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Chronicle of the Conspiracy
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Friday, August 13, 2004
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Pretty generous of him in an election year, wouldn't you say? Not really, because there was one thing I didn't mention.
Sperling didn't say those things last week, when it was announced that the US economy added 32,000 payroll jobs including 10,000 in the manufacturing sector, with last quarter's real GDP growth running at 3.0%. No, his optimistic statement was made in The Washington Post eight years ago, on May 4, 1996, back when he was a White House economic advisor to the Clinton administration.
He made that statement right after it was announced that only 2,000 jobs were created in the economy the previous month, with 17,000 jobs lost in the manufacturing sector. And the previous quarter, real GDP growth had been running at only 2.85%, a fall from the previous quarter's rate.
Sperling was optimistic then, when the news was tangibly worse than it is now. What is Sperling saying now, when the news is tangibly better? For some reason he's not quite so optimistic when the other team occupies the White House. Last week he told CNBC, "This is bad news for American workers. These are very disappointing, very anemic job numbers, not only are we not turning the corner on jobs, it is not even clear we are headed in the right direction."
This is just one of dozens of examples of the hypocritical and dishonest ways the Kerry campaign is trash-talking the economy. Consider some things Kerry himself said about the economy in his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention. For example, he claimed "here at home, wages are falling."
That's a lie. According to official numbers from the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, average hourly earnings have risen 2.1% after adjustment for inflation since George W. Bush took office. Over the comparable period in President Clinton's first term they rose only four tenths of one percent.
In the same speech Kerry claimed that the new jobs that have been created during Bush's first term "pay $9,000 less than the jobs that have been lost."
That's a lie, too. Any honest economist could have told Kerry that statistics of detailed enough to prove such a specific claim simply don't exist. So instead, Kerry relied on dishonest economists -- a liberal big labor-backed think tank, the Economic Policy Institute. EPI's number is based on nothing better than Bureau of Labor statistics data on changing employment levels in broad industry groups -- statistics which say absolutely nothing about the relative value of jobs gained and lost. That $9,000 number might just as well have been pulled out of the air.
On the other hand, the non-partisan Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania obtained better data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that breaks down job gains and losses by specific occupations, not just broad industry groups. This data shows "strong growth in higher-paying employment categories over the past year -- more than 1.1 million gained -- and stagnation in lower-paying job categories." But of course we don't hear Kerry quoting that research.
Let's get real. Sure it would nice have the unemployment rate back down to 3.8%, where it briefly stood for one manic month four years ago at about the same time that the NASDAQ was at 5,000. But today, at 5.5%, the unemployment rate better than the average rate for more than half a century, and it's exactly where it was at the comparable point in the halcyon days of the "Clinton prosperity" that the Democrats never stop waxing nostalgic about.
And in terms of overall economic growth, you don't have to be nostalgic. These are the good old days. Gross domestic product adjusted for inflation has grown over the last twelve months at a faster clip than during any twelve months during Clinton's eight years in office.
And if this economy is so bad, then just what is John Kerry going to do to fix it? Well, we know he's going to raise taxes on those he calls "America’s wealthiest people." In case you don't know how to read the code, he's talking about you. It always does.
But those tax revenues won't be used to fix an economy that isn't broken in the first place. No, it all goes to the laundry list of big-government spending programs that Kerry has committed himself to
That's why, when asked by BusinessWeek how Kerry could afford all his new spending proposals at the same time as he promises he would reduce the federal deficit, Kerry advisor Robert Rubin -- Treasury secretary under Clinton -- said,
"I don't think you can make proposals...until you've gotten elected and until you've organized effectively across both parties and both houses. If you start to put out proposals now, they would be vigorously attacked, and they would in effect become tainted so they couldn't be used."
That's Kerrynomics, folks. Trash-talk the economy today. Conceal what you're going to do to the economy if you're elected.
Clinton said, "It's the economy, stupid." But just how stupid does John Kerry think the voters are?
Posted by Donald Luskin at 12:54 AM | link
Thursday, August 12, 2004
KERRY ENCOUNTERS OF THE WORST KIND From our correspondent in southern Oregon -- James Crystal attends a Kerry stump speech.I paid special attention to his consort, 'er wife, as he gave his stumped speech. It was a very hot day, in a very small town, in a very insignificant state, Oregon, and it was obvious. The first thing that I could not help but remember was the shouting match Drudge says the Kerry's had. The contrast with Laura Bush instantly comes to mind. Can you imagine such a thing happening? NEIN! Mrs. Kerry had on sunglasses. Not the 'normal' kind, but the 'rich-man' kind, which were darker on top, or bottom; I can't remember which. Again, can you picture Mrs. Bush HIDING behind dark glasses? Unthinkable.Here's a most telling sign, possibly, that they know it's all over. With a very long 81 days of campaigning left, for the wife to already be wilting is bad news. Teresa must be feeling like I did when I was drafted and knew I had over a 1,000 days of 'slavery' in the army ahead! Want proof?
As un-sir John wound down, whenever his missus was caught by the TV camera, she was looking at her---fingernails! At the end, they were in her mouth, like a baby sucking a nipple! Let me say she is TOAST!
Posted by Donald Luskin at 10:40 PM | link
THE RHETORIC OF SLANDER Bill O'Reilly, speaking to Paul Krugman face-to-face on Tim Russert's CNBC show:
O'REILLY: Don't call me a liar, pal. That's what you do all the time, and I'm not going to sit here and take it.
Paul Krugman, speaking about Bill O'Reilly from the safety of an interview with Liberal Oasis:
LO: What did you learn from that experience?
PK: What I learned is how hard it is to argue with a pathological liar.
Thanks to reader Jill Olson for catching this.
Posted by Donald Luskin at 8:05 PM | link
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
JOKE OF THE DAYPosted by Donald Luskin at 3:01 PM | link
IS THAT GUNMAN TAX DEDUCTIBLE? The New York Observer reports that "gunmen" are now a standard line item on New York Times electronic expense account forms:
"Gunmen" appears in the program...just before "Internet" and "Laundry." And it occurs just after "Fixers"...Thanks to reader Caroline Baum for the link.
Posted by Donald Luskin at 2:44 PM | link
SIC THE REGULATORS ON THE TIMES A law student has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission against the New York Times alleging consumer fraud -- that "all the news that's fit to print" isn't news and isn't fit to print.
He accused the NYT of using "push-polling" to obtain results that support a particular position or affect public opinion with the wording of the questions. Stein claimed that the paper has been "weighting" poll numbers so that the results slant in favor of liberals and Democrats. He said that multipliers are applied to the samples that unfairly skew the outcome, consistently giving Democratic responses more weight, and Republicans less weight.Thanks to reader Jill Olson for the link.
Posted by Donald Luskin at 2:40 PM | link
LAFFER WAS RIGHT An outstanding Bruce Bartlett column, pointing out that all European countries produce far less per capita than the United States -- principally because Europeans tend to work less. And why do they work less? Because they are taxed more. In those cases where they are taxed like Americans, they work like Americans. Thanks to reader Noel Sheppard for the link.
Posted by Donald Luskin at 2:26 PM | link
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On January 27, 2003 -- before the war -- weapons inspector Hans Blix testimony to the United Nations Security Council contained the following passage:
"Allow information through credible interviews
"In the past, much valuable information came from interviews. There were also cases in which the interviewee was clearly intimidated by the presence of and interruption by Iraqi officials. This was the background of resolution 1441’s provision for a right for UNMOVIC and the IAEA to hold private interviews “in the mode or location” of our choice, in Baghdad or even abroad.
"To date, 11 individuals were asked for interviews in Baghdad by us. The replies have invariably been that the individual will only speak at Iraq’s monitoring directorate or, at any rate, in the presence of an Iraqi official. This could be due to a wish on the part of the invited to have evidence that they have not said anything that the authorities did not wish them to say. At our recent talks in Baghdad, the Iraqi side committed itself to encourage persons to accept interviews “in private”, that is to say alone with us. Despite this, the pattern has not changed. However, we hope that with further encouragement from the authorities, knowledgeable individuals will accept private interviews, in Baghdad or abroad."
This is perfectly consistent with what O'Reilly said Blix said -- it's just that Blix didn't say it on O'Reilly's show. However, on the same date -- January 27, 2003 -- O'Reilly's show covered Blix's testimony and featured an interview guest Tim Trevan, a former UN weapons inspector. Then, as I already reported, on March 15, 2004, O'Reilly had Blix himself as a guest on his show.
Perhaps O'Reilly confused the two shows with the two weapons inspectors in his mind. Or, hell -- let's look at the worst case. The worst case is that O'Reilly was indulging in a bit of bragging by saying that Blix's statement was made on O'Reilly's show rather than the floor of the United Nations. The overriding fact remains that Blix did say just what O'Reilly said he said -- that UN inspectors were not getting unencumbered interview access with key WMD witnesses.
When Krugman raised this issue on Dennis Miller's show last night, he totally skipped over the substance of what O'Reilly said Blix said, and whether O'Reilly was correct about that. Krugman quoted O'Reilly as saying "'I had Hans Blix on the show before the war, and he told me blah-blah-blah-blah." Well -- all that stuff that Krugman brushes under the rug by paraphrasing it as "blah-blah-blah-blah" was absolutely correct. Is it important whether O'Reilly was incorrect about the venue in which " blah-blah-blah-blah" was said? Not very.
Compare this to Krugman's out-and-out lie about having never said that Bush's tax cuts would be disastrous for the economy. Recall this passage from the Krugman/O'Reilly debate on Russert's show:
O'Reilly: Column after column after column. You made the point, in your book, okay, that these cuts, these tax cuts were going to be disastrous for the economy.
Krugman: Nope!
O'Reilly: They haven’t been.
Krugman: Uh, uh, I'm sorry. That's a lie. Let me just say, that's a lie.
How easily Krugman libels his enemies by calling them liars (and even stalkers). So let's look at the record. Consider the dozens of statements by Krugman about disasters, catastrophes, train wrecks, banana republics, and so on -- all from the tax cuts. But a few samples. 30 seconds with Google and you can find many more for yourself.
- New York Times, March 11, 2003: "Without the Bush tax cuts, it would have been difficult to cope with the fiscal implications of an aging population. With those tax cuts, the task is simply impossible. The accident — the fiscal train wreck — is already under way."
- New York Times, May 27, 2003: "Yet by pushing through another huge tax cut in the face of record deficits, the administration clearly demonstrates either that it is completely feckless, or that it actually wants a fiscal crisis."
- New York Times, Feb 11, 2003: "The deterioration in the long-run budget outlook is nothing short of catastrophic; at this point a fiscal train wreck appears inevitable once the baby boomers retire in large numbers. Should we be reconsidering those tax cuts?"
- New York Times, May 9, 2003: "The tax cut will be passed, and the budget will plunge even deeper into the red. And one day we'll realize that international investors are treating us like a banana republic..."
It's not important where Hans Blix made his statement -- to the United Nations, or to Bill O'Reilly on his show. But it is terribly important where Krugman made his statements. He made them from the authoritative pages of America's newspaper of record. And then he went on TV and lied about it.
Update... Reader Casey Tompkins writes in with a smart comment:
Alas, I have discovered a way for the Deacon of Disinformation to wiggle out of this one: in none of your quotes does he refer to "disaster," or "disasterous." He can, therefore, claim that his earlier statement is accurate. It's yet another case of "what 'is' is."Okay, Casey, how about this one:
- New York Times, September 2, 2001: "Now reality has started to sink in. Unfortunately, though the new realism may have come soon enough to prevent a disaster on Social Security -- for Mr. Bush's other signature policy proposal was also based on the delusions of a bubble economy -- it has come too late to prevent a disastrous tax cut."
Posted by Donald Luskin at 1:30 PM | link
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
MORE ON THE ARABIC-SPEAKING SPECIAL FORCES UNITS Here's more detail on that silly know-it-all statement Paul Krugman made in his calamitous losing debate with Bill O'Reilly on Tim Russert's CNBC show on Saturday. As I noted earlier, Krugman said:"...we had Arabic-speaking Special Forces hunting for Osama in the mountains of Afghanistan. We pulled them off to go into Iraq. And instead we sent our Special Forces, who are Spanish-speaking, who are trained to go chasing druglords in Colombia, and sent them to Afghanistan because we needed those soldiers for Iraq."
I pointed out before that Arabic isn't even spoken in Afghanistan. Now here's an email from a US Army officer who asked for anonymity:
"As a former member of Task Force Dagger, I can give you the inside scoop on this, although I am limited in what I can say. At the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) was running the operation. 5th Group has the Area of Responsibility of Central Command, which includes Afghanistan and Central Asia. Thus they do have people who speak Arabic, Persian-Farsi and other local languages. At the time it was CENTCOM policy to rotate everyone every 6 months, so in the spring of 2002, 5th Group was rotated out. It was not replaced by a Spanish speaking Group though (which would be 7th Group) but rather by a combination of two other groups. Since until recently they were on a 6 month rotation, 7th group probably was in there sometime (there are only 7 total groups, 5 active 2 Guard). But they did not replace the "Arabic" speakers, who left nearly a year before Iraq anyway.
"I don't think it has ever officially been made public which groups were involved after 5th Group left, so I have omitted that, but you can read about 5th Group in the book The Hunt for bin Laden: Task Force Dagger. I am not otherwise endorsing this book, but it does give the correct timeline."
And here's one from Major Paul Landry, a former US Army noncommissioned officer who worked as a Spanish linguist in Central and South America, who is currently working on the Army's acquisition of computer systems.
"Special Forces teams are assigned an area of the world to become experts on. However, at times we will conduct assignments in other areas of the world. This is not a problem for us because we deploy and operate as a team, not as individuals. If we have a 7 man SF Team working in Afghanistan, we can get by with only one member of the team speaking the local language and still successfully perform our missions. The other team members can perform security, communications, weapons maintenance, or first aid without needing to speak the local language. Also, we're reasonably intelligent people who have all studied foreign languages, so we can be quick to pick up a new language. We are organized, manned and trained to be a flexible and capable work force able to perform a variety of missions worldwide whether we speak the local language or not."
Posted by Donald Luskin at 10:57 PM | link
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What's so strange about Krugman's accusation that O'Reilly lied about having Blix on before the war is that it was Krugman himself who asserted it on Tim Russert's CNBC show. Krugman did so in order to invalidate O'Reilly's citation of Blix as having been mooted by subsequent events. Yes, O'Reilly conceded to Krugman that Blix's statement was made before the war. Here's the passage:
Prof. KRUGMAN: You have an obligation to say, 'We want those inspectors back in,' and guess what? We had the inspectors back in, and we were telling inspectors where to search and they were going. And remember, we went to war when there was an effective inspections regime back in place. We did not have to actually go to war. We were doing--we were--we had Saddam pretty effectively caged...
Mr. O'REILLY: Well, not according to Hans Blix. He came on my program flat out and said, 'They're not letting us interview the scientists,' which was a key.
Prof. KRUGMAN: But...
Mr. O'REILLY: The scientists were the key. One...
Prof. KRUGMAN: ...there was no way for them to be effectively running a WMD program...
Mr. O'REILLY: No, listen, I know--look, I know that you know much more than I do and everyone else, but just let me get a sentence out here. Blix came on the program and said to me flat out, 'They aren't cooperating. We can't interview the scientists, and we can't go where we want to go.' They gave him all kinds of time, Saddam, to stop the nonsense. Seventeen violations of the Gulf War cease-fire, 17. The guy obviously was defiant. All the nations of the world should have come together--France, Germany, Russia, China, the United States--and said, 'You either let Blix do whatever he wants to do, or you're out of there.' If that had happened, Blix would have been allowed, but France and Germany and Russia wouldn't because they were being bribed by Saddam with oil for food. We know that scandal is bubbling. We're gonna get a lot more information on it.
Now if you put the whole thing together, OK, intelligence, intel on very deadly weapons, defiance by Saddam, al-Qaida presence in Iraq, you have to act...
Prof. KRUGMAN: O'Reilly, I need to get in here.
Mr. O'REILLY: Yeah, I know. Zarqawi's been proven was treated after he was wounded in Afghanistan, on the battlefield in Baghdad, then he went up north to Ansar al-Islam, OK, under the protection of Uday Hussein. So you say whatever you want. That's proven.
Prof. KRUGMAN: I--look, you know, there--we can go--I'm gonna wager that Blix--I don't--I don't have the record, but I'm gonna wager Blix told you that a number of months before the war.
Mr. O'REILLY: Yeah, he told me that before the war. That's correct.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Well before the war. Before the...
Mr. O'REILLY: Well, it was a couple of months before.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Before Saddam opened up a lot more under pressure.
Perhaps he was in error to concede the point -- or perhaps it will turn out that Blix did indeed appear on O'Reilly's show before the war, and I just can't prove it at the moment. We'll see. Stay tuned.
By the way, Krugman fans, honestly admitting an error like I just did is something that Krugman simply never does. Think about that for a minute before you flood me with hate mail.
Correction... As originally posted, I incorrectly gave Dennis Miller's name as Dennis Wilson.
Update [8/11/2004]... The facts are in on what really happened with O'Reilly and Blix: check it out here.
Posted by Donald Luskin at 10:30 PM | link
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"I got to tell you one thing. There was a defining moment on there, he was trying to win an argument by saying, 'I had Hans Blix on the show before the war, and he told me blah-blah-blah-blah.' We checked it afterwards. Hans Blix was never on his show before the war. I think that tells you everything you need to know about Bill O'Reilly."
Krugman is lying. Here is a transcript of Blix on O'Reilly's show of March 15, 2003 -- hosted on an anti-O'Reilly web site, yet.
Correction... Be sure to read the important correction in the post just above this one on this page.
Update [8/11/2004]... The facts are in on what really happened with O'Reilly and Blix: check it out here.
Posted by Donald Luskin at 10:03 PM | link
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First, don't let O'Reilly's aggressive style blind you to the reality that he had a lot of powerful arguments and facts at his disposal, and he used them very effectively. Look, don't be disappointed that he can't call Krugman word-for-word on every lie, mistake and contradiction in his hundreds of columns. I don't know anyone other than myself who could do that from memory. Just be impressed, for example, with the powerful and detailed factual case he made for how virtually everyone from Vladimir Putin to Bill Clinton believed there were WMD in Iraq, and how O'Reilly challenged Krugman to claim he would have done a better job than George Bush at seeing the truth. What was Krugman's response? That a columnist for the Washington Post had reported early on that the administration was putting pressure on analysts. Which of the two of them made the better fact-based argument?
Second, I think O'Reilly's occasional bullying in the debate -- shouting, interrupting, finger-pointing, and so on -- served a legitimate purpose: it burst Krugman's bubble of prestige and authoritativeness. As a Princeton professor and New York Times columnist, Krugman uses his credentials to get away with lies, contradictions, errors and innuendos that would not be accepted from a lesser authority. For example, in the show Krugman delivered in that haughty know-it-all manner of his this little gem about how Bush ignored the hunt for al Qaeda in order to invade Iraq:
"...we had Arabic-speaking Special Forces hunting for Osama in the mountains of Afghanistan. We pulled them off to go into Iraq. And instead we sent our Special Forces, who are Spanish-speaking, who are trained to go chasing druglords in Colombia, and sent them to Afghanistan because we needed those soldiers for Iraq."
Who the hell knows where he got this "fact." It hardly matters -- he delivers it with the sublime self-assurance of a tenured college professor who will give you an "F" if you don't agree with him. But as readers Jim Klein and Andrew Morton both pointed out to me in emails yesterday, Arabic isn't even spoken in Afghanistan.
In other words, Krugman is a lying intellectual bully. And how do you fight a bully? You hit back. And that's just what O'Reilly did. How did he hit back? By refusing to give Krugman any respect at all -- by refusing to be "polite" while Krugman lied to him right to his face. By calling a spade a spade. That's not bullying -- that's self-defense.
And how does the intellectual bully react when he gets hit back in the schoolyard? He tattles to the teacher, complaining that the guy who fought back is bullying him. For example, at one point, in discussing their differences in economic philosophy, O'Reilly referred to Krugman as a "quasi-socialist." He didn't do it in a nasty or provocative way. He explained what he meant by it, and I think it was a fair description (I've used a version of it myself) of the philosophy of a man who has admitted to be "an unabashed defender of the welfare state." Certainly far milder than many of the labels Krugman has used on his enemies in his Times columns. Later in the debate Krugman pulled the whining bully's trick -- he lied about what O'Reilly had said about him. Krugman said, "I'm not a socialist" -- dropping the "quasi" as though O'Reilly had never said it -- "You know, that's a slander." Very much like the way he once accused me on national television of having "stalked" him "personally" just because I showed up at one of his book-signings. It's classic stuff -- blame the victim. But this time, the victim refused to be blamed.
Of course Krugman's exaggerated protests of having been hurt when his victims fight back is enough for his die-hard true-believer fans to cling to. Having bought into Krugman's lie-based world-view, they have no choice but to stick with him to the bitter end, no matter what crazy thing he says and no matter how badly he performs in a debate like this one. How nice to be able to alibi Krugman's crappy performance by blaming O'Reilly for bullying him.
Posted by Donald Luskin at 3:05 AM | link
Monday, August 09, 2004
KRUGMAN BECOMES HIS OWN BOOK No, not a great unraveling (but that's true, too). Here Jonathon Lipow argues in the Jerusalem Post that Paul Krugman has become an accidental theorist.Posted by Donald Luskin at 5:40 PM | link
GOEBBELS GOEBBELS GOEBBELS Henry Hanks at Croooow Blog is back with an update on his Krugman versus O'Reilly piece -- and he's got a great new gotcha (you have to scroll to the end of his long posting to read it). Henry wraps up an issue that was a loose-end for me. Good work.
