Krugman: 'I’m Shocked By the Laziness – He’s Not Even Trying to Present a Coherent Argument'

On Sunday, NY Times hack Paul Krugman gave us one of the most insipid, nasty blog posts trashing the "fake heroes" of 9/11, namely George W. Bush and Rudy Giuliani, men who by near unanimous accord led America that dark day by the actions, not with cheesy speeches. Yesterday, five minutes before the 10th anniversary of the first plane hitting the north tower of the World Trade Center, Krugman lazily presented a 181-word, typo riddled incoherent screed. He then weakly refused to open the comments, surely aware he'd be met with a firestorm of outrage, which indeed followed from the blogosphere. So in a voyage into bizarro-world this morning, Krugman takes a Times op-ed piece to task, claiming "I’m shocked by the laziness – he’s not even trying to present a coherent argument".

Project much, Professor?

Here's a man who Sunday was too lazy to even go back and fix his glaring typo, too cowardly to face the ire of his readers and who authored one of the most incoherent items in recent memory, dating back to his outrageous comments following the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords. So what does he do the morning after his screed? He attacks a fellow author in his own newspaper for being lazy and incoherent. He ends his attack on author Robert Barro with this:

Why did he even bother?

That's what most of America was asking about Krugman Sunday. He clearly doesn't do irony.

Horrible: Paul Krugman Attacks Bush and Giuliani on 9/11

This douchebag apparently is so consumed with hatred he forgot to run spellcheck.

Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?

Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. Te atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.

I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.

What a coward.

Update: In case Krugman sends it down the memory hole, here it is. Thanks to John Hayward for grabbing the screen shot.

Bruce Bartlett: Obama's a Conservative or Something

You really have to wonder what this guy's been sniffing.

Here are a few examples of Obama's effective conservatism:

His stimulus bill was half the size that his advisers thought necessary;

He continued Bush’s war and national security policies without change and even retained Bush’s defense secretary;

He put forward a health plan almost identical to those that had been supported by Republicans such as Mitt Romney in the recent past, pointedly rejecting the single-payer option favored by liberals;

He caved to conservative demands that the Bush tax cuts be extended without getting any quid pro quo whatsoever;

And in the past few weeks he has supported deficit reductions that go far beyond those offered by Republicans.

Really? Obama hasn't offered a single thing to the public other than an endless series of temper tantrums.

It gets loonier. Cue the deranged Paul Krugman.

First, Obama gets no credit for his moderation, and never will. No matter how far right he moves, Republicans will move further right; and nothing he can do will keep them from denouncing him as a radical socialist.

According to these folks to most far-left president in our history is now a radical right-winger or something.

Good grief.

Some comedy gold in the comments.

A postscript: I don't see Obama as a moderate conservative. He's to the right of Reagan, so where does that leave him? Or is it that Obama and Clinton and the Dems have let the whole spectrum be pushed so far to the right that Reagan is now a centrist?

Krugman: 'Obama, Moderate Republican'

Just a moderate Republican, Professor? I thought he was more Reagan-esque these days.

What Obama has offered — and Republicans have refused to accept — is a deal in which less than 20 percent of the deficit reduction comes from new revenues. This puts him slightly to the right of the average Republican voter.

So we learn two things. First, Obama is extraordinarily eager to make concessions. Second, Republicans are incredibly unwilling to take yes for an answer — something for which progressives should be grateful.

Um, what are these concessions Obama is extraordinarily eager to make? He has no plan yet. Could you be a little more specific?

Leftwing Drone Cites "Nobel Prize-Winning Economist" Paul Krugman at Town Hall, Hearty Laughter Ensues

Seems the Nobel Prize just isn't as prestigious as it once was, back in the days when only the true greats like Yassar Arafat and Al Gore were awarded the medal.

Eh, never mind.

The good part comes around the 1:20 mark.



Andrew Stiles has more over at NRO, including the ThinkProgress version of the video which conveniently edits out the gut-busting laughter at Krugman's expense.

Cross-posted.

Crestfallen Krugman: Where'd My Bammy Go?

The rubes are in revolt. Unhappy that their socialist dreamboat has realized he's got little shot at re-election if he continues to spend us into oblivion, the natives are getting restless. Leading this pack of pusillanimous pipsqueaks is New York Times dolt Paul Krugman, who doesn't seem to understand Americans are concerned about spending, inflation and rising prices. In Krugman's world, he figures we can just tax the evil rich to pay for everything. And now he's wondering where the Obama of 2008 has gone.

