Republican Candidates: Pawlenty Is Out, but Nonsense Continues
Thursday 25 August 2011
by: Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co. | Op-Ed

Tim Pawlenty mans the grill at the Iowa Pork Producers tent at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, August 12, 2011. (Photo: Max Whittaker for The New York Times)

I’m going to miss Tim Pawlenty, now that he’s dropped out of the Republican race. He was, after all, an econopundit’s dream.

I mean, there’s a constant torrent of nonsense flowing from the likes of Michele Bachmann — but it’s so unvarying that there’s not much to say. What made Mr. Pawlenty fun was that he was supposed to be the smart, capable candidate, someone who actually knew stuff. Yet every time he opened his mouth on policy issues, he revealed that he didn’t know a blessed thing, that he just read supposed fact sheets from right-wing hacks with no notion that, say, claims about a vast expansion of government employment based on temporary Census hiring were something to discount.

Mitt Romney isn’t as much fun; his style is not so much mangling the facts as putting his foot in his mouth. And I do sort of wish that Newt Gingrich hadn’t flamed out so early.

O.K., politics isn’t being devised for our entertainment — although given the dismal situation, finding the humor often seems the only way to get through the week.

Are People Corporations?

I’m coming in a little late on an already-famous remark from Mr. Romney, who declared that “corporations are people” in a heated discussion about raising taxes during a recent appearance at the Iowa State Fair.... continued onsite

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