I want to make note of this portion as well:O'Reilly: The war on terror may not have been best served by the Iraq adventure. That’s a legitimate debate. What I object to is the lying charges, the slander and defamation that comes out of the Krugman wing — if you want to call it — of the social landscape. [Krugman shakes his head and smiles.] Don’t give me that! Who are you appearing with today, in your book signing? You're appearing with Stewart Smalley [the Saturday Night Live role played by Franken], the biggest character assassinator in the country.Now, at another point in the debate, Kruggy praises the anti-Fox flick ["Outfoxed"], yet:Krugman: The guy you compared to Goebbels?
Also onscreen were Eric Alterman, David Brock, and Al Franken, who appear in succession attesting to the wicked nature of conservative media. Socialist media advocate and Free Press co-founder Robert McChesney goes a bit further saying, "This is precisely the prescription for what a press system should do according to Goebbels in the Third Reich."Pot, kettle, black.
Posted by Donald Luskin at 1:16 PM | link
MORE ON KRUGMAN V. O'REILLY Henry Hanks at Croooow Blog has some great gotcha's, following up on Paul Krugman's confrontation with Bill O'Reilly on Tim Russert's CNBC show Saturday (transcript here, my comments here).
And here's Robert Musil on the Man Without Qualities blog, discussing whether O'Reilly was the ideal single-combat warrior to go against Krugman. Musil makes the point that O'Reilly is not a canonical conservative like, say, Sean Hannity -- so he doesn't represent a clear antipodal position to Krugman. Musil's right, but that's why I think O'Reilly was able to be so effective. He didn't get trapped in canonical debates bounded by ideological norms. He was able to step outside the debate and start a meta-debate on his own terms, calling into question Krugman's methods more than his actual positions.
Posted by Donald Luskin at 12:29 PM | link
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TIM RUSSERT: Good evening and welcome again. Tonight, two observers and commentators on the American political scene. Both have books that are must-reads for Americans who are interested in public affairs. Paul Krugman, "The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way In The New Century"--he writes his column for The New York Times every Tuesday and Friday. Welcome.
Professor PAUL KRUGMAN ("The Great Unraveling"): Nice to be on.
RUSSERT: And, "Who's Looking Out for You?" by Bill O'Reilly of "The O'Reilly Factor" on FOX News Channel. Welcome.
Mr. BILL O'REILLY (FOX News, "The O'Reilly Factor"): Tim.
RUSSERT: Mr. Krugman, let me start with you. You have a simple premise in your book which says that George Bush is a radical. Why do you use a word like radical to describe the president?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Well, just look at the record, right? This is the first president in American history--in fact, first leader in any history, as far as I can tell--who cut taxes on the rich while fighting a war. This is a--they follow an extremely radical policy agenda. And if you look at the groups behind the administration, look at the think tanks, they make no bones about the fact that they want to roll us back to what we were before Franklin Roosevelt; that they want to get rid of these nasty things like Social Security and Medicare, privatize them. So, you know, this is a highly--this is a radical conservative movement. And just, you know, look at Tom DeLay, the most powerful man in Congress, who is certainly not somebody you'd call a moderate.
RUSSERT: Radical--fair word?
Mr. O'REILLY: You know, I think the Bush administration wants to impose a smaller government on the country. I think they don't trust the government to operate the funds. Obviously Social Security has been looted by the federal government. So, you know, one man's radicalism is another man's practicality. But I'm not here to defend the Bush administration; I want everybody to know that. They can defend themselves, all right? But obviously I don't see them as the harmful, pernicious influence that Mr. Krugman does.
RUSSERT: Why not?
Mr. O'REILLY: Because I believe that Mr. Bush's philosophy is a philosophy that the Republicans have embraced for decades: smaller government; let the private sector drive the economy; let the folks have their money back; let the entrepreneurial class get a tax break, so they'll hire more people. And if you look at The New York Times op-ed on last Wednesday, you'll see George Shultz has a chart that the economy is rebounding after a tremendous blow on 9/11. So that 's the supply side, that's the Republican philosophy. I don't see any deviation from what Ronald Reagan did to George Bush.
RUSSERT: Can't you make the case that tax cuts stimulated the economy?
Prof. KRUGMAN: George Shultz is a good economist and a partisan Republican. He's a good enough economist that he knows how to make a chart that is true but misleading. And what that chart shows you is just rates of change. Doesn't give you any sense of level. And what it's really telling you is that after three terrible years on jobs, we've had one year where the rate of change is OK. But that's like saying, 'Well, we're down 400 feet, and we've now climbed 100 feet, so we're back where we started.' And it's not true.
The fact is--simple comparison--in the 2002 economic report of the president, which they--you know, this is the Bush administration that's put out after 9/11, it's put out after the stock market crash--they said by--you know, on average in 2004, we're going to have 138 million payroll jobs in the United States. The actual number right now is about 131 million, so we're seven million short of where the Bush administration said we were going to be. And they said that after these blows. So it takes a lot of spinning to call that success.
And, you know, think above all--when people say, 'We want less government,' you know, let's talk about what that means. You actually go through the numbers, and the only way you can get a significantly smaller government, the only way you could bring spending in line with the amount of revenue that we've lost from the Bush tax cuts, is to cut deep into Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid 'cause that's where the money is. The federal government--you know, a Bush administration official once said, 'The federal government is, basically, a big insurance company that's got a sideline business in national defense.' And if you're talking about smaller government, let's be clear, that's a euphemism for saying, 'Let's slash Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.'
Mr. O'REILLY: Well, I don't buy that all. And, you know, Mr. Krugman is a smart guy, but Mr. Krugman was absolutely dead 100 percent wrong in his columns two years ago when he predicted the Bush tax cuts would lead to a deeper recession. You can read his book and see how wrong he was.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Actually, you can read it. I never said that.
Mr. O'REILLY: Sure you did...
Prof. KRUGMAN: I said that it would lead to a lousy job creation...
Mr. O'REILLY: ...column after column after column. You made the point, in your book, OK, that these tax cuts were going to be disastrous for the economy.
Prof. KRUGMAN: No.
Mr. O'REILLY: They haven't been.
Prof. KRUGMAN: I'm sorry, that's a lie.
Mr. O'REILLY: It's not a lie.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Let me just say it's a lie. I said they were ineffective at job creation. And if you look at the Bush administration...
Mr. O'REILLY: Hold on, hold on. Hold it. Now 'ineffective at job creation,' what is that? Semantics now?
Prof. KRUGMAN: No, it means that...
Mr. O'REILLY: The economy is based on job creation, and you're saying it's ineffective. Don't call me a liar, pal. That's what you do all the time, and I 'm not going to sit here and take it.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Well--no. I'm sorry. You just did.
Mr. O'REILLY: 'Ineffective'? You can--that's the biggest bunch of spin in the world.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Find a place where I said that they were going to cause a recession.
Mr. O'REILLY: You said--you...
Prof. KRUGMAN: Find a place where I ca--said it.
Mr. O'REILLY: Look, you want to call it ineffective in job creation. What is a recession? A recession is when the GNP...
Prof. KRUGMAN: No.
Mr. O'REILLY: ...goes backward. Everybody knows it's going forward.
Prof. KRUGMAN: I...
Mr. O'REILLY: Pounded column after column: 'Disastrous for the economy,"Tax cuts are disastrous.'
Prof. KRUGMAN: No, I...
Mr. O'REILLY: It hasn't been.
Prof. KRUGMAN: I said the tax cuts were not going to be effective at creating jobs, and the job creation...
Mr. O'REILLY: And you were wrong.
Prof. KRUGMAN: ...record is lousy.
Mr. O'REILLY: In your opinion.
Prof. KRUGMAN: This is the worst...
RUSSERT: There has been a net loss of jobs.
Prof. KRUGMAN: There has been a net loss of jobs.
Mr. O'REILLY: Since when?
RUSSERT: In the Bush administration.
Prof. KRUGMAN: In the Bush administration.
Mr. O'REILLY: Yeah, 9/11 did it. Not happen? Did it not happen?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Again, 2002 economic report of the president, they said we were going to be seven million jobs ahead of where we are now.
Mr. O'REILLY: OK, they were wrong. I'll say, again, I'm not defending them.
Prof. KRUGMAN: They--the job creation over the last 10 months, the 1.5 million...
Mr. O'REILLY: Look...
Prof. KRUGMAN: ...which the Bushies boast about, that is a slower pace of job creation than Clinton had from ninety...
Mr. O'REILLY: We've got a 5.6 percent unemployment rate here. In the state of Florida, which is one of the states that's going to be the election (unintelligible), you got over 60 percent saying the economy is good or excellent. It's a state-by-state situation, all right? And I'm just tired of this stuff.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Well, I'm tired of...
Mr. O'REILLY: Look, if you think it's bad, fine.
Prof. KRUGMAN: You know...
Mr. O'REILLY: And if Bush made a mistake in his estimation of job creation, you're probably right.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Look, let's...
Mr. O'REILLY: But you paint Armageddon; so does your newspaper. And it's baloney.
RUSSERT: All right. We need to stop.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Well, this is what--yeah, OK. This is not your show; you can 't cut my mike. Look, what...
Mr. O'REILLY: Oh, another cheap shot.
Prof. KRUGMAN: No, I--well, it's true.
Mr. O'REILLY: You know, you're a cheap-shot artist, and you know it.
RUSSERT: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on, hold on.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Good man.
RUSSERT: All right. Go ahead, you finish.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Yeah, let's finish this. The--what we were saying--what I said--you know, people can read the book. Actually, what I want to do is sell books. Go ahead, buy the book, paperback edition. The--what I said was this was not the kind of stimulus program that was going to be effective. And if you gave any of my college sophomores the right to run budget deficits as big as what we're now running, any of them could do a whole lot better than this. What we have--look, these days Bush is out on the road boasting of 1.5 million jobs over the last 10 months; that's 150,000 jobs a month. The US economy needs 140,000 jobs a month just to keep up with population growth. So that's just barely gaining ground, and that's after three terrible years. Right now you take a look, you say--the other comparison is under Bill Clinton, the economy for 96 months added an average of more than 230,000 jobs a month. So here we are with Bush with one year, which I admit is not bad--not great, but not bad.
Mr. O'REILLY: Did you predict that year?
Prof. KRUGMAN: After a couple of--no.
Mr. O'REILLY: Did you predict it?
Prof. KRUGMAN: No.
Mr. O'REILLY: OK, fine. There we go.
Prof. KRUGMAN: But compare me with anyone else, and I think my forecasting record is not great. Economists are not 100 percent. But the point is to claim that this thing...
