Chuck Ross at The Daily Caller reported that leftist New York Times columnist/economist Paul Krugman uncorked some fake news on Twitter out of hurricane-battered Puerto Rico on Saturday. He claimed an outbreak of cholera in the wake of the hurricane and added “Heckuva job, Trumpie.” (For the less informed, this is a wink-wink lefty reference to President George W. Bush praising his FEMA director after Katrina with "Heckuva job, Brownie.")
Six hours later, shortly after the Centers for Disease Control tweeted that there were no cholera cases in Puerto Rico before Hurricane Maria hit and that they anticipated no cholera cases, Krugman withdrew the charge. "Heckuva job, Kruggie"?
But both tweets remained active on Krugman's page. Naturally, as of Monday morning at 10 am, the Fake News was retweeted 14,185 times, and the correction drew only 566 retweets.
CNN’s Oliver Darcy lamented this opened up the Times to “fake news” taunts (as if that would be utterly without precedent):
Why not scrub the tweet and apologize? It's not clear. But given Krugman's stature in society, and the fact that he works at the Times, he should be far more careful about what he posts online. His tweet not only misinformed people, but opened the Times up to criticism. All Sunday I watched as Trump supporters used it to hurl "fake news" slurs at the newspaper. Krugman owes more to his Times colleagues and those who look to him for news and information...
The tweet before the Fake News is a bit entertaining as well. Krugman poses as the opponent of those Republicans spreading lies and willful ignorance:
