Making the facts convenient

James Taranto notes a nuanced view of facts:

Today Post columnist Ruth Marcus devastates Times columnist Paul Krugman, whom she actually mentions by name. Marcus notes a Krugman column from last week in which the former Enron adviser pooh-poohs concerns about the solvency of Social Security.

"Somebody should introduce Paul Krugman to . . . Paul Krugman," she writes, citing a series of old Krugman columns in which he sounded alarms about the solvency of Social Security. The best one is from a book review that appeared in the Times in 1996, before Krugman was a columnist. He wrote:

Responsible adults are supposed to plan more than seven years ahead. Yet if you think even briefly about what the Federal budget will look like in 20 years, you immediately realize that we are drifting inexorably toward crisis; if you think 30 years ahead, you wonder whether the Republic can be saved.

As far as we know, Krugman has never explained why he changed his mind, but one has to suspect it is for the same reason that, say, John Edwards went from being an alarmist about Saddam Hussein to being complacent about the whole war on terror--that is, political expediency.

The Democrat's turnabouts on Social Security solvency, like their turnabouts on the Iraq war, seem breathtakingly irresponsible. It makes one think of the Islamists who believe that the Koran tells them to lie if it benefits their cause.

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