What have they done with President Obama? What happened to the inspirational figure his supporters thought they elected? Who is this bland, timid guy who doesn’t seem to stand for anything in particular?

I realize that with hostile Republicans controlling the House, there’s not much Mr. Obama can get done in the way of concrete policy. Arguably, all he has left is the bully pulpit. But he isn’t even using that — or, rather, he’s using it to reinforce his enemies’ narrative.

So much for the new tone. Two paragraph in and he's talking about hostile Republicans and enemies. This from the guy who two hours after Gabrielle Giffords was shot declared the violent rhetoric of the right was to blame.

Krugman continues with his ugliness:

And bear in mind that this was just the first of several chances for Republicans to hold the budget hostage and threaten a government shutdown; by caving in so completely on the first round, Mr. Obama set a baseline for even bigger concessions over the next few months.

So to recpa, Republicans are hostile, the enemy and are holding the budget hostage. And this toll complains about how others speak?

I’m not exaggerating. The House budget proposal that was unveiled last week — and was praised as “bold” and “serious” by all of Washington’s Very Serious People — includes savage cuts in Medicaid and other programs that help the neediest, which would among other things deprive 34 million Americans of health insurance.

Savage cuts? My, that's an awfully harsh tone. Krugman wistfully laments what's happened to the incredibly shrinking president:

What’s going on here? Despite the ferocious opposition he has faced since the day he took office, Mr. Obama is clearly still clinging to his vision of himself as a figure who can transcend America’s partisan differences. And his political strategists seem to believe that he can win re-election by positioning himself as being conciliatory and reasonable, by always being willing to compromise.

But if you ask me, I’d say that the nation wants — and more important, the nation needs — a president who believes in something, and is willing to take a stand. And that’s not what we’re seeing. 

Krugman Confesses: "I Don't Know Anything"

Three weeks ago, you may recall that Paul Krugman did a spectacular belly-flop into an empty swimming pool when he linked the shooting in Tucson to Sarah Palin's whackadoodle - nay, dangerous! - right-wing rhetoric, without a shred of evidence.

Today, he is uncharacteristically reluctant to even dip his toes in the water by commenting on a situation he says he knows nothing about: Egypt.

Translation: He's still trying to figure out how to implicate Palin in all this.

I don’t know anything, have no expertise, haven’t even ever looked at the economic situation. Hence, no posting. If there comes a point when I have something to say, I will.

Via Mediaite. Cross-posted.

Christie Cancels the Tunnel to Nowhere

Thank you, Governor. How refreshing to have a man in office who actually keeps his word and looks to save the taxpayers money.

Gov. Chris Christie today killed the controversial, multi-billion dollar Hudson River commuter train tunnel — America’s largest public works project — ending for now the two-decade-old quest to expand train capacity between New Jersey and midtown Manhattan.

“I have made a pledge to the people of New Jersey that on my watch I will not allow taxpayers to fund projects that run over budget with no clear way of how these costs will be paid for,” said the governor. “Considering the unprecedented fiscal and economic climate our State is facing, it is completely unthinkable to borrow more money and leave taxpayers responsible for billions in cost overruns.

Christie said the tunnel project costs “far more than New Jersey taxpayers can afford and the only prudent move is to end this project.”

James Weinstein, the executive director of NJ Transit, in a statement, said while the state recognized the importance and value of a cross-Hudson transportation improvement project, “the current economic climate in New Jersey simply does not allow for this project to continue considering the substantial additional costs that are required.”

His predecessor, naturally, didn't care that taxpayers would be saddled with another Big Dig fiasco.

Tunnel opponents maintained the project was rushed together so then-Gov. Jon Corzine could get a re-election campaign photo opportunity at a ceremonial groundbreaking in summer 2009. They also said the tunnel, which was to end at West 34th Street in Manhattan, lacked connectivity to Penn Station and Manhattan’s prosperous east side. NJ Sierra Club director Jeff Tittel dubbed it the "tunnel to Macy’s basement."

Paul Krugman, meanwhile, is hyperventilating.

Many reports that Chris Christie is about to scuttle the second rail tunnel under the Hudson. If so, it’s arguably the worst policy decision ever made by the government of New Jersey — and that’s saying a lot.

Of course he's got a selfish motive for wasting our money.

