I was going to ignore the article below, even though I enjoy Paul Krugman’s writing.  He isn’t always right and I don’t always agree with him, but he does seem to be a person willing to put in the hard work to understand a complicated world and then to explain it to people.

I read a few paragraphs and figured it was a sort of “soft” hatchet piece (this the Atlantic, after all) and I was curious who the author was.  Never heard of this Sebastian Mallaby.  Well, he is son of Sir Christopher Mallaby, educated at Oxford and Eton and husband of the editor of Economist magazine.  He also wrote a biography of Alan Greenspan. I suspect he doesn’t share my view of Greenspan as the guy who almost single handedly blew a massive real estate bubble and crashed the world economy in 2008.  But he does have some other nice looking articles and books, particularly one on poverty in America.

But the article below basically chides Krugman for speculating on the motives of politicians (climate change denier a are paid off by big oil) and for, well, not being nicer to people clearly not speaking the truth.  Because, hey, not all Republicans are climate deniers and by being mean to the ones that are, you risk not being able to convince the others of your point.

I dunno.  It all sounds so nice and genteel.   I suppose Mr Mallaby hasn’t watched US cable news lately.  Or kept track of the crazy levels of “post-truth” coming from (ok, let’s name them) Conservatives.  I see the Brits have gotten into the act recently with Boris Johnson telling some Whoppers to gain power (It’s not just Boris Johnson’s lying. It’s that the media let him get away with it).

The US is still a few years ahead of the UK, politically.  I wish Mr Mallaby and the UK well on their path toward the “post-truth” political future.

Cool It, Krugman

The self-sabotaging rage of the New York Times columnist