Clive Crook, Columnist

Krugman, DeLong and Radical Centrism

Split-the-difference centrism is often necessary in a democracy, and not to be despised, but that isnât how I think about issues.Â

May 9, 2013 at 1:57 PM UTC

By Clive Crook

Clive Crook is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and member of the editorial board covering economics. Previously, he was deputy editor of the Economist and chief Washington commentator for the Financial Times.

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Brad DeLong has commented on my beef with Paul Krugman. I'm reluctant to engage, to be honest, because his post exemplifies the intemperance I'm addressing. Once an admirer, I gave up on his commentary a long time ago. You get a sense of the problem from his post about me. He illustrates it with a picture of a clown. He also wants me fired. "Bloomberg has some house-cleaning to do," he says -- charming, and from a tenured academic, to boot.

DeLong's fine under the supervision of a competent adult, as here (an excellent paper, which I praised at the time). But as an unattended blogger he regresses to intellectual adolescence, light on thinking and exhaustingly heavy on peevish belligerence. Not just uncivil, he actually disapproves of civility -- today, as you see, I'm trying to meet him halfway.