Most have heard by now that yesterday Paul Krugman won the The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. He is to be congratulated for a much deserved prize, in my opinion, and the Nobel committee is to be congratulated for making a very sensible choice. (Yes, I have read his scholarly work. And in his role as a public intellectual, he’s a national treasure.)
A few weeks ago, he wrote the following on his blog:
“I’ve been pointing out that the dictatorial powers Paulson has sought would accrue to the next Treasury secretary, who might well be Phil Gramm. I’ve been trying to come up with a liberal-leaning name who might seem equally horrifying to Republicans, and the only one I’ve come up with is … me.”
I noted to Mark Blyth and/or to Abbas that Krugman’s comment was funny because it was true. Now, the award of the Nobel seems to have had the same effect, setting some of the rightwing parts of the blogosphere aflame. (I think he’d make a decent Secretary of the Treasury, but of course, he and the Obama camp are not exactly on the most cordial of terms.) Anyway, first, Kathy G., then Henry Farrell, and Brad Delong started different contests to see who can find the most intense and nutty conniption fits, and episodes of going, er, postal over this prize. Henry:
It furthermore occurs to me that someone (i.e. Me) should do a comments thread to collate and conserve the very bestest blogposts and comments on the Vast Nobel Prize Conspiracy. My opening bid, from ‘derut’ at The Volokh Conspiracy.
Excellent. He was a pseudo Nobel prize. That he deserves. As his politics is pseudoscientific. Great. Now I can applaude. I am sure many of you have watched him on cable networks. Has anyone else noticed he seems a little off. He speaks like a mouse and his beady eyes have a strange stare. He looks like if someone droped a glass he would scream.
It’s the spellings of ‘applaude’ and ‘droped’ that give it that special something.