Mr. O'REILLY: Economists are not 100 percent. Does that mean when Bush misanalyzed his job creation...
Prof. KRUGMAN: No.
Mr. O'REILLY: ...maybe you ...(unintelligible).
Prof. KRUGMAN: That job creation number was a guess at what it would--what success would look like.
Mr. O'REILLY: Right. And obviously not 100 percent.
Prof. KRUGMAN: I'm not saying they had to be right, and this doesn't...
RUSSERT: What's the next year's going...
Prof. KRUGMAN: ...look like success.
RUSSERT: ...to look like?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Damned if I do. I mean, to be honest, what it looks like--if you look at the growth rate over the last four quarters, you know, here's where--it's 7.4, 4.2, 4.5, 3.0. So it looks like something that started out great and is going down to sort of "eh.' And my guess is that's what the next year will look like.
RUSSERT: We're going to take a quick break. We're talking to Paul Krugman. His book is in paperback, "The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way In The New Century." Bill O'Reilly's book is still in hard cover, "Who's Looking Out for You?" A lot more right after this.
(Announcements)
RUSSERT: And we're back. Paul Krugman of The New York Times; his book, "The Great Unraveling." Bill O'Reilly of FOX News Channel, "The O'Reilly Factor," "Who's Looking Out for You?"
Bill O'Reilly, what about deficits, the largest in history? Is that a problem for a conservative president?
Mr. O'REILLY: Sure, it's a problem. It's a problem for anybody. And I'm not a big spending kind of guy. I think Bush is pandering to the electorate by a whole bunch of programs. And you know that the No Child Left Behind Act and all the federal money that poured in to try to help the kids, which, you know, everybody wants to help the kids--Right?--states can't spend the money. Most of the states are going to have to give it back to the Treasury because they just can't spend the money. They're not organized enough. They can't get it to the right people. And I am, basically, a guy who says that both parties try to buy votes, and they have ever since FDR. They'll buy your vote by targeting certain segments and saying, 'We're going to create a big government thing to do this for you,' OK? So Bush basically doesn't like that but still does it, and then the deficits rise. But, again, the war on terror is such that we're living in a totally different time than we did in the '90s.
RUSSERT: Mr. Krugman has a theory in his book that there really is a group of Republicans who want to starve the beast, and that is if you drive spending up so high and you cut tax cuts, you'd be left with no choice but to cut...
Prof. KRUGMAN: No, it's not--the driving spending up is not in there. It's just cut taxes, starve the beast; deprive the government of revenue, and then you can say, 'No alternative, we've got to cut...'
Mr. O'REILLY: I don't know how much taxes you want. I mean, that's...
Prof. KRUGMAN: Can we do a number here? I mean, we've got a deficit now which is probably going to be about $440 billion, $450 billion for this year; of that, $270 billion is Bush tax cuts. So when people talk spending, spending, spending, yeah, spending is an issue, but it's--the dominant force in this deficit is, in fact, tax cuts. And...
Mr. O'REILLY: My opinion is without those tax cuts, we'd be in a deep recession right now.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Yeah, but are those permanent tax cuts, right? Why aren't they temporary tax cuts to fight the recession?
Mr. O'REILLY: Good question.
Prof. KRUGMAN: And why are the tax cuts heavily targeted towards the people who are least likely to spend the money, which is people...
Mr. O'REILLY: Well...
Prof. KRUGMAN: ...at the top end of the income distribution.
Mr. O'REILLY: See, I don't believe that at all, and let me give you a personal example. I work my buns off, all right? I'm sure both of you do, too. And I make a lot of money. I like to make--now if they raise taxes on me any more--because I live in the most heavily taxed state in the union, New York, all right? I'm paying taxes like crazy. Every time I turn around, I'm paying more taxes. If they tax me any more, I'm knocking the radio out. I'm not going to do it, all right? Now how many people lose jobs then? Fifty because O'Reilly says, 'Not worth it. I'm not going to...'
Prof. KRUGMAN: Did you stop...
Mr. O'REILLY: You know, it's not worth my--wait a minute. I would give it up. That is the entrepreneurial class. And R&D is the same thing and corporate. You tax the people who are creating jobs and creating opportunities to over a certain point, they say, 'I got enough money. I'm not going to kill myself because right now I'm killing myself. And I'm not going to do it if the feds are in my pocket any more.'
RUSSERT: You think we're undertaxed.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Well, I think, yeah, right now we are. Look, I think Mr. O 'Reilly had a show and did a whole lot of entrepreneurial work during the '90s when we had the Clinton-era tax rates. And nobody is proposing pushing those tax rates higher than they were in 2000. So if you--you've got to make a case that the '90s were a terrible time, when there was no entrepreneurialship, to say that just rolling back some of these recent tax cuts is a bad idea.
Mr. O'REILLY: Do you know...
Prof. KRUGMAN: And... **** RUSSERT: Why do you think we're undertaxed?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Well, because there are certain things we want. We want to make sure that everybody has health insurance. We want to make sure that we can sustain the programs we have, like Medicare and Social Security. And you go through, you do the arithmetic and you discover that, at this point, after all those Bush tax cuts, we are way short. We're probably about 20 to 25 percent short of the revenue that the federal government needs to provide just the programs that middle-class Americans currently count on. So...
RUSSERT: So what do you do?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Well, I think, look, the Bush tax cuts, it turns out they divide quite--because the way they were set up was the big tax cuts were all for very high-income people. And then they threw in middle-class sweeteners, so that they could roll out those tax families. So there's the Child Tax Credit, there's the marriage thing, there's the 10 percent bracket. And it turns out it 's a nice 80/20 split: 80 percent of the tax cut is the stuff that doesn't touch the middle class at all but that only affects at all, really, 20 percent of the population. So what I would do--and this is further than Kerry is willing to go--I would roll back the non-middle-class portions. You can go to taxpolicycenter.org, and they have analyses. And they'll tell you--they now divide everything: middle-class tax cuts vs. non-middle-class tax cuts. I would roll back the non-middle-class tax cuts.
RUSSERT: And what would that do to the job creators in the country?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Well, you know, again, we're getting back only to the tax rates we had in 2000, you know, the tax rates we had all through the '90s. There's no sign--you know, the United States is the lowest-taxed, advanced country by far. Now...
Mr. O'REILLY: Yeah, because we're not a socialist country.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Oh, gosh.
Mr. O'REILLY: And when did the R&D blow and get into the go-go '90s? It happened when Reagan cut taxes, all right...
Prof. KRUGMAN: I love this.
Mr. O'REILLY: And all the corporations started R&D. I don't care whether you believe it or not.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Going to give...
Mr. O'REILLY: You're a quasi-socialist. You want a big government creating jobs. I want the private sector to create jobs.
Prof. KRUGMAN: We're going to give...
Mr. O'REILLY: It's a difference.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Reagan's '81 tax cut--credit for the prosperity in 1999.
Mr. O'REILLY: When do you think all that R&D took place?
Prof. KRUGMAN: So that means that everything good...
Mr. O'REILLY: Back during FDR?
Prof. KRUGMAN: ...that happened under Reagan is Lyndon Johnson's policies.
Mr. O'REILLY: OK. Wait a minute. When did the R&D that led to all of the technological advances take place, sir? When did it take place?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Actually a lot of it in the '90s right at the time...
Mr. O'REILLY: Oh, sure. OK.
RUSSERT: You said the only thing good in Ronald Reagan's administration was Lyndon Johnson's policies?
Prof. KRUGMAN: If you're willing to give Ronald Reagan credit for good things that happened 18 years later, then credit for good things that happened...
Mr. O'REILLY: All right.
Prof. KRUGMAN: ...under Ronald Reagan go to Lyndon Johnson.
Mr. O'REILLY: Call any corporation, any high-tech corporation in Silicon Valley, and just ask them when their R&D ramped up and when the machinery that has led the the United States and the world--when it started getting developed. They will all tell you it happened during the Reagan administration. When corporate taxes were cut, there was more income to devote to that. I mean, look...
Prof. KRUGMAN: Gee, what corporations...
Mr. O'REILLY: ...what Krugman is the government to run the economy. Kerry's going to create 10 million jobs or 30 million, whatever he's going to do. What I want is the private sector to drive the economy. There's a fundamental difference between him, Mr. Entitlement, and me, Mr. Self-Reliance. That's it.
RUSSERT: What about the deficits, though? What would you do about them, and how do you deal with them?
Mr. O'REILLY: What I'd do with them is I would reorganize the entitlements that are the bulk of the deficits, OK, reorganize it. And I believe in privatizing some of the Social Security, medical savings funds, all of those things, educational funds. He wants the government to pay everything. That, in a nation of 300 million, is impossible. Ask any working-class person. They're all in debt. They're all struggling to survive. You want to buy a house? Look at the housing prices, OK? When my father bought a house in Levittown, it was 8 grand after he got out of World War II. This same house is $250,000. They can 't afford to buy a house and pay the property taxes, pay his taxes, pay the state taxes. It's ridiculous. The government has got to shrink. They've got to get smart. They've got to run it like a private business would run it, not Mr. Big Government because they can't keep track of the money. There's no waste management in the money. Corruption is rife. And he wants more tax money to waste. It's outrageous.
RUSSERT: Give him a chance to respond.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Let's talk about this. This is a wonderful thing because you 're talking about this tax burden on middle-class people and...
RUSSERT: I'm going to take a break, Professor. I'm going to take a break.
Prof. KRUGMAN: OK.
RUSSERT: ...and give you a chance to fully respond, OK?
Prof. KRUGMAN: OK.
RUSSERT: Paul Krugman, Bill O'Reilly--a lot more right after this.
(Announcements)
RUSSERT: And we're back. Paul Krugman, you'd like to respond?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Yeah, the bait and switch. What we're talking about--what I was talking about was rolling back the high-end tax cuts, and all of a sudden you're talking about those terrible tax burden on middle-class families who can 't afford a house. Look, the basic fact is the tax cuts we've had, which is the stuff that I want to roll back--I mean, I don't even want to roll back the middle-class tax cuts, which are small change. But the Bush tax cuts--the total amount of tax cuts for people earning more than a million a year, that's 0.13 percent of the population, are larger than the total tax cut for the bottom 60 percent of families, basically everybody earning less than $50,000 a year. So these people that you're saying are suffering under the burden of taxes got nothing from Bush. And it's people like you or me, if I sell more books than I have so far, who are the prime beneficiaries. So, you know, this is the bait and switch. This is not the real story.
And you take a look at anything I've written about economics, and I'm not a socialist. You know, that's a slander.
Mr. O'REILLY: I said quasi.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Well, that's a wonderful--then you're a quasi-murderer. I mean, why--what...
Mr. O'REILLY: I'm a quasi-murderer?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Well, quasi is a pretty open thing.
