Krugman 9/11 post triggers demands that he be banned

The original post. This was regarded as incendiary enough for Mother Jones to condemn him using the same “apologize to the 9/11 victims” rationale that poisons the debate generally (as if Krugman had said anything about them at all). Beyond that, Rumsfeld ragequit the NYT (note the correction by the NPR writer concerned about appearing to maybe present Krugman’s post in a less incendiary light). Feel free to look up Michelle Malkin’s rant and other usual suspects if you really want to wave some bloody shirts.

A defense from a former Reagan appointee. I don’t think you have to agree with Krugman in order to see that there shouldn’t be an ideological litmus test for opining on 9/11’s consequences on that day, but I’m probably wrong about that.

I don’t see anything wrong with Krugman’s post, to be honest. I think everything he says is true (Mother Jones even concedes as much), and as for saying it on the anniversary, it seems like a highly appropriate time for some honest reflection. Do we really believe that this is somehow offensive to the people who lost loved ones in the attacks? I doubt any of the hand-wringing punditmob will bother to ask them, but consider this: the ones that NPR talked to last week seemed to think that commemorating the anniversary attacks at all was weird and kind of tacky.

Krugman nails it. Why the hell is Mother Jones of all places freaking out?

Inset a-gaffe-in-Washington-is-when-someone-says-what-everyone-is-actually-thinking quote here.

How is this controversial? It’s the same thing Jon Stewart said on 9/12, and no one pilloried him for it.

9/12 is just another day you dunce! NINE ELEVENTY ISN’T.

It looks completely innocuous to me. Okay, it isn’t exactly a piece full of tubthumping nationalist propaganda, but it doesn’t say that America caused 9/11, or that Bush was a war criminal, or the terrorists won, or anything that might actually be incendiary. All it basically says is that some politicians made a lot of hay while the sun was shining on them, including using it to justify an unrelated war. The only part that might be considered provocative is the term “fake heroes”, and that seems pretty moderate as far as rhetoric goes.

Fuck Mother Jones for providing cover for Malkin & Co.

EDIT: I guess, “Fuck Rick Ungar” is a bit more to the point. “This is all true, but 9/11/11 was about hugging the victims” families? What, do they read out the day’s NYT BLOGPOSTS during the commemoration ceremony or something? Fucksakes.

I dont have a serious problem with anything he said other then the fake heroes line. I think that was put in there for no other reason then to provoke people.

Maybe if he had used ‘supposed heroes’ instead? I think his point is that Bush et al took advantage of the situation to institute laws and start wars that they wanted before the event happened. I’d like to think Krugman isn’t a truther. But a lot of the people who defend him in the MJ comments are, which is disturbing.

Oh god, Rick actually used that “you’re playing into their hands” thing.

Wha? There’re whackos in lots of comment threads, I don’t see how that pertains. Calling Giuliani, Kerik and Bush “fake heroes” is fairly partisan, but the rest? Saying they used the terrorist attacks as a way of launching an unrelated invasion of Iraq isn’t news now and wasn’t news in 2002. It certainly isn’t crazy fringe territory.

Frankly, even a lot of liberal hawks were in favor of settling up with international assholes in 2001-2, it’s just that the Iraq runup (and then the war) were such epic clusterfucks that no one likes to admit it.

Some people must be super sensitive to consider that post offensive.

I think it would have been some interesting news in 2002, actually.

I think he’s right.

Of course he’s right. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush, Rice, and Powell permanently soiled the occasion by exploiting it.

Or they’re just using it as an excuse to try and get rid of an effective critic of their policies, perhaps?

I’m not sure how I upset you there. I’m saying it’s disturbing how many people are truthers. I wasn’t accusing Krugman of anything except being overly vague, such that the truthers may see him as one of them.

I wasn’t upset at all, I just thought “I’d like to think X isn’t a truther” is sort of dubious sounding, in the sense of expressing dubiety, which I thought was sort of random. “I have no concrete evidence X is beating his wife.”

I think it would have been some interesting news in 2002, actually.

Howso? If you mean the date, the debate was ongoing in '02. If you mean the fact that there was a general “time for America to settle accounts with threats and malefactors” latitude that the Bush administration gratuitously pissed away, well, that was my feeling at the time.

The invasion was in 2003, so I was just making a joke about taking your sentence overly literally. I actually agree with your sentiment.