BEDDING DOWN WITH SEATTLE MAN:

A LIGHTER TOUCH OF EVIL (Alexander Zaitchik, NY Press)

TO GRASP HOW much has changed in the last five years, consider this: During the Seattle WTO protests of 1999, one of the protestors' biggest nemeses in the media was a rookie New York Times columnist named Paul Krugman. Krugman's articles attacking the protestors weren't as snide as Tom Friedman's—the mustachioed one penned a piece that week called "Senseless in Seattle," in which he claimed the protestors were just out for a "1960's fix"—but they were close. The Princeton professor had no patience for the anti-corporate-globalization demonstrators who chanted, "This is what democracy looks like," and descended to inventing the Friedman-esque tag "Seattle Man" to describe people who don't know what they were talking about. Activists spat Krugman's name in disgust when they passed around his columns that week.

That was then. It isn't necessary to recount how a free-trade economist emerged as a guiding spirit of this week's RNC protest. It's enough to note that the globalization debate has been sidelined by the radical policies and undemocratic thrust of the current administration, which Krugman has heroically helped bring into crisp focus. Those who cursed Krugman in Seattle five years ago may still disagree with him about steel tariffs and the benevolence of large corporations, but most have put all that aside to join him in the Popular Front this November.

One of these days, when he returns to his senses, Mr. Krugman will feel like Bill Murray's character did in Lost in Translation when he woke up and realized he'd just slept with the lounge singer.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 24, 2004 11:24 PM