Defending Paul Krugman Redux

David Weigel rises to Paul Krugman's defense:

On a day when everyone else was flashing back to 9/11/2001, I was flashing back to the days and months later, when criticism of the Bush administration returned, and the practioners of it became, briefly, Emmanuel Goldsteins. Remember Susan Sontag? Remember the Dixie Chicks? Remember the campaign to "revoke the Oscar" from Michael Moore? There hasn't been much criticism of the substance of Krugman's remarks; denying that 9/11 and counterterrorism strategy became "wedge issues" is denying a few years of political history. The criticism is of Krugman for expressing it. He brushes the criticism right off.

"I'm not saying anything in that post that I wasn't saying back in 2002, when people like him were riding high," says Krugman. "And isn't Rumsfeld 'sweep everything up, related and not' the poster child for 9/11 exploitation?"