Monday, June 23, 2008

Journey to the Dark Side is complete

Shorter Paul Krugman:

"President Bush once said “Owning a home lies at the heart of the American dream.” Since one of Obama's advisors also once said something about home ownership being good, today's column tries to loosely link the two and is about how home ownership is risky and bad."

Seriously, Professor?

I am about to relocate to a new part of the country for a new job, so I've actually spent some time thinking about this lately. I've had to grapple with the decision to buy or rent in the new location. I've made the decision on that and I am in the process of buying (high) and selling (low) a home right now, so I am quite aware of the risks.

As such, there is no question that there are debatable issues regarding own vs. rent—of which I've done both—and that's a fair debate, but that's not what you are doing.

You don't present ANY of the reasons why the government does incentivize ownership, you just list your gripes (all valid, btw), and use them to demagogue about the housing bubble/collapse. Um, okay...

But where you go off the rails, and what is pissing me off, is inserting a totally gratuitous reference to Obama in this column.

It might be a passing reference, but it is NOT relevant to your premise. It now seems to me you have crossed the line from embittered Clinton supporter to outright partisan asshole. You are now actively damaging the Democratic nominee for reasons I cannot fathom, and you are now indelibly included on my aforementioned shitlist.

5 comments:

Toast said...

I read that column this morning and I had to chuckle. It's like he's invented a new game: "Guess how many paragraphs I can go in any given column before slagging Obama."

Rickey said...

You're spot on about his demagoguery... Krugman's been maquerading as an expert for far too long. Sure, the Bush administration's policies haven't helped the housing market... so what, you populist jackass?

Mr Furious said...

Like I said, own vs. rent is a legit debate, but that's not what he's doing. He's conflating two unrelated and years-apart quotes to pin the housing bubble and collapse on what?...the government's mortgage interest deduction?

That's fucking bullshit.

But the really infuriating part is his gratuitously bashing Obama in the process—not simply because I'm an Obama guy, but because it makes no sense—as if State Senator Barack Obama is in any way responsible for the mortgage industry's lending practices and the federal government's deregulation of the banking industry.

Fucking Evil Spock douchebag.

Between him, Brooks, Kristol and MoDo, the "liberal" paper of record is already effectively in the tank for McCain.

Deb said...

Ask and ye shall receive. Scroll down for the Politics editor:

http://www.blognosh.com/editors.html

Noah said...

I guess at the end that is what's wrong with it. His Obama assault is random. It's like his columns are written now just as a way to hit Barak.

Today I'm writing about the state of public education in urban settings. It's dismal. Barak Obama puts his right shoe on first, not his left.