is no penalty for extremism. Voters won’t punish you for outrageous behavior if all they ever hear is that both sides are at fault.
Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. As you may know, President Obama initially tried to strike a “Grand Bargain” with Republicans over taxes and spending. To do so, he not only chose not to make an issue of G.O.P. extortion, he offered extraordinary concessions on Democratic priorities: an increase in the age of Medicare eligibility, sharp spending cuts and only small revenue increases. As The Times’s Nate Silver pointed out, Mr. Obama effectively staked out a position that was not only far to the right of the average voter’s preferences, it was if anything a bit to the right of the average Republican voter’s preferences.
But Republicans rejected the deal. So what was the headline on an Associated Press analysis of that breakdown in negotiations? “Obama, Republicans Trapped by Inflexible Rhetoric.” A Democratic president who bends over backward to accommodate the other side — or, if you prefer, who leans so far to the right that he’s in danger of falling over — is treated as being just the same as his utterly intransigent opponents. Balance!
For more, see a previous NewsBusters post.
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Comments
Check your meds
Submitted by expatriot on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 4:29pm.
Paul,
Check your meds man. You are delusional and totally out of touch with what is going on in the country right now. I know that living in NYC gives you a skewed view of the world but you are waaaaaay out of touch now. Go see your Doc and get the updated meds that you need.
Only a brainless idiot like Krugman would consider spending...
Submitted by Dave. on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 4:37pm.
...within our means as being 'extremist.'
-Dave
According to the Left's constant whining.......
Submitted by GregE on Sat, 07/30/2011 - 12:06am.
.......these are right wing extremists.
http://www.stufffundieslike.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/founding-fath...
I'm not making it up. Liberal talking points and wants for the federal welfare state and labeling of Constitutionalists as "right wing extremists" say it loud and clear.
And this is an extremist document to the Left.
http://ww2.ramapo.edu/emplibrary/ADP/CHP_constitution1.jpg
Those who wrote the Constitution can safely be labeled Constitutionalists, I would think. I'm pretty sure they felt that the Constitution should be a document to which the federal government should adhere. Otherwise, it was useless to write it. A Constitutionalist today is not an extremist, or if he is, then so were the Founders. Which is it? If that document is still the document in use today - and it is - with its amendments since the days of it's original writing, then why would today's Constitutionalist be an extremist due to that?
How did we EVER get to that point?? Can someone please explain what is right wing extreme about wanting the federal government to honor the contract that is the US Constitution? Isn't it the foundation from which all federal laws originated, and to which all federal laws must adhere? Our federal government adhering to the Constitution should be "normal" and expected, and expecting that government to be bound by the limits of that Constitution should not be an "extremist" position.
Has Progressivism moved the scale so far to the Left, that even our US Constitution is now considered out of the mainstream, and an extremist document to be shunned?
GregE
Submitted by Dave. on Sat, 07/30/2011 - 2:30am.
Sunk far, we have.
And I know exactly why.
-Dave
Mob rule
Submitted by Slyrr on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 4:40pm.
Get ready folks. This is just a warm-up act. As the 2012 elections get closer, the 'mainstream' media is going to start sounding more and more like Bill Mahar and the crazed guests on his show, saying they 'wish Republicans were (bleep)ing dead!'
The media knows their necks are in a noose now. They whored themselves, and sold their souls (such as they were) to the Democrat Devil for a mess of pottage, grunted straight out of Obama's backside. By pimping Obama overtly, they have welded their very lives to his success or failure. And Obama is failing spectacularly. So the media will slit their throats rather than admit they were wrong. Or rather, they will slit the throats of the people.
Soon, we'll probably start hearing so-called 'mainstream' reporters on NBC, CBS, et. al., calling for Republicans to be killed 'for the good of the country'. Mark my words - Democrats cannot get away with this kind of rhetoric before they cause more deaths. When they keep saying stuff like 'it's them or us', or 'they'll starve your kids', or 'they'll kill old people' or 'they're terrorists', they are deliberately provoking their viewers to anger and issuing a call for them to act.
And sooner or later, they're going to crank up the volume to loud, and someone ELSE is going to get shot. Sooner or later, their equally-crazed viewers are going to hear the message once too often and too loud: 'Republicans are coming to kill you!' and they're going to grab a gun or the nearest handy weapon, and they're going to go after anyone they know is a Republican, and they're going to try and kill them. And when they're being dragged off to jail, they'll be screaming, 'It's them or us! They were coming to kill me! I was only defending myself!'
