Paul Krugman, "Rosie Ruiz Republicans": Killing Private Ryan

Did I ever tell you that I run marathons? Probably not, because I don't. I have stretched ligaments in one knee and sundry ailments involving the joints in my other leg, and when I descend the stairs, it is often to the accompaniment of snap, crackle and pop. But I'm certain that if I were to walk a marathon, I could do it in less than three hours. Oops, I meant twenty-three hours.

Have you noticed of late that Paul Krugman is on a mission. He's out to kill Private Paul Ryan. Judging from Krugman's obsession, you would never guess that Ryan is the vice presidential candidate, and that Romney, that other "idiot" with degrees from Harvard's law and business schools, and who actually possesses "a little" business experience (unlike you-know-who), has plans to run the show.

Of course, Krugman acknowledges in his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Rosie Ruiz Republicans" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/03/opinion/krugman-rosie-ruiz-republicans.html) that "Mitt Romney, not Mr. Ryan, is the presidential candidate, although that’s sometimes hard to remember."

What's happening in your head, Dr. Krugman?

By the way, we never heard Krugman grumbling about Biden's obscene pronouncement that Romney will "put y'all back in chains." But why should this matter, coming from a clown who is a heartbeat away from the presidency?

However, as noted earlier, Paul Krugman is on a mission. Spitting invective, he devotes half of today's opinion piece to excoriating Paul Ryan for claiming that he ran a marathon in less than three hours, when in fact his time was over four. Krugman writes:

"In a statement issued by a spokesman, Mr. Ryan tried to laugh the whole thing off as a simple error. But serious runners find that implausible: the difference between sub-three and over-four is the difference between extraordinary and perfectly ordinary, and it’s not something a runner could get wrong, unless he’s a fabulist who imagines his own reality. And does suggesting that Mr. Ryan is delusional rather than dishonest actually make the situation any better?"

Well, I wonder if Ryan's inaccuracy is any worse than Hillary's claim that she came under fire in Bosnia. Oh my goodness, is our current Secretary of State also a "fabulist"? (In fact, she's just another run-of-the-mill narcissist.)

Krugman devotes most of the remainder of his opinion piece to deriding Paul Ryan for promoting a deficit reduction plan that does not provide details. Krugman concludes:

"This is surely the first time one of our major parties has run a campaign so completely fraudulent, making claims so at odds with the reality of its policy proposals."

Okay, Krugman, the Republicans are a "fraud," but where is the detailed Obama plan? For that matter, when has there ever been any acknowledgment by Obama that annual trillion dollar deficits are not sustainable?

Sure, you can whine about the inadequacy of Republican proposals, which, among other things, do not slash military spending. (I have always said that there are significant budgetary savings to be had by putting an immediate end to the senseless ground war in Afghanistan, escalated by none other than Obama.) However, any solution begins with an acknowledgment of the problem.

Republican proposals lack details, but at a minimum they have positioned the problem front and center.