Mr. O'REILLY: That's ridiculous. All right.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Right. I'm nowhere close to that.
Mr. O'REILLY: I think we defined where we both are on this.
RUSSERT: Yeah. Let me go to Iraq. Mr. Krugman said--you wrote this--'Mr. Bush's war on terror has played with eerie perfection into Osama bin Laden's hands.'
Prof. KRUGMAN: Yeah. We couldn't have done it better, right? We neglected the pursuit of al-Qaida, and we might catch Osama in the next few months, but it 's too late. That organization has now sort of, you know, spread like a cancer through the world. And instead we've diverted--look, there was this moment--we had Arabic-speaking Special Forces hunting for Osama in the mountains of Afghanistan. We pulled them off to go into Iraq. And instead we sent our Special Forces, who are Spanish-speaking, who are trained to go chasing druglords in Colombia, and sent them to Afghanistan because we needed those soldiers for Iraq. Boy, you know, talk about giving them exactly what they wanted.
Mr. O'REILLY: Look, the Iraq War was a big screw-up, all right? I think every clear-thinking person in the country knows it was. First of all, weapons of mass destruction did not materialize, which was the primary motivator for the war. All right? Now Mr. Krugman and his left-wing pals throw around the lie, 'Oh, they lied.' Do you believe Bush lied, by the way, about weapons of mass destruction? You still pumping that drum?
Prof. KRUGMAN: I've never actually said the word 'lie,' I don't think.
Mr. O'REILLY: No. You're clever in your rhetorical vices.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Well, so is Bush. You know, one of the things about his speeches...
Mr. O'REILLY: Wait. Do you believe he lied or not?
Prof. KRUGMAN: I believe he knew what he wanted to hear, and people found a way to tell it to him.
Mr. O'REILLY: All right. So you're not going to call him a liar then.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Not on that.
Mr. O'REILLY: OK. Good. But you're...
RUSSERT: But you did say bait and switch to the war as well.
Prof. KRUGMAN: That's right. No, it was clear that what they wanted from day one after 9/11...
RUSSERT: Clear to whom, by the way?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Bush and the people running it. We have repeated accounts that top administration official and Bush himself immediately said after 9/11, 'Is there a way to tie this to Iraq? Is it Iraq?' And, you know, when the top guys keep on saying, 'I want to hear stuff about Iraq,' isn't that going to put a whole lot of pressure...
Mr. O'REILLY: OK.
Prof. KRUGMAN: ...down the system?
Mr. O'REILLY: Now...
Prof. KRUGMAN: They weren't listening to the real evidence.
Mr. O'REILLY: ...I'm appointing Russert as president of the United States right now, OK? I talked to Tommy Franks the other night, and I said, 'You know, what's this weapons of mass destruction deal?' And he was the general that commanded the war. He said, 'Before we went to war, Egypt and Jordan told me,' Tommy Franks, all right, 'that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. I passed that along to President Bush.' So you're sitting there in the White House, Russert, OK--frightening thought, but you are--and you're getting your top general going, 'I just heard from Egypt and Jordan weapons of mass destruction are there.' Blair's telling you, 'MI6--weapons of mass destruction.' Putin's telling you, 'Russian intelligence--weapons of mass destruction.' Your own CIA chief is telling you, 'Slam dunk weapons of mass destruction,' according to Woodward.
Now the 9-11 Commission harshly criticized Clinton and Bush for not doing enough to get bin Laden. That was one of their main thesis, and I believe that and I think everybody does. So you're told by Jordan, Egypt, Russia, Britain, your own guy, 'Weapons of mass destruction.' You know Zarqawi, a top al-Qaida lieutenant's, sitting in Baghdad because he just had a leg operation, all right? You know that. You know, as the 9-11 Commission pointed out, there's been repeated contacts between al-Qaida and Saddam. You know all this. And you don't move against Saddam? So they did have the WMDs. Say there was an anthrax attack on Krugman's apartment block, OK? You're sitting there, you had all this information, you didn't act. Impeachable offense. He had to act. That's the truth.
Prof. KRUGMAN: No, the truth--look, you're talking all about commissions and governments that were under political pressure, and we have some independent stuff, right? The best reporting was actually by Knight Ridder, which was talking to the analysts off the record and not to the top officials. And this is the fall of 2002. And all the analysts said, 'You know, they're exaggerating this threat. We're under enormous pressure to go and find reasons to attack Iraq.' And you've actually got people who are close to the administration, like, you know, editorialists at The Washington Post, Jim Hoagland saying--boasting about how we're managing to put the screws on these CIA analysts who don't want to believe that Saddam is such a threat. So, come on, this is rewriting history. And the fact of the matter, as...
Mr. O'REILLY: Like I'm going to believe a Washington Post editorial writer over all the people I've cited.
Prof. KRUGMAN: He's writing this during the time; he's not writing it after the fact.
Mr. O'REILLY: The record says...
Prof. KRUGMAN: Even t--no. Come on.
Mr. O'REILLY: ...9-11 Commission and the Senate Intelligence Committee...
Prof. KRUGMAN: And your faith's in Vladimir Putin, ex-KGB, is touching.
Mr. O'REILLY: All right. I know. You're smarter than everybody. You'll reject all of that information. The 9-11 Commission and the Senate Intelligence Committee..
Prof. KRUGMAN: Heavily politicized.
Mr. O'REILLY: ...both have said...
Prof. KRUGMAN: Heavily politicized, and you know it.
Mr. O'REILLY: All right. There you go.
RUSSERT: Got to take a quick break. We'll be back. A lot more coming up. Paul Krugman, Bill O'Reilly and Iraq right after this.
(Announcements)
RUSSERT: And we are back, talking to Paul Krugman, the columnist for The New York Times. His book is in paperback, "The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century." Bill O'Reilly, you watch him every night on "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News Channel. His book, "Who's Looking Out for You?"
Bill O'Reilly, what about the nuclear threat, the mushroom cloud? Was that hyping his intelligence?
Mr. O'REILLY: I have no idea. I never bought that. I never bought they had nuclear. I was worried about anthrax and the other thing. But I just want to make one more point. You know, we left one guy out: Bill Clinton thought they had weapons of mass destruction. I mean, it was across the board and saw--like that.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Let me--can I just say...
Mr. O'REILLY: Go ahead.
Prof. KRUGMAN: ...let--WMD is one of the worst phrases we've ever invented, because it lumps together chemical shells, which are nasty things, but so is high explosives, with nuclear weapons, which is a real threat. You know, the fact that Kim Jong Il seems to have nukes now has me really scared. The fact that some guy has chemical warheads is not in the same league at all. And Bill Clinton thought, and I thought, everybody thought that he probably had some chemical warheads. They were probably still--you know, they had shells. They probably--maybe they had anthrax. Maybe they had this stuff, which is nasty and evil, but is not something that allows a minor...
Mr. O'REILLY: No, you've got to take anthrax and smallpox seriously.
Prof. KRUGMAN: No, anthrax, smallpox...
Mr. O'REILLY: They wipe out hundreds of thousands of people.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Smallpox is a hugely different thing.
Mr. O'REILLY: All of those things...
Prof. KRUGMAN: Anthrax isn't contagious.
Mr. O'REILLY: All of those things can ruin an economy and create panic and you have to do it.
Prof. KRUGMAN: No, it's not. Look, that's just...
RUSSERT: So let me go to Bill O'Reilly's question, Paul Krugman. If you're the president of the United States and all these people have laid out this in front of you, and you yourself acknowledged you thought he had biological and chemical, potentially anthrax, do you have an obligation as commander in chief to go after it?
Prof. KRUGMAN: You have an obligation to say, 'We want those inspectors back in,' and guess what? We had the inspectors back in, and we were telling inspectors where to search and they were going. And remember, we went to war when there was an effective inspections regime back in place. We did not have to actually go to war. We were doing--we were--we had Saddam pretty effectively caged...
Mr. O'REILLY: Well, not according to Hans Blix. He came on my program flat out and said, 'They're not letting us interview the scientists,' which was a key.
Prof. KRUGMAN: But...
Mr. O'REILLY: The scientists were the key. One...
Prof. KRUGMAN: ...there was no way for them to be effectively running a WMD program...
Mr. O'REILLY: No, listen, I know--look, I know that you know much more than I do and everyone else, but just let me get a sentence out here. Blix came on the program and said to me flat out, 'They aren't cooperating. We can't interview the scientists, and we can't go where we want to go.' They gave him all kinds of time, Saddam, to stop the nonsense. Seventeen violations of the Gulf War cease-fire, 17. The guy obviously was defiant. All the nations of the world should have come together--France, Germany, Russia, China, the United States--and said, 'You either let Blix do whatever he wants to do, or you're out of there.' If that had happened, Blix would have been allowed, but France and Germany and Russia wouldn't because they were being bribed by Saddam with oil for food. We know that scandal is bubbling. We're gonna get a lot more information on it.
Now if you put the whole thing together, OK, intelligence, intel on very deadly weapons, defiance by Saddam, al-Qaida presence in Iraq, you have to act...
Prof. KRUGMAN: O'Reilly, I need to get in here.
Mr. O'REILLY: Yeah, I know. Zarqawi's been proven was treated after he was wounded in Afghanistan, on the battlefield in Baghdad, then he went up north to Ansar al-Islam, OK, under the protection of Uday Hussein. So you say whatever you want. That's proven.
Prof. KRUGMAN: I--look, you know, there--we can go--I'm gonna wager that Blix--I don't--I don't have the record, but I'm gonna wager Blix told you that a number of months before the war.
Mr. O'REILLY: Yeah, he told me that before the war. That's correct.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Well before the war. Before the...
Mr. O'REILLY: Well, it was a couple of months before.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Before Saddam opened up a lot more under pressure. And nobody disapproved of putting extra pressure on him. Me neither, right? But the really, you know--the--and the oil for food stuff, by the way, all of this, you know, might be true, but all of those claims that the French were being bribed, that the UN officials were being bribed comes from documents which are supposedly in the hands of none other than Ahmad Chalabi, right? We don't have any independent evidence of that.
Mr. O'REILLY: I think Volcker has copies of those documents right now.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Well, then let's hear from Volcker.
Mr. O'REILLY: Yeah.
Prof. KRUGMAN: I've reached no judgment that--I trust him.
Mr. O'REILLY: Why doesn't your newspaper, The New York Times, do some investigating? You did 48 Abu Ghraib front-page stories...
Prof. KRUGMAN: Oh...
Mr. O'REILLY: ...but you haven't been able to do any oil for food investigations. I wonder why.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Because nobody has any information, right?
Mr. O'REILLY: Nobody has any?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Nobody has anything except these claims of all this come from Ahmad Chalabi, who The New York Times has learned a little bit to be wary of.
Mr. O'REILLY: Well, maybe you assign a couple of reporters to do that, you know. I mean, Abu Ghraib, I think we got the story there.
