Paul Krugman: Tom Friedman 'Much Too Close To Beltway Conventional Wisdom' (VIDEO)

Paul Krugman Takes Shot At NYT Colleague

Paul Krugman took a shot at New York Times colleague Thomas Friedman during an appearance on HuffPost Live on Friday.

Host Marc Lamont Hill read out a comment: "Krugman is too polite to point out the obvious: Friedman doesn't know what the heck he's talking about." He noted that Krugman sometimes seems to be taking covert swipes at Friedman in his columns.

This is not a new phenomenon: many observers have pointed out Krugman's propensity to push back at his fellow columnists without saying their names. (Last month, Krugman dropped any pretenses, and wrote in a blog post that a Friedman column was "wrong.")

Krugman said that Friedman was often very wrong about the economic issues currently facing the country.

"I often disagree with Tom," Krugman said. "I often disagree with a school of thought of which he is a member. Times etiquette is, I talk about the school of thought, not the guy. Tom's a good guy, but I think that, on these issues, he's just much too close to the Beltway conventional wisdom. There are times when conventional wisdom is right, but right now, it's really, really wrong."

Krugman also spoke about columnist David Brooks.

"David's a conservative. He and I really disagree on what kind of society we ought to have," he said. "I don't think Tom and I really do disagree, but Tom has a different view of how we get there. I'm much more confrontational ... on the straight economics, I've been taking positions that seem outlandish to a lot of Beltway types, except I've been right!"

Watch the whole segment here.

Before You Go

Jill Abramson, executive editor

New York Times

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