And yes, if anyone should mention it, I am a resident of New Jersey who often visits Manhattan, and therefore has a personal stake in this project. You got a problem with that?

Uh, yes. I'm ashamed you live in my state. What a mealy-mouthed turd. Why have fiscal sanity if it affects Paul Krugman's commuting time?

Update: Krugman has abandoned all hope. I guess insulting Christie didn't have the desired effect.

At some visceral level, I guess I was expecting Christie to back down at the last minute — expecting that there would be a still, small voice in his mind saying, “If we can’t do even this — if we can’t follow through on a project so obviously needed, so clearly in the interests of the state and the nation — what hope is there for America?”

Yes, canceling a tunnel project that isn't paid for spells the end of America.

Good grief.

Heh: Krugman Calls Obama Clueless

When you've lost Paul Krugman...

The point is that these bank executives are not free agents who are earning big bucks in fair competition; they run companies that are essentially wards of the state. There’s good reason to feel outraged at the growing appearance that we’re running a system of lemon socialism, in which losses are public but gains are private. And at the very least, you would think that Obama would understand the importance of acknowledging public anger over what’s happening.

But no. If the Bloomberg story is to be believed, Obama thinks his key to electoral success is to trumpet “the influence corporate leaders have had on his economic policies.”

We’re doomed.

Count Krugman among the legion of the clueless, since he supported Obama up until now. Yet Krugman is sadly mistaken if he believes public anger at Obama is all about Wall Street types receiving large bonuses. It's way deeper than that: See trillions in debt, Obama's healthcare disaster, his breathtaking arrogance, his disdain for Sarah Palin as exemplified by his childish mouthpiece yesterday, his sneering condescension toward Congressional Republicans, the hatred directed toward tea partiers while pretending to call for bipartisanship, his botched handling of the Fruit of the Boom bomber and the list goes on and grows daily.

As Ed Morrissey notes, Obama is sinking badly on issues across the board, none of which are Wall Street bonuses.

Health care – 43/53, his worst showing, with 43% strongly disapproving

Economy – 45/53, also his worst showing, with 38% strongly disapproving

Federal deficit – 40/56, 40% strongly disapproving

Creating jobs – 47/51

Threat of terrorism – 56/39, slightly improved over last two months

It's not only Krugman. Others from the hard left have jumped ship.

Roundup here.

Hot Air links. Thanks!

Paul Krugman Uncovers Smoking Gun Evidence Linking Scott Brown to Republican Party

As the Democrats wheeze toward the finish line in Massachusetts and they thrown everything they can as Scott Brown, the kooks came up with a "bombshell" today in this now discovered interview from September 2008.

Marvel at the breathlessness with which New York Times crackpot Paul Krugman runs with it.

Wow. A video clip has surfaced from 2008 in which Scott Brown, the Republican candidate for Senate in Massachusetts, clearly suggested that President Obama may have been born out of wedlock.

I’m sure some will try to dismiss this as an isolated stray remark. But it’s clear if you watch the video that there’s a broader context: Brown is clearly aligning himself with the Limbaugh wing of the GOP, in which slurs along these lines are standard fare. And as Steve Benen points out, claims about Obama’s illegitimacy were an integral part of the birther craziness.

Nowhere in the video clip, of course, is Rush Limbaugh even mentioned, and Brown's throwaway line at the end questioned not whether Obama was born in the U.S., rather he claimed he may have been born out of wedlock. Needless to say, a big difference.

In Krugman's fantasy world, there's clearly some nefarious bias at work here.

So will this actually make political waves? If Brown were a Democrat, it would instantly be a huge scandal. The outrage machine would be working overtime. And the news media would, of course, pick it up.

The same media that this week blatantly misreported the John McCormick incident with Coakley's hired muscle on loan from Obama. Oh right, that was the Boston Globe, owned by Krugman's employer.

If this is supposed to be some game-changing outrage, this race is over.

Kooky Krugman: Big GOP Wins in 2010 Will Hurt the Party

I don't speak moonbat so maybe someone can help decipher this lunatic screed for me. Deranged NY Times hack Paul Krugman today bemoans the fact conservatives are rising up and influencing the GOP. Naturally, he goes on whining about the evil influence of Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, a lazy man's rehash of White House talking points that can be found pretty much anywhere in the kook-left blogosphere. If I didn't know better I'd think I was reading the incoherent ramblings of a washed-up jazz musician suffering from creationist derangement syndrome. Whatever the case, Krugman comes to the conclusion that if the GOP makes strides in the 2010 midterms it'll turn out badly for them.

