If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas “Friedman Ain\’t Free” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. Well, I’ve decided to devote a daily feature to these folks, by daily pointing out one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy.
Today\’s is from Paul \”The Little Professor\” Krugman, who in his column \”Going to Extreme,\” explains how far-right elements arise in times of economically bad times:
In every political community there are varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects: Ten degrees to the left of center in good times, ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally.
Oh, sorry, that was Phil Ochs in the intro to his song \”Love Me, I\’m A Liberal\” back in 1966. The Little Professor actually wrote:
When the economy plunged into crisis, many observers — myself included — expected a political shift to the left. After all, the crisis made nonsense of the right’s markets-know-best, regulation-is-always-bad dogma. In retrospect, however, this was naïve: voters tend to react with their guts, not in response to analytical arguments — and in bad times, the gut reaction of many voters is to move right.
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