Wow, it's not even November, and New York Times is in full frothing at the mouth mode

Check out today's New York Times editorial, calling Newt Gingrich a lying racist.  I'm sorry, it's one of those things where I understand the individual words and sentences, but not the meaning of anything they are trying to say.

...Mr. Gingrich has made racial resentment an integral part of his platform...presenting African-Americans with the great revelation that they should prefer paychecks to federal handouts. 

Is "great revelation" praise, or sarcasm?  If it is meant as praise, the section is self-contradictory, because where is the racial resentment?  And, if is it sarcasm (as I suspect), it means that the editorial writers are seriously proposing that federal handouts are preferable to paychecks.  In conclusion, this section literally makes no sense.

Newt blames Obama for putting lots of people on food stamps (SNAP).  Now, one could legitimately argue that it was Bush's policies, globalization, and/or the financial crisis that really caused this, not Obama.  But, to my great surprise, the NYT does not blame Bush or Wall Street for this,  Instead, they quibble.

The fact is that Mr. Obama has “put” no one on food stamps. People apply for food assistance...because they’re poor or out of work...

Puhleese.  Presidents get praised or blamed for job creation, inflation, whatever all the time.  Even if they have little to do with it.  Imagine the following argument in an editorial:  "Obama/Bush has not 'put' anybody on unemployment.  People apply for unemployment when they get fired..."  I can't.

The NYT editorial goes to great pains to mention that whites far outnumber blacks receiving SNAP benefits.  Duh!  Whites far outnumber blacks in total.  The relevant number is percentage, which the NYT does not provide.  In any case, why is this relevant?  As quoted by the NYT, Newt said "The fact is that more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president...".

The editorial continues

But these are inconvenient details to Mr. Gingrich, who implied that the rise in federal aid was a sad indication of the insufficient work ethic of black Americans.

None of the quotes attributed to Newt in the editorial even mention black Americans.  Even if the NYT Editorial Board now includes Matt Parkman from the Heroes TV series and can read Newt's mind and knows that he is a racist, it is factually incorrect, based upon the quotes presented, to write that Newt said or implied that black Americans have a poor work ethic.  He did nothing of the sort.

Newt then proposes that poor children (not "black children") be employed in jobs such as school janitors.  He cites his daughter doing so and benefiting from the experience.  The editorial responds:

Don’t try to follow any kind of logical thread of why the president wouldn’t want the jobless rate to decrease...

Don't try to follow any kind of logical thread in the editorial, because children don't count in the jobless rate!  But this kind of talk from Newt is "divisive".

For the record, I'm not a big Newt fan.  But this editorial is absurd in its criticisms, which are not supported by a single iota of evidence.

Oh yeah, check out the comments, which are even more wildly hostile and hateful.  I'm just going to mention the first two I saw.  MJR calls the Republican Presidential Debate a "KKK rally".  And has 35 "thumbs up" votes.  Julieanne Wozniak says "Newt is rich white trash...Newt is an odious, possibly narcissistic excuse for a human being, a waste of breathable air."  And earns 43 thumbs up.

Enjoy November.  It's going to be an incredibly hostile and bitter campaign.

A slightly useful Paul Krugman Editorial

A recent Paul Krugman editorial takes Mitt Romney to task for some arguably misleading statements about jobs lost or created by Romney and Obama.  I agree that Obama inherited a mess and it is unfair to count jb losses from, say, February 2009 against him.

Krugman then takes issue with Romney's claim of 100,000 jobs created by Staples, Sports Authority and Dominos.  True, not all the jobs were created under Romney's tenure.  Krugman asks, rhetorically, "Can he claim credit for everything good that has happened to the company in the past 12 years?".  Of course not.  But he can claim credit for some of it, by putting the companies on a good path to growth.  And, let me point out, that the 2000s were an overall bad time for the US economy.  Obama inherited a mess and deserves some credit for starting the economy back on the right track.  But, to be fair, Krugman should give Romney credit for his companies doing well even through the lousy 2000s.  Of course he won't.

The rest of the editorial is more of the recent Krugman sophistry similar to his recent column "well, the debt is not a problem, we owe most of it to ourselves".  And well, if Staples did well, maybe Office Depot didn't, so Romney must take the blame for their job losses.  Sorry, I'm calling B.S. here.  You aren't going to blame your pitcher for lowering the batting average of the other team, are you?  "Sorry Gio, you got us 3 extra wins but that came at the expense of the Baltimore Orioles who had three extra losses.   So, overall wins for the league were equal, no raise for you."  Like that would work...

Krugman then goes into a complete non-sequiter.

"In any case, it makes no sense to look at changes in one company’s work force and say that this measures job creation for America as a whole."

True,  But need I point out the obvious?    Romney wasn't responsible for America as a whole.  Nor did he claim to be.  This is a complete Red Herring, ascribing a ridiculous false argument to your opponent then tearing it down.  Listen to Obama and you'll hear a lot of the same.

Krugman claims that Romney destroyed good jobs.  Maybe Romney did.  Perhaps Krugman, Nobel Prize Laureate economist with access to lots of data and papers, could cite a number?