Prof. KRUGMAN: No, we didn't.
Mr. O'REILLY: Oh, we didn't? Forty-eight front-page stories, we still don't have it?
Prof. KRUGMAN: We didn't. No. Read the appendices. Read the appendices to the Taguba report. There's much, much worse than anything that most of the public has heard about yet.
Mr. O'REILLY: All right. Well, maybe it's right. And if there is, I want to read about it.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Yeah. Well...
Mr. O'REILLY: And I know I will in your paper. But I ain't gonna read oil for food investigation there.
Prof. KRUGMAN: But let me just come back. The...
RUSSERT: Bill, why are you suggesting The New York Times won't be aggressive in pursuing oil for food?
Mr. O'REILLY: Because they use stories to bludgeon the Bush administration. They use their front page--here's the deal.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Oh God.
Mr. O'REILLY: Abu Ghraib, horrible story, awful, OK. Off-the-chart bad. Twenty-eight front-page stories in the Chicago Trib, no bastion of conservatism. Forty-eight front-page stories, all of the last 20 just repetitive, what we already knew, in The New York Times.
Prof. KRUGMAN: So you...
Mr. O'REILLY: They use that story to drive public opinion against the present administration, which the paper despises, and that's the fact.
Prof. KRUGMAN: I think if you look--well, I'm not gonna--you know, I'm not here to defend The New York Times, which has nothing to do with what I write in the column, all right?
Mr. O'REILLY: No, I don't think that's true of your column.
Prof. KRUGMAN: So I don't want to get into this one. But let me just--you know, let's just come back to this. We went--there's a lot of evil in the world and there are a lot of threats in the world, and the Bush administration chose to take this one, which everyone--you know, Saddam is an evil man. This was a nasty regime. It would no doubt hurt us if it could. But of all the threats in the world, they chose to go after this one, and what's really crucial is they chose to neglect the pursuit of the people who actually killed lots of Americans.
RUSSERT: Why? Why?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Because--well, you know, we can only speculate on that, but what we do know is that they had this fixation on Iraq right from the beginning, before there was any evidence, before there was anything at all, and we also know that they really just don't like stuff that doesn't look good on camera.
Mr. O'REILLY: See, I'm not buying that neglected to chase Osama. I'm not buying that. I mean, he is in a position where we'd have to violate Pakistani sovereignty to go in and get him. That would mean Musharraf would be overthrown. So I'm not buying that. Look, again, that's not--Krugman's opinion on this is not irrational, all right, that the tactical war against terror might not have been well served by the Iraq adventure. That's a legitimate debate, OK? What I object to is the lying charges, the slander and defamation that comes out of the Krugman wing, if you want to call it, of the social landscape. And don't give me that. Who are you appearing with today in your book signing?
Prof. KRUGMAN: I...
Mr. O'REILLY: You're appearing with Stuart Smalley, the biggest character assassinator in the country.
Prof. KRUGMAN: That guy you compared to Goebbels?
Mr. O'REILLY: You are in with the most vile form of defamation in this country.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Gee, I have some...
Mr. O'REILLY: You are pandering to it, and I resent it, sir.
Prof. KRUGMAN: There are some people who--well, we resent you, too.
Mr. O'REILLY: Yeah, I know you do.
Prof. KRUGMAN: That's...
Mr. O'REILLY: And you know what you'll do about the resentment? You'll lie about me and attack me personally. That's what you'll do.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Let's watch that, OK? As I said, this is kind of hard to have a reasonable discussion here.
Mr. O'REILLY: I think it's reasonable, and Russert would throw me out of here if it wasn't.
Prof. KRUGMAN: But I think--would he? I don't think so. Anyway--but look, let's just come back to this and say that the fact of the matter is, that with a lot of threats out there in the world, if you ask the foreign policy hands what had them really scared, what do we really need to do with for the last couple of years, they said, 'Well, we got to do more about al-Qaida and North Korea.' And you said Iraq, and they said, 'Why are we talking about Iraq? You know, that's a nasty thing, but that's a real second order'...
RUSSERT: You know, why fixation? You used the word fixation. Why the fixation?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Well, you know, we have a--I think there's a mixture of things. I think it's Karl Rove thought it would play well. I think there were a bunch of guys who were around at the...
RUSSERT: So it's pol--so it's politics?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Some of it was politics, and you'd be amazed how many--how many people, including former generals, believe that. Some of it was, a lot of these guys were on--were on the scene during '91 during the Gulf War, and they felt that somehow their manhood was impaired because Saddam got away in '91. Some of it was personal. You know, 'He tried to kill my father.'
RUSSERT: We're gonna take a quick break. A lot more of Paul Krugman and his book, "The Great Unraveling," Bill O'Reilly of "The O'Reilly Factor," "Who's Looking Out for You?" right after this.
(Announcements)
RUSSERT: And we're back. Bill O'Reilly's book "Who's Looking Out for You?," "The Great Unraveling" by Paul Krugman.
"Fahrenheit 9/11," you wrote this: "It performs an essential service. It tells essential truths about leaders who exploited a national tragedy for political gain." That's a very serious charge.
Prof. KRUGMAN: I don't see how anybody looking at this can say otherwise. I mean, right from the beginning, the--we had first people around Bush, and then Bush himself, using the war on terror as a club with which to bludgeon the other side. You know, it's--look, I ...(unintelligible) the worst mail I ever got was I wrote a column a few days after 9/11 where I said, you know, they're already trying to exploit this, and people did not want to hear it. But what I heard within 48 hours was, 'You're not gonna believe this, but the guys in the House leadership is trying to use 9/11, they're trying to use this terrorist attack to pass a cut in the capital gains tax. They're saying, "How can--how can you not give the president what he wants at a time like this?"'
And the political exploitation began right from the beginning. Just eight days after, Wall Street Journal had an editorial saying, 'You know, now that we've been attacked, it's time for the Senate to confirm some conservative judges.' I mean, this is a grotesque chapter in American history, and we need to know about that.
RUSSERT: Do you believe "Fahrenheit 9/11" performs an essential service?
Mr. O'REILLY: Yeah, for Fidel Castro, who broadcast it nationwide in Cuba. You know, for Hezbollah, who wants to distribute it throughout the Middle East. You know, I mean, look, this is "Triumph of Will." That's what it is, the Nazi propaganda movie. That's what chi--"9/11" is, cut and paste, show him, Bush, as a corruptor and reinforce all of Krugman's paranoid delusions. You basically have Richard Clarke repudiating the film. Richard Clarke's a flat out--no problem with the evacuation of the Saudis, no air space was given to them, the bin Ladens were vetted. This is Richard Clarke disenfranchising the movie, all right?
RUSSERT: Former head of terrorism in the Clinton administration.
Mr. O'REILLY: And then you go down the line. I mean, I'll give you one--the most vivid example. Now I don't know how any responsible journalist could actually say that propaganda is valuable. I just don't know how anybody could do it, and that's where Mr. Krugman is.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Well ...(unintelligible) kill Fox News entirely. I mean, what the...
Mr. O'REILLY: Yeah, OK. Another cheap shot, by the way.
Prof. KRUGMAN: No, it isn't.
Mr. O'REILLY: Yes, it is.
Prof. KRUGMAN: No, it isn't.
Mr. O'REILLY: Look, you may not like Fox News, but that is a cheap shot, and...
Prof. KRUGMAN: No.
Mr. O'REILLY: ...if you don't know what the definition is, I'll give it to you later. But let me give you one fact. In 9/11 after they got through with the garbage about the Saudis and bin Ladens being evacuated, then they go to Fox News, and they say, 'And who called the race for Bush in Florida? Fox News.' OK? Flat-out lie. We, along with NBC and everybody else, first called the race in Florida for Gore, OK? That's not what Moore says. And then it goes along the line down, distortion after distortion after distortion after distortion. I sat on the set that night. I'm watching that movie, I'm going, 'What?' He's telling the world that Fox News was the leader in trying to win Florida for Bush, when we made the wrong call along with everybody else for Gore.
Prof. KRUGMAN: But Fox News was the first network to change its call...
Mr. O'REILLY: Yes, because we were right. And that call be...
Prof. KRUGMAN: ...and that was--and that--were you right?
Mr. O'REILLY: Oh, oh, oh, this is--no, I'm glad you brought that up.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Here.
RUSSERT: All right, let...
Mr. O'REILLY: I'm glad he brought it up.
RUSSERT: Let him have a say. Mr. Krugman, go ahead.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Yeah, because I've got you saying that, 'Everyone has said that no matter how you count the votes, Bush won Florida,' and that turns out to be flatly not true.
Mr. O'REILLY: Oh, is that right? How about The Miami Herald investigation?
Prof. KRUGMAN: OK. Here we are.
Mr. O'REILLY: How about USA Today? How about the University of Chicago?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Here we are. Published by AP in November 2001, the National Opinion Research group, they looked at statewide counts under six standards, prevailing standard, two-corner standard, most conclusive, least conclusive, county by county, Palm Beach standard, and under every one of those Gore won.
Mr. O'REILLY: OK. Look, if you want to think that, fine.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Hey, guys ...(unintelligible), Russerts...
Mr. O'REILLY: All right? Now I'll--hold it, hold it, hold it.
Prof. KRUGMAN: ...you can check this out.
Mr. O'REILLY: You can check this out.
Prof. KRUGMAN: You can get--do it by Google.
RUSSERT: But Moore has said every...
Mr. O'REILLY: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I gotta get this in.
RUSSERT: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me just...
Mr. O'REILLY: Miami Herald, Orlando Sentinel, USA Today and the University of Chicago investigation all went in and repudiate what he just read.
Prof. KRUGMAN: This is not true.
Mr. O'REILLY: Four--yes, it is.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Not true. I mean, again, folks, this is the modern world. You can go check it.
Mr. O'REILLY: You can go check it.
Prof. KRUGMAN: You can do Google, you can check it. Look for--look for Florida recount. Now what is true is that if you'd done the recount that Gore wanted, which was a limited recount, Bush would have won. But at every statewide recount scenario had it going to Gore by tiny margins, but this is just not true.
Mr. O'REILLY: Look, I agree. You should go into and look at what those four investigations came up with and decide for yourself.
RUSSERT: Let me talk about another movie, "Outfoxed."
Prof. KRUGMAN: Yeah.
RUSSERT: What do you think of that?
Prof. KRUGMAN: You know, it's a--basically this is a guy who let his VCR--they did a lot of taping of Fox News and they produced a pretty--the kind of picture that you couldn't do on your own. It's a very cheaply made, very--you know, but it gives you a picture of a network that is very much a propaganda arm. And, you know, we can go through that lots of ways, but...
RUSSERT: Of whom? Propaganda of whom?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Of the right, of the Republican Party, or if you just like of Rupert Murdoch.
