[Politics]

Krugman Spends Friday Profit-Taking

After a nice run, Wall Street traders will often sell-off stocks to cash in on their recent rise. It's one reason why even healthy markets have down days. Krugman, after hammering the hapless administration for months, does the same today.

George W. Bush, I once wrote, "values loyalty above expertise" and may have "a preference for advisers whose personal fortunes are almost entirely bound up with his own." And he likes to surround himself with "obsequious courtiers." Lots of people are saying things like that these days. But those quotes are from a column published on Nov. 19, 2000.

He's partly on a rant about the press having dropped the ball in 2000 and 2004 (while he was hammered for criticizing Bush), but there's a whiff of the Times own crimes in the article. Read between the lines and see if you think he's referring to Judy Miller:

Let's be frank: the Bush administration has made brilliant use of journalistic careerism. Those who wrote puff pieces about Mr. Bush and those around him have been rewarded with career-boosting access.

In Judy's case, it also ended in jail, but depending on how the investigation into the Plame leak turns out, that may also have been a good career move.