Okrent's handling of his own departure is really kind of pathetic--an Ombudsman behaving like that is really beyond the pale.
Posted by Matt Davis at June 1, 2005 06:09 AMI've read jr. high school papers with more integrity than Okrent. How'd that stain ever get hired as an ombudsman?
Posted by idiosynchronic at June 1, 2005 06:18 AMMany think the Iraqi insurgents are getting desperate -- again, and again, and again.
(Credit to 'Harry Fish Nuts (?) via My DD)
Posted by larre at June 1, 2005 06:45 AMI had many an email argument with the fool Okrent. My guess is that the paper merely hung him out there to be a scapegoat and focus-point for reader anger at the Times. Okrent never once did his job. He was supposed to be the readers' representative at the Times. He never once advocated for the many readers who were/are very distressed at the lack of coverage for issues contrary to Bush&Co.'s interests. He was only, on his best days, an insincere apologist fot the corporate gray lady in her decline.
Posted by Ivy at June 1, 2005 07:28 AMOkernt also wrote a very long and very dull book about the construction of Rockefeller Center. He has a lsot to answer for....
Posted by Rich at June 1, 2005 07:29 AMPS-
Okrent's departing shot at good-guy Krugman, one of the few remaining truth-tellers at the Times, is a pretty good indication of where Okrent really stood the whole time he was not doing his job.
Putting aside Okrent's tenure in general (which I have mixed feelings about), looking just at the latest Krugman bit. Okrent's frantic attempts to justify his parting shot are incredibly weak. His statement about Krugman was inexcusable.
Posted by Steve Roth at June 1, 2005 08:18 AMIf Luskin is not just making all this stuff up about Okrent -- if Okrent really accepted Luskin's 40,000 words as reasonable critique (and I have no idea if he did) -- but *if* he did, then:
Either (a) Okrent accepted Luskin's critiques of Krugman although he knew that Luskin's pursuit of Krugman has failed to sully Krugman's work but instead has repeatedly shown up Luskin, a college drop-out, as a man with a loose grasp of economics, a careless approach to even simple math, and a disastrous record of loss in his field of nominal expertise as a financial advisor (and if none of that sufficed to raise an honest doubt or two, a man who describes himself as a stalker) -- or (b) Okrent allied himself with Luskin without knowing any of that.
The first would suggest that Okrent is intellectually dishonest; the second would suggest that he is frighteningly lazy. Ignorance is not reasonably excusable here; Luskin's pursuit of Krugman and his many stumbles along the way have been widely discussed. But I hope that Luskin is just making this stuff up; while I didn't think highly of Okrent as a public editor (and even less highly after reading that last column), I thought better of him than that.
Posted by Ghost of Joe Liebling's Dog at June 1, 2005 09:12 AMnice straw man attack by Okrent--although I thought him to be relatively decent at first, it soon became clear that he was more of a sop than anything else...
ironically, the emailings I had with him were also about a columnist's playing fast-and-loose with the facts (read: lying)--this was more than some economics numbers, though, it was Bill Safire's continued lying in print about the Saddam-WMDs-9/11 connection, which happened as recently as last fall, long after it was thoroughly deemed to be false. Seems to me to be a much bigger issue, but 'good guy' Okrent stuck up for his columnists 'right to lie' (in a more tactful and literate manner)
again, what liberal media?
Posted by David W at June 1, 2005 09:12 AMI did a google search for Daniel Okrent and Paul Krugman because of the catfight, and came across Donald Luskin's site. He's having a contest for the most outrageous "Krugmanisms" in various categories.
You can participate, and win free stuff!
Lots to choose from in those Krugman archives!
One of the best Krugmanisms I saw from that link above, was from an interview Krugman did on Tim Russert, debating Bill O'Reilly:
"Compare me … compare me, uh, with anyone else, and I think you’ll see that my forecasting record is not great."
Indeed! That may have been one of just a few things Krugman got right!
Posted by muckdog at June 1, 2005 09:26 AM"Compare me … compare me, uh, with anyone else, and I think you’ll see that my forecasting record is not great."
it's true, krugman wasn't prescient enough to predict that the smoking gun would come in the form of a mushroom cloud, that "when you talk about saddam and osama, there's no difference" (remember when your saviour said that, muck?) , that we would be greeted with candy and flowers, that the occupation would be "weeks, not months" that osama woud be "smoked out," that the mililtary would meet their recruitment goals, that "major combat operations" would be over on 5/1/03. jeez, that guy can't predict anything!
i guess humility is a sin, just like dear leader is a war hero ("I've been to war" he said, and it must have been so, since he's such an honest man.)
last rant mine
Posted by benjoya at June 1, 2005 01:40 PM"Compare me … compare me, uh, with anyone else, and I think you’ll see that my forecasting record is not great."
Gee, muck, your post reminds me of something.....
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush's misstatement "just shows even the most straightforward and plain-spoken people misspeak."
Posted by ann at June 1, 2005 02:06 PMBTW - Krugman was one of the few economists who called the Asia crisis beforehand.
And he's been spot on almost all his overall predictions.
Another pathetic cheap shot.
Posted by Samuel Knight at June 1, 2005 02:14 PM