RUSSERT: And so the broadcasters and journalists on Fox News take marching orders?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Of course they do. I mean, if your fantasy was that there was a memo every morning that told you how we're gonna cover the news so as to slant it, their fantasy would be right. We've now got copies of the memo.
Mr. O'REILLY: All right. Well, look, Mr. Krugman lives in a world of his own. He embraces propaganda of the worst kind, and that's why I have very little regard for his professional analysis. I'll give you one example about that stupid thing. They put together a collage of me telling people to shut up, OK? In one of the--and this is just one. I can give you a hundred, but I don't want to waste time on it. In one of the discussions I had, I was talking to a young gay guy who was in a lot of trouble because he had outed himself in high school. And I said, 'Why don't you just shut up about your sex life?' That's what I said to him. They cut it to, 'Why don't you just shut up?' That is about as dishonest as it gets.
I can take tape of you, Tim Russert, over the last five years and I can make you look like anything I want you--to make you look like. And you know it. You know how it's done. I can make you look like a Communist. I can make you look like a fascist. That's what this guy did.
The New York Times acts as a de facto publicist for these kinds of vehicles. "Fahrenheit," this stupid thing, Stuart Smalley's defamation, every left-wing book that comes down the pipe. You know, I've had three number-one New York Times best-sellers, they haven't reviewed any of them. Every left-wing smear book that comes down stands alone. They take stuff out, like he just did, and say, 'Oh, that Fox, it's a propa--oh, yeah, of course.' I have provable stuff of what they do, and I'll stand on it.
RUSSERT: Do you think that Fox News Channel has a conservative spin to it?
Mr. O'REILLY: If you look at the Fox News commentators in prime time, starting with Hume and ending with Van Susteren, it comes right down the line, OK? Van Susteren is a liberal, Colmes is a liberal, Hannity is a conservative, I'm a traditionalist, Shepard Smith is really nothing and--you know, he's just in--a neutral guy, in the neutral zone, and Hume, I would say that he's slightly conservative, but certainly no bomb thrower. All right?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Unbelievable.
Mr. O'REILLY: It is unbelievable because you don't know what you're talking about. We put more liberals on the air than conservatives. We put more liberal voices on the air than conservatives, and we can--we have a tally every day of what we put on. There is no talking points. There is no marching order. It doesn't exist. But these people, they want you to think that. But here's the bottom line. In the Democratic convention, "The Factor" killed CNN and MSNBC from 8 to 9. You've got to assume many Republicans weren't even watching that. It was an independent Democratic audience primarily. Wiped them off the face of the Earth. And the reason is, the people know we give voice to all sides, unlike this guy and his newspaper.
RUSSERT: I'm gonna come back and give you a chance to respond...
Prof. KRUGMAN: Yeah.
RUSSERT: ...in full. Paul Krugman is here, "The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century." Bill O'Reilly, "Who's Looking Out for You?" We'll be right back.
(Announcements)
RUSSERT: And we're back.
Paul Krugman, you can respond.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Yeah. Actually I just want to say a word about "Fahrenheit 9/11," just to talk a little bit about Bill O'Reilly's credibility on this. Bill has said on air that Michael Moore believes that we are an evil country, and if you saw the film, you know that's not true, and actually you denied in the same program that you'd said what you just said. But anyways, I think that's a little bit of something to look out for with credibility.
Mr. O'REILLY: You want to quote me and give me the date of the program?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Oh, sure. June 28th on "The Radio Factor."
Mr. O'REILLY: On "The Radio Factor."
Prof. KRUGMAN: Yup. Not the...
Mr. O'REILLY: You're taking it not out of context, are you?
Prof. KRUGMAN: No, not at all out of context.
Mr. O'REILLY: Michael Moore has gone around the Europ--in the European press and said...
Prof. KRUGMAN: All right. Oh, come on.
Mr. O'REILLY: ...Americans are stupid, OK?
Prof. KRUGMAN: That's taken out of context. This week--the radio clip's available, MediaMatters.org.
Mr. O'REILLY: It is. All right, fine.
Prof. KRUGMAN: So go ahead. Anyway, but let me--let me--want to talk about convention coverage for a bit. Couple of things about the convention coverage. I don't know who was watching which thing. I think anyone who didn't watch it--your boss is not gonna like this either--anyone who didn't watch it on C-SPAN unfiltered was just being a fool, because all of the--all of the coverage was--on the cable networks was a lot of commentators breaking over, talking over the speeches. It didn't--Fox showed less of the speeches than any--than either of the other cable news networks. Just less coverage. You know, Al Gore gave a speech. It should have been interesting to watch. Even if you hate him, even if you think he's a lousy guy, he did, after all, get more votes than his opponent in the last election. Be curious to see, but you went right over him.
Mr. O'REILLY: I had an advance copy of the speech. There wasn't anything in there that wasn't partisan stuff, and we're not gonna do it on the Republican...
Prof. KRUGMAN: Oh. What happened--could we report the other side?
Mr. O'REILLY: Well, I'm in analysis, Krugman.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Yeah.
Mr. O'REILLY: If you don't get that by now, you're never gonna get it.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Well, you know...
Mr. O'REILLY: It's just like you. You're an op-ed guy. You don't go out and report.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Yeah.
Mr. O'REILLY: You write op-ed. I analyze.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Right. Exactly. So...
Mr. O'REILLY: All during the day we report what happens.
Prof. KRUGMAN: But that's the point. The question was: What was the coverage? Now in terms of...
Mr. O'REILLY: The coverage was what we wanted it to be, not dictated by you or anybody else...
Prof. KRUGMAN: Right.
Mr. O'REILLY: ...and we'll do the same thing with the Republicans.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Well, that's--well, let's see if you give equal numbers of hours...
Mr. O'REILLY: Absolutely. I will on my program.
Prof. KRUGMAN: ...let's see--will you?
Mr. O'REILLY: Yes, I will.
Prof. KRUGMAN: We're watching.
Mr. O'REILLY: And where did you get that little evil quote, by the way? You don't listen to "The Radio Factor."
Prof. KRUGMAN: Oh, no, but I get--but they have video clips. They have--they have a clip.
Mr. O'REILLY: Oh, who--well, who gave it to you?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Yeah, it is mediamatters.
Mr. O'REILLY: Mediamatters. Oh, I see. A real objective Web site.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Hey, wait a second...
Mr. O'REILLY: Hey, Mr. Propaganda, you ought to take and do your own research, pal, and stop taking the left-wing garbage and throwing it out there for the folks.
Prof. KRUGMAN: What have I said that's false?
Mr. O'REILLY: Do your own research.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Come on.
Mr. O'REILLY: That's out of context, and you know it.
Prof. KRUGMAN: It helps me. It is not.
Mr. O'REILLY: It helps you, baloney.
Prof. KRUGMAN: They've got the clip. You guys can listen to it.
Mr. O'REILLY: You are about the most unobjective person on the face of the--mediamatters...
Prof. KRUGMAN: Oh, come on.
Mr. O'REILLY: Why don't you just call Fidel? Call him up and have at it. He'll tell you what's going on.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Oh, wonderful. Now that we got the great ...(unintelligible) ends up being a Communist.
RUSSERT: Wait, wait...
Mr. O'REILLY: Mediamatters. Oh, my--that's like me calling some Klan operation.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Hey.
Mr. O'REILLY: Why don't I call the Ku Klux Klan?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Here we go. Here we go. Here we go.
RUSSERT: Read the quote. Read the quote and...
Mr. O'REILLY: What a bunch of garbage, mediamatters.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Yeah, the quote is, 'So this is the United States, who has freed the world from communism, freed the world from fascism, from the axis powers, freed the Pacific from Japanese, OK? All of this, but according to Moore we bring sadness and misery to places all around the globe.'
Mr. O'REILLY: That's right. He said that.
Prof. KRUGMAN: 'This says Michael Moore. He believes this. He believes that we are an evil country.' Now I saw a film, a flawed film, a lot of things that were overstated...
Mr. O'REILLY: OK. Read...
Prof. KRUGMAN: ...but I think that there were a lot of things in that film that showed that this is a guy who really does love his country.
Mr. O'REILLY: All right. You want to think he loves his country, you go (unintelligible).
Prof. KRUGMAN: And he loves the working pow--people of America, and if you could watch that...
Mr. O'REILLY: Hezbollah feels the same way that you do.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Oh, come on. Guilt by association.
Mr. O'REILLY: Come on what?
Prof. KRUGMAN: Somebody picks it up, somebody picks up, you know, there are--there are--there are actual--there are right-wing hate groups who like to quote you. Do you think that makes you guilty of everything that they do?
Mr. O'REILLY: You know what? I never call those right-wing hate groups up to get my quotes.
Prof. KRUGMAN: That's...
Mr. O'REILLY: You call the left-wing hate groups up to get your propaganda. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Do your own research.
Prof. KRUGMAN: This--somebody who runs a Web site that's the equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan?
Mr. O'REILLY: Do your own research.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Come on, guy.
RUSSERT: All right. To be continued. Paul Krugman. You can read him Tuesdays and Fridays in The New York Times. His book, "The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century." Bill O'Reilly, you can listen to him every day on the radio, watch "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News Channel. "Who's Looking Out for You?" Thank you, gentlemen, for a very interesting hour.
Mr. O'REILLY: Lively.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Exciting.
Mr. O'REILLY: Lively.
Prof. KRUGMAN: Exciting.
RUSSERT: Lively and spirited.
Prof. KRUGMAN: OK.
RUSSERT: See you next weekend.
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It was the former, I'm happy to report. Bill O'Reilly didn't just win the debate. He cut out Paul Krugman's heart and stomped on it. Welcome, Bill O'Reilly, to the Krugman Truth Squad.
This marks the first time that anyone has really stood up to America's most dangerous liberal pundit on television. And Krugman simply didn't know how to handle it. At several points in the show Krugman was practically in shock, with hands visibly trembling.
O'Reilly was masterful. He didn't for one moment grant Krugman the undeserved respect that everyone else grants him, thanks to the prestigious aura of his Princeton professorship and his New York Times column. And O'Reilly didn't let Krugman get away with any of his usual stunts.
O'Reilly uncompromisingly held Krugman to account for some of the outrageous (and outrageously wrong) things Krugman's written in his Times columns. In one case, when Krugman denied what O'Reilly accused him of having said, O'Reilly jabbed his index finger toward Krugman's face and shouted, "Don't call me a liar, pal. That's what you do all the time, and I'm not going to sit here and take it."
O'Reilly had reminded Krugman of his repeated predictions of economic catastrophe as the result of President Bush's tax cuts -- a catastrophe that, obviously, hasn't materialized, and which now Krugman denies having predicted. Here's part of the exchange:
O'Reilly: ...Mr. Krugman was dead 100% wrong in his columns, uh, two years ago when he said the Bush tax cuts would lead to a deeper recession. You can read his book and see how wrong he was.