Seriously.

In fact, the party of Limbaugh and Beck could well make major gains in the midterm elections. The Obama administration’s job-creation efforts have fallen short, so that unemployment is likely to stay disastrously high through next year and beyond. The banker-friendly bailout of Wall Street has angered voters, and might even let Republicans claim the mantle of economic populism. Conservatives may not have better ideas, but voters might support them out of sheer frustration.

And if Tea Party Republicans do win big next year, what has already happened in California could happen at the national level. In California, the G.O.P. has essentially shrunk down to a rump party with no interest in actually governing — but that rump remains big enough to prevent anyone else from dealing with the state’s fiscal crisis. If this happens to America as a whole, as it all too easily could, the country could become effectively ungovernable in the midst of an ongoing economic disaster.

The point is that the takeover of the Republican Party by the irrational right is no laughing matter. Something unprecedented is happening here — and it’s very bad for America.

Krugman conveniently forgets which party now controls the entire government that is overseeing--as he puts it--disastrously high unemployment. But any counter to that by the irrational right will only hurt the GOP, the ones trying to do something about it. Seems Krugman would rather have the disaster continue than cede any power to the bogeymen (and women) on the right he so fears. Seems he'd be comfortable becoming a banana republic just as long as Rush Limbaugh can't celebrate a victory on the air.

Krugman isn't the only one parroting this nonsense. It was the popular talking point on the Sunday babblehead shows.

Rolling Stone Deifies Dear Leader

Gee, I can't wait until this hits the newsstands.

Not.

This cover, to be released Friday, comes from the same idiot who gave us the silly Hope posters during the 2008 campaign. Rolling Stone apparently doesn't understand the word overkill. As an added bonus we'll be provided with the keen insights of the fake Republican David Rodham Gergen, the psychotic Paul Krugman and the human blimp, Michael Moore. Should be some fascinating reading.

Artist Shepard Fairey, whose iconic HOPE campaign poster of Barack Obama was a global sensation, is back with a new image that both questions and deifies the President.

Appearing on the cover of the Aug. 20 Rolling Stone, the portrait depicts Obama with a brow knit in determination, surrounded by a halo of stars.

"Will he take bold action or compromise too easily?" asks a headline enshrining the President's head.

Fairey said it wasn't meant to be a halo. Rather, the picture he worked from showed Obama standing in front of the presidential seal, he said.

No, wasn't meant to be a halo. I'm sure all those halo images are just sheer coincidence.

This would be a more appropriate cover signifying Obama's accomplishments.

Vast Left Wing Conspiracy Confirmed

Shocking, isn't it? Well, not really, considering these people all regurgitate the same drivel on a daily basis and couldn't come up with an original idea if their miserable lives depended on it.

For the past two years, several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics have talked stories and compared notes in an off-the-record online meeting space called JournoList.

Proof of a vast liberal media conspiracy?

Not at all, says Ezra Klein, the 24-year-old American Prospect blogging wunderkind who formed JournoList in February 2007. “Basically,” he says, “it’s just a list where journalists and policy wonks can discuss issues freely.”

But some of the journalists who participate in the online discussion say — off the record, of course — that it has been a great help in their work. On the record, The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin acknowledged that a Talk of the Town piece — he won’t say which one — got its start in part via a conversation on JournoList. And JLister Eric Alterman, The Nation writer and CUNY professor, said he’s seen discussions that start on the list seep into the world beyond.

“I’m very lazy about writing when I’m not getting paid,” Alterman said. “So if I take the trouble to write something in any detail on the list, I tend to cannibalize it. It doesn’t surprise me when I see things on the list on people’s blogs.”

Nice to see a hack like Alterman admit he's a lazy sack of shit. Ironic, though, how the media hasn't reported on this?

One byproduct of that secrecy: For all its high-profile membership — which includes Nobel Prize-winning columnist Paul Krugman; staffers from Newsweek, POLITICO, Huffington Post, The New Republic, The Nation and The New Yorker; policy wonks, academics and bloggers such as Klein and Matthew Yglesias — JList itself has received almost no attention from the media.

A LexisNexis search for JournoList reveals exactly nothing. Slate’s Mickey Kaus, a nonmember, may be the only professional writer to have referred to it “in print” more than once — albeit dismissively, as the “Klein Klub.”

