Cavuto goes overboard on Krugman

2003-05-17T00:26:32Z 2003-05-17T00:26:32Z Cavuto goes overboard on Krugman 2003-05-17T01:38:13Z

Now, I’m not one who normally goes out on a limb to defend Paul Krugman. Heck, I’ve called him <a href="http://blog.lordsutch.com/?entryid=438">a snakeoil salesman</a> in this weblog, so I’m hardly the world’s biggest fan. But I also think <a href="http://volokh.blogspot.com/2003_05_11_volokh_archive.html#200302952">Eugene Volokh is right</a> to disparage <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,86795,00.html">Neal Cavuto’s immature response</a> to a drive-by insult at the end of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/13/opinion/13KRUG.html">Tuesday’s Krugman column</a> in <cite>The New York Times</cite>. I don’t disagree with Cavuto’s basic point—“Your World,” his daily Fox News show, has a designated commentary segment, and Cavuto’s comments were made during that segment, so he’s not under any obligation to be objective there, just as Krugman’s column’s presence on the op-ed page (and, some might argue, in the <cite>Times</cite> itself) relieves him of any obligation to be “fair and balanced” in that column. But I think Cavuto could have produced a more mature response. Similarly, I think Donald Luskin’s “Krugman Truth Squad” feature at his <a href="http://www.poorandstupid.com/chronicle.asp">weblog</a> and <cite>NRO</cite> would be far more effective if he limited the name-calling and stuck to the (frequent) instances where Krugman is clearly wrong or is distorting the truth to serve his left-wing agenda. James Joyner <a href="http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/001667.html">agrees</a>. http://blog.lordsutch.com/archives/491 http://blog.lordsutch.com/atom.cgi/entryid=491