Number three on our list almost violates the criteria that I set up in the first piece I wrote for this series. I said then that denizens of the Old Media that are too much a “cartoon of journalism” would not be included on my list. Yet despite my dismissal of such Old Media clowns, in the number three slot on the list you’ll find Paul Krugman of The New York Times.
Given today’s revelations about the JournoList, we now know Krugman either participated in a media conspiracy to get Obama elected or at least witnessed it first hand and did nothing to stop it. Consider this fact merely the latest insight into a man who’s done more consistently left-biased journalism than nearly anyone in America.

Krugman is indeed quite a cartoon of modern liberalism. He is hidebound and far from a new or even a very free thinker. But he makes the list simply because he is not only a Nobel Prize winner but is one of the leading media figures in America today. So, despite that he is not an original thinker and is steeped in liberal orthodoxy, his prominence argues for his inclusion here.
And besides that he is a true liberal loon.
Krugman’s January 17 piece is a perfect example of the nonsense that he tries to pass off as political analysis. In his piece headlined “What Didn’t Happen,” Krugman seriously tried to claim that one of Barack Obama’s biggest failings was that he doesn’t blame Bush enough for his own failings.
Mr. Obama didn’t… shelter himself from criticism with a narrative that placed the blame on previous administrations.
Unfortunately for Krugman, the facts are clear and the facts show that blaming Bush has been a mainstay of nearly every policy speech and press conference Obama has made since he took office if not before.
In March of ‘09, for instance, Washington Post reporter Scott Wilson wrote a piece that noted that, “Obama has reminded the public at every turn that he is facing problems ‘inherited’ from the Bush administration…” In that piece Wilson notes how time and again Obama blamed everything he faced on Bush.
And it didn’t stop in March. In May Obama defended his counterterrorism policies by saying that he was cleaning up a “mess” left by the Bush administration.
In June, even the New York Times was reporting that the main tactic that the Obama administration was using to avoid blame was in “blaming the guy who came before.”
In October Obama claimed that he was using a “mop” to “clean up somebody else’s mess.”
“Another way of putting it is when I’m busy and Nancy (Pelosi) is busy with our mop cleaning up somebody else’s mess–we don’t want somebody saying you’re not holding that mop right. Why don’t you grab a mop? Why don’t you help clean up?”
Later another columnist, this time Mona Charen, noted as late as Dec of 2009 that Obama was still blaming everything on Bush.
So, just what was Krugman talking about? The blame Bush strategy had been preeminent since Obama took office, if not before that. Anyone with a simple Internet search engine can easily track down dozens of examples of Obama’s penchant for blaming Bush for every failing. One can also find members of the Administration following along with their boss with the meme. So, how is it that Krugman had missed it all of this time? Perhaps he’s missed it just like he’s missed that mountain of evidence that discredits his pet economic theories. He just doesn’t want to acknowledge reality.
His skewed vision isn’t just employed to cover for Obama, either. In order to push the liberal perspective, Krugman isn’t above a little dissembling in his work at the New York Times. Back in 2007, for instance, Krugman wrote a piece dismissing as nonsense the worry that Social Security was becoming insolvent.
But the “everyone” who knows that Social Security is doomed doesn’t include anyone who actually understands the numbers. In fact, the whole Beltway obsession with the fiscal burden of an aging population is misguided.
To prove his case, Krugman used the work of Peter Orszag, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, who had at that time released a report titled “Addressing Rising Health Care Costs.” By including Orszag’s report in his discussion on Social Security, he mislead his readers into imagining that Orszag was claiming Soc. Sec. was not in danger. The problem is that Orszag’s report was not about Soc. Sec. at all. It was about Medicaid and Medicare.
As it happens the only folks “played for a sucker” was any of Krugman’s readers who were foolish enough to believe his column.
But you’d better not call Krugman on the carpet for his deceit. He’s already warned one and all that he’ll punch the next guy that calls him out “in the kisser” for being so bold as to disagree with him.
Like all liberals, Krugman is not comfortable with dissent or that whole “free speech” thingie.
Let us hope that Paul Krugman doesn’t meet Brett Barkley at a cocktail party any time soon. Barkley, an economics student at George Mason University, conducted a study of American economists and found that Krugman is the most partisan of them all.
