Wow. Krugman's op-ed in the NY Times today actually tries to make the point that if you oppose Obama's health care reforms you're a racist - of course his convoluted and strained argument doesn't explicitly make that claim, but in essence that is the conclusion one is forced to draw. The frightening thing is, I don't think this is just some harebrained idea he desperately concocted in order to defend his cherished liberal agenda - I think he actually believes it to be true - although I imagine that fanatics will dress their ideals up in gaudy illusions so as to hide the emptiness inside.
This will all come as something of a shock to Harvard whose new Dean of Medicine wrote a rather brilliant essay 10 years ago criticising Hillary's health care proposals, criticisms which Greg Mankiw, another Harvard professor, has pointed out are very much germane to current debate. Does Harvard know it has become a refuge for racists and crackpots?