While members may talk freely about JList at, say, a Columbia Heights house party, there’s a “Fight Club”-style code of silence when it comes to discussing it for publication.

But a handful of JList members agreed to talk for this story — if only to push back against the perception that the group is some sort of secret, left-wing cabal.

Translation: Please, we know we have zero credibility, but still, try and pretend we're all deep thinkers.

Nobel Prizes Now So Devalued, Even Insane People Win Them

I figured it was bad enough they give them away like candy when stooges like Al Gore and Jimmy Carter win them.

But now they're giving them out to people who should be in a sanitarium.

Paul Krugman, a professor at Princeton University and an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science on Monday.

“It’s been an extremely weird day, but weird in a positive way,” Mr. Krugman said in an interview on his way to a meeting for the Group of Thirty, an international body from the public and private sectors that discusses international economics.

Krugman: Politics of Personal Destruction Perfectly Fine As Long As It's a Republican Being Destroyed

One of the resident clowns on the New York Times op-ed page uses his typical inverted logic today to give his seal of approval to do whatever it takes to tarnish John McCain.

He pretends to know what Rush Limbaugh said about the haughty John Kerry (did you know he served in Vietnam?) in 2004, so apparently anything goes now.

Thanks for letting us know Democrats no longer have a problem with such political tactics. Oh, and no more whining when Obama is shredded the next couple months, OK, Paulie?

Douchebag Wonders: 'Can This Planet Be Saved?'

Apparently this dope doesn't realize the planet has been around for a few billion years, and like a few billion more.

Drilling for oil won't destroy the planet, you moron.

Recently the Web site The Politico asked Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, why she was blocking attempts to tack offshore drilling amendments onto appropriations bills. “I’m trying to save the planet; I’m trying to save the planet,” she replied.

I’m glad to hear it. But I’m still worried about the planet’s prospects.

True, Ms. Pelosi’s remark was a happy reminder that environmental policy is no longer in the hands of crazy people. Remember, less than two years ago Senator James Inhofe — a conspiracy theorist who insists that global warming is a “gigantic hoax” perpetrated by the scientific community — was the chairman of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee.

Beyond that, Ms. Pelosi’s response shows that she understands the deeper issues behind the current energy debate.

Most criticism of John McCain’s decision to follow the Bush administration’s lead and embrace offshore drilling as the answer to high gas prices has focused on the accusation that it’s junk economics — which it is.

And he's calling other people crazy.

Crackpot Krugman: Islamofascism a "Figment of the Neocon Imagination"

The New York Times may want to reconsider the decision to allow everyone to see the nonsense coming from their esteemed stable of columnists, especially this kook.

He works in all the leftist buzzwords: neocons and fearmongering among them, accusing the right of paranoia and racism and basically calls everyone crazy if you don't think like him.

I wonder if he even sits back and reads what he's writing. In one breath, he labels Iran a fourth-rate military power, yet warns that attacking them will only make them stronger.

Huh?

Yes, the Iranian regime is a nasty piece of work in many ways, and it would be a bad thing if that regime acquired nuclear weapons. But let’s have some perspective, please: we’re talking about a country with roughly the G.D.P. of Connecticut, and a government whose military budget is roughly the same as Sweden’s.

Meanwhile, the idea that bombing will bring the Iranian regime to its knees — and bombing is the only option, since we’ve run out of troops — is pure wishful thinking. Last year Israel tried to cripple Hezbollah with an air campaign, and ended up strengthening it instead. There’s every reason to believe that an attack on Iran would produce the same result, with the added effects of endangering U.S. forces in Iraq and driving oil prices well into triple digits.

This piece is so incoherent, he goes from claiming we have nothing to fear from Al Qaeda and Iran, but sums up that they're a real threat, but he's more afraid of paranoid, fearmongering, racist Republicans.

Just to be clear, Al Qaeda is a real threat, and so is the Iranian nuclear program. But neither of these threats frightens me as much as fear itself — the unreasoning fear that has taken over one of America’s two great political parties.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Kooky Krugman: Right Has 'Gore Derangement Syndrome'

Such is life as a hack for the New York Times, you suffer so much for your hatred for the right, you can't even come up with an original term to ascribe to those you detest.

Charles Krauthammer coined the term "Bush Derangement Syndrome" years ago to describe the irrational hatred from the left for George W. Bush.

Now, psycho columnist Paul Krugman claims valid criticism of The Goracle amounts to Gore Derangment Syndrome. How original.

