Krugman turns bathetic

I imagine that Paul Krugman has a bulletin board in his office with 3x5 cards of potential topics for his semi-weekly column. I also imagine that every week, he’s forced to remove two or three cards because some piece of good news undermines an unformed diatribe. Stock market up? There goes my screed on devalued 401(k) accounts! Libya and Syria are seeking better relations with the U.S.? So much for my foreign policy rant!

With the economy and jobs coming back and improving prospects in Iraq and Afghanistan, Krugman’s board must have been bare. The result is today’s sad excuse for a column called “Rubin gets shrill” but could have been titled “Shrill like me” or “Rubin believes me!” Here’s the entire article condensed into one paragraph:

Those of us who have suggested that the irresponsibility of recent American policy may produce a similar disaster have been dismissed as shrill, even hysterical. (Hey, the market's up, isn't it?) But few would describe Robert Rubin, the legendary former Treasury secretary, as hysterical: his ability to stay calm in the face of crises, and reassure the markets, was his greatest asset. And Mr. Rubin has formally joined the coalition of the shrill.

Q.E.D. – Rubin is a genius. Rubin agrees with me. I’m a genius.

This is sad in a humorous way (hence the term “bathetic”). After scores of columns about how the economy is heading into the dumpster, Krugman is forced to defend his persistently incorrect predictions by seeking like-minded allies. Whatever, Paul, but I’d really like you to get Robert Rubin to say that America is just like Argentina.