Paul Krugman’s Libel Against Conservatives

Left-wing New York Times columnist and economist Paul Krugman is exploiting the tragic shooting in Arizona Saturday, which claimed six lives, including the lives of a federal district court judge and a 9 year-old girl, and which critically wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. In a disgraceful op-ed column today entitled “Climate of Hate,” Krugman pinned the blame for the shooting on the Right.

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Krugman’s discredited spend-and-borrow economics are bad enough. But his attempt to pin the senseless acts of a deranged young man on conservative politicians and political commentators is libelous. It is an obvious attempt to squelch free speech in America by justifing what Krugman has long advocated:

a return of the Fairness Doctrine to the media

In his op-ed piece today, Krugman makes only a fleeting reference to the mental state of the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner. Krugman skips over entirely Loughner’s apparent three-year obsession with Representative Giffords since he first saw her at an event back in 2007 and his alleged plans to target her. Krugman also leaves out Loughner’s alleged drug problem, his rejection by the Army and his suspension from community college for acts that appeared to evidence a severe mental disorder. Instead of acknowledging the fact that deranged assassins are sadly nothing new in American history, Krugman blames “the national climate” today fed by what he calls “eliminationist rhetoric” of “the purveyors of hate” on the Right. He includes in his blameworthy category Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly and Fox News in general. For someone who prides himself on relying upon empirical evidence, Krugman displays his true ideological zealotry with such an unsubstantiated accusation. Where, for example, in Krugman’s column is any acknowledgment that Loughner, whose favorite reading matter included The Communist Manifesto as well as Mein Kampf, was described by a former classmate as “left wing?” More importantly, how do the following quotes from President Barack Obama himself and his supporters on the Left fit in with Krugman’s theory that the “toxic rhetoric” is “coming, overwhelmingly, from the right”?

if they bring a knife to the fight, we’ll bring a gun (President Obama) We’re gonna punish our enemies ( President Obama) My two favorite philosophers are Mao Tse-Tung and Mother Teresa…In 1947, when Mao Zedong was being challenged within his own party on his plan to basically take China over. Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist Chinese held the cities, they had the army, they had the air force, they had everything on their side. And people said, “How can you win? How can you do this? How can you do this, against all of the odds against you?” And Mao Zedong said, you know, “You fight your war, and I’ll fight mine.” (Former Obama Communications Director, Anita Dunn during a high school graduation speech) [W]e prefer to use the power of persuasion, but if that doesn’t work we use the persuasion of power ( Andy Stern, former president of SEIU) Dick Cheney’s heart’s a political football. We ought to rip it out and kick it around and stuff it back in him. ( Ed Schultz, host of “The Ed Show” on MSNBC) Obama’s critics keep blasting him for Chicago-style politics. So, fine.Channel your inner Al Capone and go gangsta against your foes. Let ‘em know that if they aren’t with you, they are against you, and will pay the price. (CNN columnist Roland Martin)

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