Krugman: Actually, you can read it. I never said that. I said it would lead to lousy job creation.O'Reilly: Column after column after column. You made the point, in your book, okay, that these cuts, these tax cuts were going to be disastrous for the economy.
Krugman: Nope...
O'Reilly: They haven’t been.
Krugman: Uh, uh, I'm sorry. That's a lie. Let me just say, that's a lie.
O'Reilly: It's not a lie.
Krugman: It's a lie.
Krugman's the liar, not O'Reilly. It's just too bad O'Reilly didn't have a quotation at hand to prove it. Among dozens of possible examples he could have cited, in Krugman's April 22, 2003 New York Times column he wrote,
"Aside from their cruelty and their adverse effect on the quality of life, these cuts will be a major drag on the national economy. ...it's clear that the administration's tax-cut obsession isn't just busting the budget; it's also indirectly destroying jobs by preventing any rational response to a weak economy."
Next O'Reilly cleverly asked Krugman -- since Krugman was claiming not to have predicted a deeper recession after the tax cuts -- did he instead predict the economic growth of the last year? Krugman was so flustered -- no doubt knowing he was checkmated -- he stammered out this remarkable confession:
"Compare me… compare me, uh, with anyone else, and I think you'll see that my forecasting record is not great."
You can be sure we'll be quoting that one again and again! On this one matter, we most heartily agree with him.
What was most impressive about O'Reilly's performance in the debate is that he was genuinely not partisan. In fact, he often took positions that were conciliatory to Krugman with respect to heated partisan issues -- as but one example among several, he offered freely that "the Iraq war was a big screw-up." But over and over, he shamed Krugman by rubbing his face in the exaggerated and partisan way that he and others in the liberal press handle these issues.
Faced with an opponent who was on the one hand so conciliatory, and on the other hand so aggressive, Krugman could do little more than throw out feeble ripostes or just roll over and change the subject. At one point O'Reilly faulted Krugman for appearing in public with the likes of Al Franken:
O'Reilly: The war on terror may not have been best served by the Iraq adventure. That's a legitimate debate. What I object to is the lying charges, the slander and defamation that comes out of the Krugman wing -- if you want to call it -- of the social landscape. [Krugman shakes his head and smiles.] Don't give me that! Who are you appearing with today, in your book signing? You're appearing with Stewart Smalley [the Saturday Night Live role played by Franken], the biggest character assassinator in the country.
Krugman: The guy you compared to Goebbels?
O'Reilly: You are in with the most vile form of defamation in this country. You are pandering to it. And I resent it, sir.
Krugman: We resent you, too.
O'Reilly: Yeah, I know you do. And you know what you'll do about the resentment? You'll lie about me and attack me personally. That's what you'll do.
Krugman: Let's watch that, okay?
When O'Reilly blasted Krugman for the New York Times' excessive and repetitious coverage of the horrors of Abu Ghraib -- and the absence of stories on the United Nations oil-for-food scandal -- Krugman couldn't even manage to mouth his usual brown-nosing platitudes about how bend-over-backwards evenhanded the Times is:
"I think if you look, well… I'm, I'm not gonna, you know… I'm not here to, to defend the New York Times, which has nothing to do with what I write in the column. Alright? So I don't want to get into this one."
Starting the last segment of the show, Krugman tried to take the offensive with what was clearly a prepared "gotcha," relying on written notes he'd held in front of him during the whole program. Having discussed Michael Moore and his film "Fahrenheit 9-11" in the previous segment, Krugman looked furtively at Russert like a little boy about to play a nasty prank, and said,
"Actually I just want to say a word about 'Fahrenheit 9-11,' uh, just to talk a little bit about Bill O'Reilly's credibility on this. Uh, uh, Bill has said on-air that, uh, Michael Moore believes we are an evil country, and if you saw the film you know that's not true. And, uh, actually, he denied in the same program that you said what you just said, but anyways… I just think that's a little something to look at in terms of the credibility."
If the sheer feebleness and inarticulateness of that attack leaves you wondering what Krugman was trying to accomplish, let me explain. As hard as it is to believe, apparently Krugman's admiration for Moore and his film is so deep that, in his mind, O'Reilly's saying Moore called America "evil" is enough to impugn O'Reilly's credibility. Krugman says, "I think there were a lot of things in that film that showed that this is a guy who really does love his country. And he loves the working people of America..."
Whatever you may think of the film, the fact is that all O'Reilly had done on his radio show was accurately quote Moore speaking of "this country of mine, which is known for bringing sadness and misery to places around the globe." That statement was first reported in a fawningly pro-Moore article in The New Yorker last February, and was repeated two days before O'Reilly's show by conservative New York Times op-ed columnist David Brooks.
Not exactly Watergate, is it? But it was the best the flustered Krugman could do, though it ended up leading him into an O'Reilly trap. It revealed what I consider to be Krugman's worst vice -- the way he recycles propaganda and rumors from leftist gossip sites with the implicit imprimatur of the New York Times. In this case, it was Media Matters, the website run by confessed liar David Brock (and backed by George Soros' money).
O'Reilly: And where did you get that little "evil" quote, by the way. You don't listen to "The Radio Factor" [O'Reilly's radio show].
Krugman: No, but they have video clips. They have, they have the clips.
O'Reilly: Well who gave it to you?
Krugman: Yeah, it was Media Matters.
O'Reilly: [Booming] Media Matters! Oh, I see! A real objective website.
Krugman: Hey, wait a second, sir…
O'Reilly: Hey, Mr. Propaganda, you ought to take and do your own research, pal, and stop taking that left-wing garbage, throwing it out there for the folks.
Krugman: What have I said that was false?
O'Reilly: Do your own research!
Krugman: It helps me…
Looks to me like America's most dangerous liberal pundit learned a couple valuable lessons last Saturday. For one thing, he learned that it's a lot easier to call people liars, lie about your own past statements, and spread partisan innuendo from the secure redoubt of the op-ed page of the New York Times, where the only feedback you get is the hand-picked atta-boys published on the Times' letters page. Maybe he learned that you can't get away with that stuff when there's a living, breathing opponent across the table from you -- someone like Bill O'Reilly, who's not afraid to fight back.
And could it be, just possibly, that Krugman has finally learned a little something about humility?
Posted by Donald Luskin at 5:26 AM | link
COMMUNISTS REALLY WERE UNDER THIS BED Another typical atta-boy letter-to-the-Times, this time about Paul Krugman's column "What About Iraq."
One of the largest post-invasion mistakes of the Bush administration has been the failure to estimate the "nationalist resistance" of the Iraqi people. President Bush simply lumps the resistance movement into terrorism at large.Uh... just what is the author of this letter trying to say? That the North Vietnamese and their Red Chinese backers were not communists? Say what you will about the Vietnam war, but I really don't think the fact that we were fighting communists is particularly controversial.The same error was made in Vietnam; just substitute "Communists" for "terrorists."
Posted by Donald Luskin at 12:49 AM | link
Sunday, August 08, 2004
WILL KHAN DO A PHOTO SPREAD IN VANITY FAIR? The cry of "treason" goes up from the left when the Bush admninistration is accused of outing undercover housefrau Valerie Plame. What will they say about this one? From NewsMax:An al-Qaida computer expert who was secretly arrested on July 18 and has since been providing critical intelligence on the terror group's plans for coming attacks on the West was rendered useless this week when he was outed by the New York Times.Thanks to reader Jameson Campaign for the link.Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, described by U.S. intelligence as "a one-man al-Qaida communications hub," was using the Internet to contact and identify al-Qaida operatives throughout the world so they could be tracked and arrested by British and U.S. authorities.
Posted by Donald Luskin at 11:51 PM | link
AMAZING WHAT A LITTLE LIGHT WILL DO The cockroaches just run around like crazy, don't they? After O'Reilly's decisive victory over Krugman last night on Russert, I've gotten a flood of harassing emails from leftist fanatics who have apparently come unhinged by seeing their little warrior humiliated in public. One sent me to this link, just to straighten me out on the real reason why Bush invaded Iraq.
Posted by Donald Luskin at 11:00 AM | link
Saturday, August 07, 2004
KRUGMAN V. O'REILLY ON RUSSERT I'll have a much more detailed commentary later, and I'll post a transcript -- but I just wanted to throw out there that I thought Bill O'Reilly did a very good job against Paul Krugman on Tim Russert's CNBC show tonight. I've never seen or heard O'Reilly before, but have always gotten the impression that he was little more than a right-wing goon. Well, he certainly was heavy-handed at times against Krugman tonight, but I think it was very effective. He called a spade a spade, and fearlessly -- he didn't accord Krugman the false and undeserved respect that everyone else always does. He had his facts straight, and he knew when to focus on details and when to pull back for the big picture. And best of all, he did it all without being a one-dimensional ideologue -- he repeatedly cited things about the Bush administration with which he intensely disagrees, the kind of even-handed approach that Krugman would never dare to use. Krugman was visibly shaken – his hands were visibly trembling several times. Great job, O'Reilly! (I can't wait to see how "Bobby" spins this!)O'Reilly's strong performance, by the way, stands in marked contrast to that of Tucker Carlson, who took on Krugman on his PBS show "Tucker Carlson Unfiltered." Carlson's producer had asked me to supply tough questions to throw at Krugman -- not one of which he used. He threw softballs that Krugman rammed back down his throat effortlessly. I think I'll go back to taking my Tucker Carlson filtered, thank you.
Posted by Donald Luskin at 11:34 PM | link
KRUGMAN'S MINORITY REPORT Paul Krugman continues to bash Bush for sins he hasn't committed yet. In a Buzzflash interview:
"...the stakes are very high for the Bushies, because we all know that there are terrible suppressed scandals. And that was before we even had any hint about Abu Ghraib. They will do anything to win.""We all know"? Who are we? What does it mean to know? Or to put it another way -- where's the evidence for this?
Update... Jack Rosenthal, former senior editor of the New York Times weighs in on a similar theme:
"It is even necessary on occasion to editorialize ahead of the news. Last month, so much was already known about the 9/11 commission report that The Times editorialized about it hours before it was released. Had the editors waited even a day, their views would have been swamped by the torrent of commentary in other media."Huh? "Necessary" to editorialize before all the facts are known, simply to elbow ahead of competitors? I think that's what Times "public editor" Dan Okrent called "the hunger for scoops" when he excoriated the paper's faulty coverage of Iraq's suspected WMDs.
Posted by Donald Luskin at 4:55 PM | link
DON IN THE CHRON It's great to be one of those talking heads in a round-up story on the economy. You talk to a reporter for an hour, give all kinds of insight and nuance (liberals like the San Francisco Chronicle are supposed to love nuance). Then two simplistic sentences come out the other end, geared to what the reporter wanted to write before he even called you. That's the way it works, folks.
Posted by Donald Luskin at 1:58 PM | link