Liberal Columnist Paul Krugman Calls 9/11 Aftermath 'Deeply Shameful'
On the heels of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, conservatives and pundits expressed outrage over remarks by Paul Krugman, a liberal columnist for The New York Times, in his Sunday column titled “The Years of Shame.” He took exhaustive liberties in criticizing former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former President George W Bush by writing, “what happened after 9/11” was “deeply shameful.”
Krugman, whose columns typically support leftist positions, states that the attacks should have been “a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue.” Bush and Giuliani, both of whom played instrumental roles in the aftermath of 9/11, were both referred to as “fake heroes” and described as having “raced to cash in on the horror.”
The emotional distress that enveloped the country after the attacks was used to “to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons,” according to Krugman.
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GOP leaders are not the only ones Krugman calls out. Professional pundits, according to him, “took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption” and thus “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.”
Krugman would not allow comments on his blog page, “for obvious reasons.” However, this did not stop conservative bloggers from hitting back.
Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin dubbed him “Koward Krugman” and a “lazy intellectual slob” who “flung his op-ed crap against the wall.” Malkin criticizes Krugman for not being constructive in his critiques and only illuminating partisan failures since 9/11.
The other side of the blogger aisle defended Krugman’s cantor. Crooks & Liars Nicole Belle believes Krugman is just telling the truth.
"That day was the impetus for us to attack and invade Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with the attacks and posed no threat to us," she wrote. "To date, we've lost 4,752 allied service members in Iraq and over 100,000 Iraqi civilians. How is this not a black mark of shame on the legacy of 9/11?"
Krugman, a Nobel prize-winning economist, writes a column called, “The Conscience of a Liberal.”
Regardless, Krugman lost at least one reader in former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
"After reading Krugman's repugnant piece on 9/11, I cancelled my subscription to The New York Times this AM," Rumsfeld tweeted Monday morning.
Keith Urbahn, Rumsfeld’s chief of staff, explained the decision further, according to the Daily Caller:
“Mr. Rumsfeld canceled his personal subscription to The New York Times years ago,” Urbahn wrote in an email.
“We still had a subscription for our office, but after reading Paul Krugman, he decided to cancel it,” wrote Urbahn. “We may not be getting the New York Times anymore, but I doubt we’ll be missing much.”
Joseph Burgess, in the office of The New York Times' public editor, told FoxNews.com that the office has so far heard from about 100 readers regarding Krugman's post.