Barkley found that Krugman’s ideas on economics changed with each presidential administration seesawing back and forth depending on who held office. “Krugman has changed his tune in a significant way regarding the budget deficit when the White House has changed party,” Barkley wrote.
Barkley found that on one hand Krugman attacked Republican presidents for not reducing the deficit, yet during Clinton and Obama’s terms Krugman dismissed the importance of deficit reduction.
Krugman is also well known to dismiss any ethics violations that are perpetrated by Democrats. When Charlie Rangel (D-NY) was finding that his multiple ethics violations were giving him trouble in the House of Representatives, Krugman waved his hand and pronounced the violations as having “no national significance.” One wonders if Krugman would be so dismissive if similar ethics violations were perpetrated by a Republican?
And that isn’t the only example of his partisan hypocrisy. Some may remember in 2005 when the media discovered that a conservative radio commentator named Armstong Williams was paid by the Bush Administration to advocate for Bush’s No Child Left Behind legislation. This was seen as a great evil by the left and Krugman wrote disparagingly of it at the time. Yet in 2010 when it was revealed that MIT health care economist Jonathan Gruber had been a paid Obama operative unbeknownst to those using his advocacy for Obamacare as “news,” Krugman found no reason to get as upset over it as he did with Williams.
“The truth is that this is no big deal,” Krugman said dismissively of Gruber’s subterfuge. What was evidence of great corruption for a Bush operative was dismissed as no problem at all in an Obama operative as far as partisan hack Krugman was concerned.
Even though his claim to fame is economics, Krugman is also not above throwing the race card. In 2009, at the height of those angry townhall meetings facing Democrats across the nation resulting from the Obamacare debate, Krugman weighed in with the opinion that anyone that stood against Obamacare was… you guessed it… a racist.
Of those angry townhall participants, Krugman was sure that they were “reacting less to what Mr. Obama is doing, or even to what they’ve heard about what he’s doing, than to who he is.”
Krugman claimed that those against Obamacare were not mad at Obama’s policies, but were instead mad that Obama is a black man. So as far as Krugman was concerned anyone standing against Obamacare is a raaaaaaacist.
There’s so much more that we’d be here for years exploring it all, so I’ll have to close here. Still, even as Krugman is a prosaic thinker prone to boring, left-wing rhetoric and high-strung hyperbole he’s considered a big name on the left. And because of all this, Krugman deserves a spot on the top ten most left-biased American journos.
There’s only two more spots left, so please check back tomorrow for left-biased journalist number two as our series begins to wind down.






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69 Comments
To be fair to Krugman, we are reacting to who he is…a Power-hungry Progressive. That's not to take anything away from Krugman's exceptional douchebaggery.
Did Mr. Huston draw the short straw when Mr. Walsh handed out assignments? What a brutal task. How you will muster up the will to complete this Top 10 is a mystery to me.
And Krugman? I'll refrain.
I have to admit that this one is killing me!! LOL
He writes an opinion column. He's supposed to have an opinion, not be "un-biased" . Just like conservatives who write opinion columns.
“reacting less to what Mr. Obama is doing, or even to what they’ve heard about what he’s doing, than to who he is.”
"Con man" is a race?
One has a right to their opinions, but not their facts. Krugman pushes a lie and people pay for it.
Is it just me or does Krazy Krugman look like he could snap at any moment?
It never ceases to amaze me how liberal men seek to emasculate themselves and simultaneously try to rule us in an aristocratic fashion, it is almost Victorian in its display, minus the need to defend the innocent from the evil. That liberals like Krugman are all for. Who needs Israel anyway? I'm sure my fellow Jews can find a place to live. Where did I put that number for Helen Thomas . . .
Ahem.
Mr. Huston, ALWAYS remember to call him "Nobel Prizewinning Economist Paul Krugman". Proper respect MUST be paid, dontcha know (and don't forget to genuflect while you're at it, buster!)……
That is all.
