DOES ANYONE EDIT THE TIMES ANYMORE? :

The Angry People (Paul Krugman, April 23, 2002, NY
Times)

A slightly left-of-center candidate runs for president. In a rational world he would win easily. After all, his party has been running the country, with great success: unemployment is down, economic growth has accelerated, the sense of malaise that prevailed under the previous administration has evaporated.

But everything goes wrong. His moderation becomes a liability; denouncing the candidate's pro-market stance, left-wing candidates--who have no chance of winning, but are engaged in politics as theater--draw off crucial support. The candidate, though by every indication a very good human being, is not a natural campaigner; he has, say critics, "a professorial style" that seems "condescending and humorless" to many voters. Above all, there is apathy and complacency among moderates; they take it for granted that he will win, or that in any case the election will make little difference.

The result is a stunning victory for the hard right. It's by and large a tolerant, open-minded country; but there is a hard core, maybe 20 percent of the electorate, that is deeply angry even in good times. And owing to the peculiarities of the electoral system, this right-wing minority prevails even though more people actually cast their votes for the moderate left.

If all this sounds like a post-mortem on the Gore campaign in 2000, that's intentional. But I'm actually describing Sunday's shocking election in France, in which the current prime minister, Lionel Jospin, placed third, behind the rabid rightist Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Apparently upset at Maureen Dowd challenging him for the title of worst columnist at the Times, Mr. Krugman today offers one of the most repellent essays by a major American journalist since Daniel Schor said, on the eve of the 1964 election, that Barry Goldwater would be leaving after the vote for a vacation to Germany to visit Hitler's retreat at Berchtesgarden. In his eagerness to compare George W. Bush to a fascist, Mr. Krugman has--one assumes merely idiotically rather than maliciouslly--compared Al Gore to a man,
Lionel Jospin, who was a secret communist operative during the Cold War. Al Gore is many things, but I have no doubt of his patriotism. Comparing him to a traitor is beneath contempt, but not, unfortunately, beneath the despicable Mr. Krugman Posted by Orrin Judd at April 23, 2002 3:49 PM