Paul Krugman: GOP Debate Proves Candidates are Liars Living in “World of Fantasy and Fiction”
19 September 2015
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argued Friday that all the GOP debate on Wednesday proved is that the current field of Republican candidates is dangerously out of touch with reality, and is more than willing to lie about it in order to win an election.
By way of proof, he noted that the only candidate who didn’t spout “economic fantasies” was Donald Trump, and the only one seemed “remotely sensible” on foreign policy was Rand Paul — both of whom aren’t electable for a host of other reasons. Indeed, he said, the entire field should be “scary” not just to Democrats, but to moderate Republicans, because it’s impossible to tell what they actually believe.
"The real revelation,” Krugman wrote,
was the way some of the candidates went beyond expounding bad analysis and peddling bad history to making outright false assertions, and probably doing so knowingly, which turns those false assertions into what are technically known as “lies.”
For example, Chris Christie asserted, as he did in the first G.O.P. debate, that he was named U.S. attorney the day before 9/11. It’s still not true: His selection for the position wasn’t even announced until December.
Mr. Christie’s mendacity pales, however, in comparison to that of Carly Fiorina, who was widely hailed as the “winner” of the debate…