GrandPa Drifter always said if you can't write anything nice about Mr Krugman, then I've taught you well…
Krugman always galled GrandPa, probably would have made the TopSpot on his list…
If this guy is #3, I'm almost scared about #'s 1 & 2
And his Nobel was a just a $1.8M political thank you for his unrelenting liberalism and using his bully-pulpit by constantly changing his economic views depending on who's in power. The thesis he won his Nobel for was very basic – that having production sources geographically close to one another makes for more efficient production. If anyone submitted that for an econ master's thesis, their this adviser would laugh them out of the room.
The New York Times would be more successful in keeping subscribers/advertisers, if they would make the paper more user friendly. 1. Ink that will not smudge. 2. Toilet paper Failing that, like Obama, for the good of our Country, shut down/resign.
With idiots like Krugman, Bill Press among others, factually it is only a matter of time, around this coming November, and none of them will have one iota of relevancy to the affairs of America. One jerk that is there but cloaked is none other than George Soros.
The mating call of the reactionary leftist herd of independent minds:
BOOOOOSSHHHH!!!!!
BOOOOOSSHHHH!!!!!
BOOOOOSSHHHH!!!!!
The only problemis that it only attracts hairy, patchouli soaked hippy chicks.
He's is alleged to be an "economist", someone who bathes in objective reality.
Kugleman is a partisan hack, with all the integrity of "Pravda" correspondent.
Paula, the bearded lady…….
Nobel Prize Winner….hahahahaha….they will give it to anyone these days.
Seriously, though…Pauly would look a lot less scary, and slightly more sane, if he lost the Mel Gibson beard.
Krugman isn't just Left-biased, he's biased AGAINST REALITY. His Nobel Prize that everyone talks about was in micro-economics (his work was focused on trade), not macro-economics. He has a grave misunderstanding—probably more like an intentional blind-spot—for the way large-scale economies function. His preferred method is to channel everything through the state, with top-down controls over every sector. In other words, he thinks Greece is a great example of a flourishing modern economy. Everything he says in the realm of economics is geared toward centralizing state power; societal benefit is a secondary concern, if it's even a concern at all.
He's a boob, and he's been wrong about so many things that it makes no sense for him to be the "go-to economics guy" on the Left. There are plenty of other Left-leaning economists out there. I'd much rather see one of them than this hairy-faced statist every damned Sunday.
He may be #3 on your list,, but on the list I keep—the DORK list—he's numero uno.
lol !! Indeed she is a freak show.
How does Krugwoman find time to write considering she is constantly blowing members of the obama administration. Bug eyed fat gal must look nasty in her cheerleading outfit.
He makes Ken Burns look like an Alaskan fisherman….
Multitasking…….
He got it from the same place Ken Burns got his…..
Allow me to reiterate a previous comment: Krugman writes an opinion column, which means claims of "bias" are invalid. If you plan to use this laughable criteria, perhaps your next blog entry should be titled, "Top Ten Most Right-Biased American Journalists – #1: George Will, The Washington Post."
In the picture he's showing everybody how to make shadow animals.
Hypocrite.
Douche.
A*hole.
Narcissist.
Pelosi stalker.
Nose picker.
Reformed bed wetter.
Founder: Barney Frank Fan Club.
Did I miss anything?
Krugman is quite insane, you do know that. Here we are, trillions of dollars in debt and his solution to our problems is to spend even MORE money. He kind of reminds me of a man addicted to gambling who's losing his shirt in Las Vegas and he thinks "If I make just one more bet, I'll work my way out of this hole." And remember, he wants to do this with other people's money, your money. I don't think he needed a Nobel Prize. No. He needed a lifetime membership to Gamblers Anonymous.
Today Andrew Not So Breitbart joined Jayson Blair, Dan Rather and Helen Thomas in the ranks of journalism infamy. It's great!!
Evidently, a desire for liberty, and aversion to heaping crippling debt-slavery to our future generations (of all colors)….is racism…Give that man another Nobel prize!
Paul Krugman is a shill for the DNC and has no objectivity what so ever in his writtings.
I don't know why anyone reads Krugman's work, the guy is a Democratic Shill the fact that he is on this list doesn't surprise me one bit. I don't know how anyone can defend this buffoon.
Krugman is the perfect display of what marijuana does to your brain. I'm sure he still smokes it. And his face is the poster child for those who shouldn't grow facial hair. This guy is a total, total elitist and moron. Darwin is turning in his grave.
