Or so I suspect, but I truly enjoyed Krugman's latest
Krugman's topic is conspiracy theories. He begins in a delectable way, by summarizing various conspiracy theories wingnuts have recently proposed: that the whole concern about global warming is a hoax perpetrated on American people, that the media only tells us bad news from Iraq so that the war would fail. He then points out that this is not what the media means when they talk about conspiracy theories, nope. The real conspiracy theories were created by us: the lefty loonies. We believe that the Iraq war had nothing to do with the events of 911, we believe that the administration wanted to attack Iraq and that the WMD scare was just an acceptable excuse to sell us. We the corny, we the moonbats.
And what does Krugman think about all this? Well, he seems peeved at the way we have been treated. Yes! Isn't that funny? Here is what he says:
The truth is that many of the people who throw around terms like "loopy conspiracy theories" are lazy bullies who, as Zachary Roth put it on CJR Daily, The Columbia Journalism Review's Web site, want to "confer instant illegitimacy on any argument with which they disagree." Instead of facing up to hard questions, they try to suggest that anyone who asks those questions is crazy.
Indeed, right-wing pundits have consistently questioned the sanity of Bush critics; "It looks as if Al Gore has gone off his lithium again," said Charles Krauthammer, the Washington Post columnist, after Mr. Gore gave a perfectly sensible if hard-hitting speech. Even moderates have tended to dismiss the administration's harsh critics as victims of irrational Bush hatred.
But now those harsh critics have been vindicated. And it turns out that many of the administration supporters can't handle the truth. They won't admit that they built a personality cult around a man who has proved almost pathetically unequal to the job. Nor will they admit that opponents of the Iraq war, whom they called traitors for warning that invading Iraq was a mistake, have been proved right. So they have taken refuge in the belief that a vast conspiracy of America-haters in the media is hiding the good news from the public.
It's always someone else's fault with the wingnuts. Poor George. I fear that he will be thrown away with the bathwater, because his party can't stand a loser. Indeed, the newest conspiracy theory from the right is that conservatism has not failed, even if the policies of the administration have, because Bush is really a liberal in wingnut clothing (yes, I know it's crazy, but then it's a tinfoil theory). So have the mighty fallen.