Krugman: "The right is already explaining away President Bush's defeat"

[bigtree]

It's Not Just Al Qaqaa
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: October 29, 2004

Just in case, the right is already explaining away President Bush's defeat: it's all the fault of the "liberal media," particularly The New York Times, which, so the conspiracy theory goes, deliberately timed its report on the looted Al Qaqaa explosives - a report all the more dastardly because it was true - for the week before the election.

Letting Zarqawi get away On Monday
The Wall Street Journal confirmed an earlier report that in 2002 the military drew up plans for a strike on the base of the terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in an area of Iraq not under Saddam's control. But civilian officials vetoed the attack - probably because they thought it might undermine political support for the war against Saddam. So Mr. Zarqawi, like Osama, was given the chance to kill another day.

The situation in Iraq Dick Cheney is telling supporters that Iraq is a "remarkable success story."
But the news from Iraq just keeps getting worse. After 49 Iraqi National Guard recruits were killed, execution style, even Ayad Allawi, the Iraqi prime minister - who usually acts as a de facto spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign - accused coalition forces of "gross negligence." It's now clear that the insurgency is much larger than U.S. officials initially acknowledged, and that Iraqi security forces have been heavily infiltrated.

$70 billion more
Earlier this week The Washington Post reported that administration officials were planning to seek an additional $70 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan after the election. Whatever the precise number, it has long been obvious to knowledgeable observers that this was coming, but the news will come as a shock to many people who still don't realize how deep a quagmire Mr. Bush has gotten us into.

full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/29/opinion/29krugman.html?oref=login&oref=login&hp

[still_one]

1. In other words it's the liberal media for FINALLY telling the TRUTH!!!

[billyoc]

13. Ah, the TRUTH!

A favorite weapon of the "Blame America First" crowd!

ROFL!

[AP]

2. "all the more dastardly because it was true" -- oh lord, that's funny.

[Inland]

3. That media, reporting the truth---how dare it.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

4. "How can the media report the TRUTH???"

":wtf:" says KKKarl Rove!

Gee, you see what happens when the Truth comes out, Republicans loose!

[realcountrymusic]

5. Krugman is the Bruce Springsteen

of Princeton economists and Times columnists

rcm

[Lex]

6. "I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell."

--Harry Truman.

Hell is catching up with Bush and Cheney.

[SeattleRob]

7. Krugman has been telling the truth since the beginning

And remember, in the wingnut mind, truth telling, especially when the truth is "uncomfortable," is akin to "hate speech."

[bigtree]

9. I picked him up when he broke the story on Chalabi's nephew cashing in

with ex-Bushies on the war with their investment groups steering American business to the monopoly of Iraqi reconstruction contracts.

[senseandsensibility]

10. Yes, since before the 2000

election. And everything he warned of has come true. Yet the wingnuts still won't listen; as you say, truth telling is hate speech to them. Democrats, on the other hand, are "reality-based.":)

[AmerDem]

8. Krug is a top notch guy

He has been one of the very few willing to speak out from the beginning about this criminally corrupt administration. Another great article.

[MrBenchley]

11. James Wolcott has been picking up the same thing...

and being very amusing on it:

"Roger L. Simon, the novelist in a hat, has issued a fatwa. And a fat wa it is too.
Following the lead of Fox News (see below), he thunders:
"If Kerry does win, the mainstream media will have gotten him elected with their biased coverage and they will pay for it more than they could imagine. And it will be the blogosphere and you, our own supporters, who will make them pay. Our strength will grow incrementally with a Kerry victory in terms of influence and even economic power. And both will be at the expense of the mainstream media. Yes, we too have 'plans.'"

For some reason, I'm reminded of George Costanza's great soliloquy that begins, "The sea was angry that day, my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli." "

http://jameswolcott.com/

[evilqueen]

12. Liberal media. Heh.

The media has only NOW begun to realize that their jobs in the future depend on them telling the truth. They got the hint with what happened with Sinclair. That was only the barest beginnings of what is going to happen in the future, regardless of who wins this election. They sense a shift in the public awareness of what game they have been playing for years... we know we've been lied to, we know what part they've played in the spin game, and we don't like it. If they keep lying to us, their jobs are at stake and we WILL stop watching, stop supporting their advertisers, and stop believing anything they tell us.

[nolabels]

16. Well some of us are already at that point

http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/

[JusticeForAll]

14. What a week! n/t

[cliss]

15. Now, in this article, I find myself agreeing....

with a lot of it.

1) The Al Qaqaa explosives: the story was released right before the 11th hour of the election - a bombshell all its own. They're right: that DID seem kind of deliberate. But it maximized the impact.

2) Iraq is a "remarkable success story". Again, Ole Cheater is right. Iraq IS a remarkable success story - to Halliburton, Kellogg Brown & Root and many, many many others who are feeding off the public trough.

3) $70 billion more: this is just the appetizer, folks. We haven't even started the main course yet. Iraq has been nothing but a money pit. We've sunk - what - $270 billion into it. What have we gotten at this point? Chaos, anarchy, not one step closer to our goal of "democracy".

[Renew Deal]

17. Excellent summation

He is dead on on every point. And the photoshopped ad isn't even in there.

[More Than A Feeling]

18. They are so whiny!

They paint themselves as the party of strength, but they wet their collective pants when it comes to the "liberal media" "Daddy, I can't sleep, the liberal media is hiding under the bed and its going to get me!"

I say to republicans "Suck it up, buttercup!"