Paul Krugman called out a fellow New York Times staffer over the weekend.
Speaking at the annual Netroots Nation conference in Providence on Saturday, the columnist took a swipe at Sam Tanenhaus, the editor of the New York Times Book Review. Krugman has been on a tour for his new book, "End This Depression Now!" and apparently, got a sneak peak at a less-than-favorable notice in an upcoming issue of the section.
“The New York Times Book Review is run by Sam Tanenhaus, who is very much a neocon, and makes a point whenever a progressive comes out with a book to find someone who will attack it,” Krugman said. “It’s not really an attack, but the reviewer is shocked at the lack of respect I show for ‘highly respected people,’ I think he uses that phrase.”
The "highly respected people" line surely galled Krugman. He has repeatedly criticized what he derisively calls the "Very Serious People" who, in his words, command respect but keep "demanding utterly foolish policies."
"End This Depression Now!" was also reviewed negatively in the daily Times book review feature.
While some might be surprised that Krugman would make such a statement about Tanenhaus, he has something of a reputation as a maverick within the paper. Though Times columnists are prevented from criticizing each other by name in print, a cottage industry of sorts has sprung up around him, with many Krugmanologists finding thinly veiled attacks on colleagues such as David Brooks and Thomas Friedman in some of his more acerbic paragraphs.
Note: the post was updated to make clear that Krugman was talking about a review that has not been made public yet.
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