No, no, no. The Leftards are pointed out because they hate America. Right wing journalism is actually factually correct and not anti-American. Face it, Krugman is the poster boy for GENERATION ZERO.
Paul Krugman: "Economist" (HeKindaMissed) and Urinalist extraordinaire. Ellsworth Toohey would be proud…
I'm pretty sure Krugman is now alone in the world in calling for more spending. To the bitter end.
The Chinese laughed at Obama's economic plan last year when they laughed Geithner off the Stage in Beijing in 2009. And, quickly followed by the Tea Party, Europe, G-20, IMF and the Russians chimed in last month against big deficit spending and even calling for a gold backed world currency away from the dollar.
Ouch. Hang in there Krugman. Yes, there is a place for Keynes and socialism…. the history books.
I know! Damn him and his fancy book learnin', with all those mathematical models and widespread respect from economists across the political spectrum.
Conservative pundits are equally prone to twisting factual evidence in their favor. You can denounce Krugman, but you can't deny that your site isn't objectively credible.
And the TRUTH shall set the liberal leftist journalists imploding!
no, not gonna happen. They were there in the cabinets of the rulers Vladimir Uljanov/Lenin; later they worked well for Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev etc. etc.
Curiously, the surnames of so called journalists working for ‘’Pravda’’/ ''Truth'' (lol), propagandists and community organizers, commissars and economists’’ don’t change much? Why is that? If you were not too lazy to take a look at that, you just might get a bit surprised, almost if they have risen from there to here?
here I am with a mediocre Economics degree…. and I seem to understand more about economics, even though I had not touched the subject for like 30 years, than Paul Krugman who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. What is not clear to me is why this partisan hack and Marxist was awarded anything. There are many professors in economics who have a much sounder understanding of the subject than Krugman the hack.
ahem,
It seems that you do not understand economics. So here is what you need to know:
Microeconomics is about "the firm" it is on the smallest level… you could say that micro economics is about the household, as well as the firm.
Macro economics encompasses things like the world economy, but also the economy of a nation such as the USA and Australia..
In this respect you are wrong to state that he does not understand large-scale economies when that was his area of expertise.
However, Krugman, being a Marxist manages to twist the facts because he refuses to recognize the value of capitalism as opposed to Marxism.
krug is one creepy mf'er
Paul is one of the biggest Liberals yet. I heard that every time he farts, a Liberal is born….
"Conservative pundits are equally prone to twisting factual evidence in their favor."
For example…..?
You're awesome!
No need to insult Pravda!
Obama = empty suit = Soros puppet
Krugman = economic idiot = Left-o-conomist
Al Gore and Obama also got Nobel prizes, so Krugman is in good company
.
He thinks the government is just not spending enough, when the fiat currency Ponzi scheme collapses, he will still be screaming “We just didn’t print and spend enough!”.
Maybe we'd take him more seriously on his opinions if the very thing he won a Nobel Laurete for didn't end up being a sham like Climate Change.
Detroit is the reason he won the Prize. Explain to me that logic.
Having an opinion is one thing but to twist or make up facts to justify his positiion is dishonest. If you ask Krugboy I'll bet he would say that his columns are fact based and not opinion based. He is a hard left hack, simple as that.
And whats that got to do with Kurgman? You sir are a moron.
Give examples. You cannot make blanket statements like that without backup.
Paul Krugman's only role in life is to provide an intellectual fig leaf to power-hungry, incontinent, Leftist politicians.
This ruling class needs a high-minded reason for spending our grandkids' future in order to buy votes by showering goodies upon the greedy, something-for-nothing lazy bums, lawyers and union parasites in their voting base.
The perverted version of Keynesian economics, peddled by Krugman, provides such a reason, but soon it will bankrupt America and collapse our currency.
