Frank Rich asks many tough, pertinent questions about Enron today. “Then again, who in either party hasn’t cashed an Enron check?” he demands. Good point, Frank. Asked your fellow columnist Paul Krugman about that? “Whom can the country turn to for an honest investigation?” Rich asks. Another excellent point, Frank. Certainly not the economics columnist for the New York Times who never disclosed his own $50,000 Enron lucre in his own column until it was reported by others. Then there’s Rich’s peroration: “Enron has arisen like the ghost of over-the-top Christmases past, as a jolting throwback to the untethered America of the dot-com bubble. The greed of its perpetrators, and of the enabling politicians of both parties who took their cut before the wipeout, looks even uglier against the stark backdrop of those less well-connected Americans who are fighting our war.” Couldn’t have put it better myself. $50,000 is up to two years’ salary for some of our troops. Rich’s fellow columnist pocketed it for what he concedes was doing nothing but burnishing Enron’s image. And now he asks us to take him seriously when he lambastes Enron cronyism?
TICK TOCK: It’s now been three days since Paul Krugman’s $50,000 check from Enron was reported by the New York Times. Not a single media reporter has yet covered it. Romenesko, who has reported in the last two days on an editor’s pencil-tapping in meetings at the Southwest Journal and a flap over a cartoon in a Texas college newspaper, hasn’t reported the New York Times’ chief economics columnist on the take from Enron. Romenesko’s liberal double-standards are legendary. Others are usually better. C’mon, Howie. This is an easy call.
CLARIFYING AN ISSUE: Many of you have made the good point that this email puts succinctly:
“Regardless of what one thinks of Paul Krugman sitting on an advisory board at Enron and collecting $50K for the privilege, it is important to distinguish between the efficiencies that were generated by Enron’s attempts to make energy markets more competitive, which are what Krugman is praising in the Fortune article, and Enron’s accounting shenanigans. It is perfectly consistent to praise the former while condemning the latter. In fact one of the unfortunate outcomes of the Enron case seems be the conflating of these two actions, which could prevent us from benefiting from more efficiently functioning markets in energy and other ‘commodities.'”
Amen. There is a clear distinction between the illegal shenanigans Enron seems to have engaged in and the new economy structure Krugman once praised while on the Enron gravy train. The odd thing about Krugman’s Fortune piece, however, is that it is so out of synch with much of the rest of his writing that has been skeptical of the new economy. Contrast this piece with this one. A little discordant, wouldn’t you think?
The Dish 