This piece is a massive case of projection.

Maybe Stephen Colbert should have helped him with this one.

What is it about Mr. Gore that drives right-wingers insane?

Partly it’s a reaction to what happened in 2000, when the American people chose Mr. Gore but his opponent somehow ended up in the White House. Both the personality cult the right tried to build around President Bush and the often hysterical denigration of Mr. Gore were, I believe, largely motivated by the desire to expunge the stain of illegitimacy from the Bush administration.

And now that Mr. Bush has proved himself utterly the wrong man for the job — to be, in fact, the best president Al Qaeda’s recruiters could have hoped for — the symptoms of Gore derangement syndrome have grown even more extreme.

The worst thing about Mr. Gore, from the conservative point of view, is that he keeps being right. In 1992, George H. W. Bush mocked him as the “ozone man,” but three years later the scientists who discovered the threat to the ozone layer won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In 2002 he warned that if we invaded Iraq, “the resulting chaos could easily pose a far greater danger to the United States than we presently face from Saddam.” And so it has proved.

But Gore hatred is more than personal. When National Review decided to name its anti-environmental blog Planet Gore, it was trying to discredit the message as well as the messenger. For the truth Mr. Gore has been telling about how human activities are changing the climate isn’t just inconvenient. For conservatives, it’s deeply threatening.

Keep projecting. What an idiot. I guess he hasn't been reading up on the blatant distortions and misrepresentation's in Ozone Man's propaganda flick. But havings facts on your side has never mattered to Krugman.

More from NewsBusters, Michelle Malkin, Jules Crittenden.

UPDATE: After some thought, maybe Krugman will claim the satire defense.

Paul Krugman's New Blog: The Unconscious Liberal

This is sure to provide a wealth of comic material. Freed from obscurity behind the New York Times Select fiasco, laughingstock columnist Paul Krugman has now started a blog.

Can MoDo be far behind?

I’ve given this New York Times blog the same name, because the politics and economics of inequality will, I expect, be central to many of the blog posts – although I also expect to be posting on a lot of other issues, from health care to high-speed Internet access, from productivity to poll analysis. Many of the posts will be supplements to my regular columns; I’ll be using this space to present the kind of information I can’t provide on the printed page – especially charts and tables, which are crucial to the way I think about most of the issues I write about.

More from Just One Minute.

MoDo, Krugman Freed From Obscurity

In an attempt at recapturing attention formerly paid to their stable of idiotic columnists, The New York Times has paved the way to return their overpriced and uninformed solons to the public consciousness.

Honestly, people had grown used to ignoring the likes of the besotted Maureen Dowd, affirmative action columnist Bob Herbert, clueless theater critic Frank Rich, and the psychotic-yet-entertaining Paul Krugman ever since The Times made the disastrous decision to actually charge people to read these morons.

Well, now we'll be able to poke fun at them on a more regular basis.

TimesSelect Content Freed

August 7, 2007 -- The New York Times is poised to stop charging readers for online access to its Op-Ed columnists and other content, The Post has learned.

After much internal debate, Times executives - including publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. - made the decision to end the subscription-only TimesSelect service but have yet to make an official announcement, according to a source briefed on the matter.

No doubt it will drive them crazy to see the New York Post reporting this, but then again, The Post has been beating them to major stories for quite some time.

The timing of when TimesSelect will shut down hinges on resolving software issues associated with making the switch to a free service, the source said.

Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis would only say in an e-mailed statement, "We continue to evaluate the best approach for NYTimes.com."

While other online publications were abandoning subscriptions, the Times took the opposite approach in 2005 and began charging for access to well-known writers, including Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich and Thomas L. Friedman.

The decision, which also walled off access to archives and other content, was controversial almost from the start, with some of the paper's own columnists complaining that it limited their Web readership.

No kidding. When was the last time you heard anyone quoting what any of these people had to say?

The number of Web-only subscribers who pay $7.95 a month or $49.95 a year fell to just over 221,000 in June, down from more than 224,000 in April.

I'm surprised the number was that high.

Well, this will just gives us more opportunity to lambaste the incoherent ramblings of the bourbon-soaked Dowd and regale in the armchair military analysis of Rich, a man who couldn't find his way across midtown Manhattan without benefit of a chauffeur, let alone find Iraq on a map.

UPDATE: Others discussing include A Blog For All, Don Surber,
Sister Toldjah, Captain's Quarters, The Moderate Voice.