George Will on Sunday exposed New York Times columnist Paul Krugman as a hypocrite when it comes to political ads.
ABC’s Christiane Amanpour opened the Roundtable segment of “This Week” with a discussion about some of the Tea Party candidates and the campaign commercials they’re running.
After Delaware Republican senatorial candidate Christine O’Donnell’s “I’m Not A Witch” ad was shown, Krugman and PBS’s Tavis Smiley typically bashed her and other Tea Partiers on the ballot.
Moments later, Will marvelously pointed out, “There are five freshmen Democratic congressmen -- that is, the people who came to Congress in January 2009 -- who are running ads claiming that they voted against TARP, which was voted on months before they came to Congress.”
Krugman’s response was nothing less than preposterous (video follows with transcript and commentary):
PAUL KRUGMAN, NEW YORK TIMES: The Tea Partiers may be helping the GOP, probably will be in this election. They might help in the next election. However, they make the GOP even less able to actually function as a governing party. If we have a Republican Party that actually takes the White House, actually has control of Congress, but contains a large (inaudible) of these people, it's going to be incapable of making real choices. These are people who are -- who are as irrational as they seem in these ads.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: George?
GEORGE WILL: I don't think they're irrational at all. I don't think that the Tea Party is doing anything other than asserting something deep in the national political DNA, that is, a suspicion of the central government and a belief in limited government. And by the way, while we're on the subject of ads, in the interest of being fair and balanced, let's notice five interesting Democratic ads. There's a group called -- what's it called -- FactCheck.org, that checks the truthfulness of these ads. There are five freshmen Democratic congressmen -- that is, the people who came to Congress in January 2009 -- who are running ads claiming that they voted against TARP, which was voted on months before they came to Congress.
AMANPOUR: Fair point?
KRUGMAN: That's not -- that's not the same. I mean, what -- we have -- and there are going to be bad ads -- but this is -- no, there are some seriously strange people running thanks to the Tea Party.
That’s not the same? People lying in campaign ads is acceptable?
Tells you a lot about how Krugman thinks, doesn’t it?
He’s all worried about some of the so-called kooky things being said in campaign commercials by folks on the other side of the aisle from him, but sitting members of Congress lying about votes they took in Congress is no big deal.
Is there any better reflection of the seriousness of liberal media bias in our country at this stage in history than a Nobel Prize-winning columnist for the New York Times practically yawning on television when it’s revealed that five freshman Democrat members of Congress lied about their voting records in campaign ads?