Journolist Members
1. Ezra Klein 2. Dave Weigel 3. Matthew Yglesias 4. David Dayen 5. Spencer Ackerman
6. Jeffrey Toobin 7. Eric Alterman 8. Paul Krugman 9. John Judis 10. Eve Fairbanks
11. Mike Allen 12. Ben Smith 13. Lisa Lerer 14. Joe Klein 15. Brad DeLong
16. Chris Hayes 17. Matt Duss 18. Jonathan Chait 19. Jesse Singal 20. Michael Cohen
21. Isaac Chotiner 22. Katha Pollitt 23. Alyssa Rosenberg 24. Rick Perlstein 25. Alex Rossmiller
26. Ed Kilgore 27. Walter Shapiro 28. Noam Scheiber 29. Michael Tomasky 30. Rich Yesels
31. Tim Fernholz 32. Dana Goldstein 33. Jonathan Cohn 34. Scott Winship
Sources:
(http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/06/25/the-death-of-journolist-does-privacy-end-at-the-edge-of-your-th/)
(http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20086.html)
(http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/06/after-journolist)
(http://hotair.com/archives/2009/03/17/politico-the-secret-liberal-journalist-cabal/)
(http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/kausfiles/archive/2009/03/26/journolist-revealed-inside-the-liberal-media-email-cabal.aspx)
(http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2009/03/who-doesnt-love-the-journolist.html)
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2010/jun/25/usa)
(http://www.frumforum.com/the-inside-scoop-on-journolist)
(http://twitter.com/TimFernholz)
(http://twitter.com/DanaGoldstein)
(http://www.talkleft.com/story/2009/9/22/142845/064?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime+%28TalkLeft%3A+The+Politics+of+Crime%29)
(http://www.frumforum.com/responding-to-john-hawkins)
Krugman does anyone give any serious credibility to this vile despicable worm? He was almost a man did not quite make it.
My guess is constipation.
I think I'll continue to call him douche bag.
I've read about 3 books on the subject and I know I know more than he does.
I'm guessing Chris Matthews if he wasn't already named. Other spot? Bill Moyers or Dan Rather.
My daughter got one the other day from her box of Fruit Loops.
Nope, I think you've covered it pretty good.
You do understand the difference between running a web site and being paid to be objective, right?
While Krugman is certainly biased, he deserved his Nobel. Greg Mankiw, a top econ adviser to Bush and possibly a future receipient himself, agreed Krugman was worthy and claimed there was no evidence that the economic Nobel has been politicized . He won the John Bates Clark award for best economist under 40 well before he was known for his politics.
He deserves his place on this list. But he also deserves his Nobel.
PLEASE STOP CALLING IT MEDIA BIAS. ITS LIBERAL RACISM. iTS A DUAL SYSTEM OF BIGTORY RACIAL AND CLASS.
(A.M.M.O.)Adversarial Munitions on Minority Organizations
Come on. The race issue is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. My friend and I sued the KKK and the NC Dept of Correction. These lawsuits bought down the “most powerful Klan group in America, according to Morris Dees SPLC, and the first promotions for blacks at the Moore County Prison. At that prison, they hung noose, used racial slurs and shot at us on the job. We even appeared on Geraldo. However because blacks had high ranking position in the prison system not one civil rights group or black leader would help us. Furthermore the black press refuse to interview us and would not report the story. The white mainstream press covered the story intensely but edited out all the charges made against the NAACP, the CBC, Jesse Jackson and others who went out of their way to cover it up. We have been blacklisted and to this day, the black community ostracizes us.
Use this link to view part of the Geraldo appearance and also look at NAACP clipping in my photo: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids...
No problem.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti...
Do your own research.
Oh, and he regularly updates a New York Times online blog titled, "Conscience of a Liberal." You can criminalize him as a "hard left hack," but that doesn't change the fact that this entry's author's claims are logically fallible. Krugman's paid to be biased — his profession is leftist economic commentary, and whether he has distorted factual evidence in his political favor is solely a subjective judgment. Therefore, I continue to focus on indisputable truth: He's an opinionmaker and obviously held to standards removed from the journalistic realm. Objectivity is a nonissue when you're business is two cents.
Like hell he is constantly put forward as a journalist and this does nor even mention his savage attack mode and the man is about as truthful as Obama.
I read his work for the humor value. It's great pardoy – shows how crazy the liberal economic ideology is. I mean, really? "the whole Beltway obsession with the fiscal burden of an aging population is misguided" – man, how is he ever taken seriously, with 1-liners like that!
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