And you know what will happen after that. The media will do their usual two-step. They'll say 'We never actually CALLED for voilence!'. But by the end of their non-apology broadcast, they'll be making excuses for whoever they drove to murder. 'When you consider that Republicans are terrorists, can you really BLAME Democrat X for what he did?' And by the next day, they'll be calling for more violence.
I urge any and everyone to turn off any media you watch. They are using fear and intimidation. And any decision borne of fear can only lead to disaster.
The left wants to silence opposition
Submitted by Dave81 on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 4:43pm.
Look at how giddy all the MSM got over this whole Rupert Murdoch fiasco, HOPING that FOX News would get shut down. And just a few days ago Martin Bashir in so many words told House Republicans to "Go the F*** to Sleep" and let the Dems take care the debt.
They can't stand anyone out there with an opinion different than their's. And if they run across one they don't engage in debate or dialog, they attack, defame, or try to shut them down. Amazing how much the press doesn't believe in freedom of the press.
Krugman is hopped up on meth.
Submitted by rbosque on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 4:55pm.
Krugman is hopped up on meth.
Crazy as a loon!!!
Submitted by killa37 on Sat, 07/30/2011 - 1:57am.
Crazy as a loon!!!
Liberalism has been exposed as a total, demonstrable failure
Submitted by lsudolemite on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 5:28pm.
What you're seeing from the likes of Krugman isn't simply a reflection of their biases, but the unraveling of an entire worldview, the refutation of everything they have always believed to be true. What was once an abstract, academic debate over political philosophy and ideals has now been made horrifically real and concrete. Liberals have been mugged by reality in spectacular fashion.
There is no more money to borrow. There is no more to print without rendering the dollar less valuable than the paper it's printed on. It is mathematically impossible for the economy to grow enough to service the debt. And there is no political will to radically change course to the extent necessary. The guvmint gravy train has ground to a halt, if not on August 2, then within the next decade. We're living through history, folks. We're witnessing the destruction of a social and fiscal policy that has existed since the New Deal, a Soviet-style collapse under our own weight.
The life's work of Krugman and liberals in general has been revealed as a failed lie. The anger of that realization is not easily dispelled. Nor is the anger of half the population who are dependent on Uncle Sam for their daily needs. Times are about to become very, very ugly in this country. We're not on the road to becoming Greece; we are Greece.
While I would argue it's a
Submitted by Jer on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 5:41pm.
While I would argue it's a bit premature to be publishing Liberalism's obituary, nevertheless that's a powerful and eloquent little essay you've posted. Well done.
Jer
You are quite right, Jer
Submitted by lsudolemite on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 6:47pm.
Like the poor, liberalism will always be with us. The stated goals of collectivism stem from the more noble aspects of human nature. Its practice as a governing philosophy, however, reveals the most ignoble ones.
Liberalism
Submitted by GregE on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 11:17pm.
will take us over the edge, one day. Not today, not tomorrow, but when we go over, liberalism and progressivism will have taken us there. Spending into oblivion isn't sustainable, period. People only have 100% of their money, and well before the government requires all 100% of it, that government will have created national implosion, reducing the nation to 3rd world. Who knows when that would be. 10 years from now, or 500, but if left to continue, it will happen.
Liberalism will not have an obituary, but the nations that succumb to it will.
us over the edge
Submitted by Boudin on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 11:32pm.
And with it will go the Free Society.
Folks bitch about being slaves, but yet will volunteer it?
us over the edge
Submitted by Boudin on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 11:33pm.
And with it will go the Free Society.
Folks bitch about being slaves, but yet will volunteer it?
I repeat myself
Submitted by Boudin on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 11:42pm.
When I am distressed
One small step...
Submitted by Bill Brasky on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 6:05pm.
Would be to take Krugman outside and beat him with a shovel. What a worthless piece of shit.
Carmen Ghia strikes again
Submitted by Redrowan2000 on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 6:16pm.
http://www.aveleyman.com/ActorCredit.aspx?ActorID=30667
Follow the link--I think Carmen knows more about debt ceilings than this idiot
"Don't let the bastards grind you down."
→ Krugman knew
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 6:18pm.
Krugman knew his economic model was foolishness, but he also knew there is no other avenue from which a Nobel Prize could be garnered.
The rest of his life will be spent explaining how the crossing of one "t" spelled doom for American Socialism.
I've grown weary of entitlement-minded gluttons demanding more. We've all seen the mentally challenged and the handicapped show up for work every day, doing what they know . . . what they can do.
Show me an out-of-work accountant who won't take that job down the street at the convenience store, and I want to puke!
Oh God, let me always be mindful of my duty to provide for my family.
Every picture of Krugman makes him look like...
Submitted by drsamherman on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 7:24pm.
...a child caught in a very naughty act and trying to lie his way out of it.
He is the third strike and out for the Nobels....Algore, O'bat-ears and Krugman. He is to economic science what that infamous irreproducible cold fusion experiment was to physics.
Damn Paul
Submitted by donabernathy on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 10:36pm.
Mix'n Crank in the crack pipe again....huh
roflmao
Krugman
Submitted by GregE on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 11:10pm.
needs to let his beard grow out bushy like his brother's.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.historyguide.org/images/m...
A guy named Arnold worked for
Submitted by jdhawk on Sat, 07/30/2011 - 4:37am.
A guy named Arnold worked for the city of Pritchard, AL for 42 years. He expected a pension when he retired. He's getting zip, nada, zilch.The city is broke and retirees are working as security guards, hamburger flippers, and Wal Mart greeters to make ends meet in their senior years.
The above is just a taste of what is going to happen to this country as we spend our way to Greece.
So, Krugman, STFU.
Of course, we so-called Americans could rise up and denounce...
Submitted by Dave. on Sat, 07/30/2011 - 4:45am.
...communism.
Nahh, as most Americans today are too f'ing stoopid to even know what communism is.
-Dave
Theproblem with American
Submitted by jessieH on Sat, 07/30/2011 - 10:08am.
Theproblem with American politics is liberal journalists reporting only what news they want the people to hear. A lot like they did in Germany in the 1940s.
The best description of the corrupt Paul Krugman's character
Submitted by Rush Fan on Sat, 07/30/2011 - 3:46pm.
came recently from Donald Luskin, Chief Investment Officer for Trend Macrolytics LLC, and a frequent guest on CNBC's Kudlow & Company.
Mr. Luskin is co-author of I Am John Galt: Today's Heroic Innovators Building the World and the Villainous Parasites Destroying It. Paul Krugman is one of the villainous parasites described in the book.
Donald Luskinn spoke a few weeks ago about his book at FreedomFest 2011. It was televised on CSPAN. Here is the VIDEO. The description of Krugman as a "scheming dwarf", among other on-the-mark characterizations, begins on the video at 42:22.
Here is an Amazon.com VIDEO of Luskin briefly describing his book and villians like Krugman and Barney Frank.
This is a repost that I had originally posted elsewhere.
Stupid Me!!!!
Submitted by Cho Yi Fan on Sat, 07/30/2011 - 4:15pm.
"The problem with American politics right now is Republican extremism, and if you’re not willing to say that, you’re helping make that problem worse."
Stupid me. I though that problem with American politics right now was liberals taxing and spending every last tax dollar that we as a nation can bring in? But then the Democrats would call me a radical because I want a balanced budget. I believe that inmates really have taken over the asylum.
Krugman should be censored
Submitted by needle on Sat, 07/30/2011 - 8:01pm.
The record spending of the last 30 months is not enough for the Liberal Left’s star cheerleader for wildly irresponsible spending of the future generations wherewithal, which is the reason we are now confronted with funding crisis prompting the call to raise the debt ceiling. Oh no, loudmouth Krugman wants to control the perception of the truth.
Krugman actually has some substantial responsibility the mess we are in. It is he who should be muzzled.
- Looking forward to the self-annihilation of the Manipulated Stories Machine.
A guy named Arnold worked for
Submitted by bagtree on Thu, 03/29/2012 - 5:42am.
A guy named Arnold worked for the city of Pritchard, AL for 42 years. He expected a pension when he retired. He's getting zip, nada, zilch.The city is broke and retirees are working as security guards, hamburger flippers, and Wal Mart greeters to make ends meet in their senior years.
The above is just a taste of what is going to happen to this country as we spend our way to Greece.
So, Krugman, STFU.
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