Krugman's ill considered claims about Giuliani and Bush on 9/11

What exactly useful does Krugman add to this debate? Here is a link discussing Krugman's post entitled "The Years of Shame." What ideological or personal gain does Krugman think that Giuliani and Bush got from this tragedy?

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. Te (sic) atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. . . . A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it. . . .

UPDATE: James Taranto reminds us of an earlier weird economic claim made by Krugman.

"It seems almost in bad taste to talk about dollars and cents after an act of mass murder," he observed, then went ahead and did so: "If people rush out to buy bottled water and canned goods, that will actually boost the economy. . . . The driving force behind the economic slowdown has been a plunge in business investment. Now, all of a sudden, we need some new office buildings."

That was former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, who added that "the attack opens the door to some sensible recession-fighting measures," by which he meant "the classic Keynesian response to economic slowdown, a temporary burst of public spending. . . . Now it seems that we will indeed get a quick burst of public spending, however tragic the reasons." He went on to denounce the "disgraceful opportunism" of those who "would try to exploit the horror to push their usual partisan agendas"--i.e., conservatives who he said were doing exactly what he was doing. . . .

Minor point is that even if we want to focus on spending, spending depends on wealth and the country's wealth is destroyed.

Question: Where is the liberal anger over Obama ordering Special Forces to kill and not capture Osama?

I thought that liberals abhorred assassinations. Here is what Obama said in 2008:

'What would be important would be for us to do it in a way that allows the entire world to understand the murderous acts that he's engaged in and not to make him into a martyr, and to assure that the United States government is abiding by basic conventions that would strengthen our hand in the broader battle against terrorism.' . . . 'First of all, I think there is an executive order out on Osama bin Laden's head,' Mr Obama said. 'And if I'm president, and we have the opportunity to capture him, we may not be able to capture him alive.' . . .

Where is the push back on not making any attempt to capture Osama? On a practical matter there is the information that could have been obtained from capturing Osama. From Reuters:

The U.S. special forces team that hunted down Osama bin Laden was under orders to kill the al Qaeda mastermind, not capture him, a U.S. national security official told Reuters. . . .

BY the way, couldn't Obama bring himself to say anything nice about Bush and his efforts. Apparently some of the key intelligence information used to get Osama was developed under the Bush administration. Obama only mentions Bush once in passing and it has nothing to do with acknowledging his efforts.

I’ve made clear, just as President Bush did shortly after 9/11, that our war is not against Islam. . . .

More than half of Democrats believed that it was at least "somewhat likely" that Bush was "complicit" in the 9/11 attacks

Ben Smith at Politico has been writing a lot about the "birther" issue. This last week he added the point below. I remember this (and I seem to remember other polls), but I hadn't seen anyone talk about it and surely none of the media have raised it when they have pushed Republicans on the issue. If I had been a Republican being pushed on the "birther" issue, I would have said that I was no more responsible for it than leading Democrats were on the Bush was complicit in 9/11 issue, indeed even less so because I had spoken out on the "birther" issue. Indeed, the Obama administration even had "truthers," such as Van Jones working in it, but there was never really any outrage in the MSM about that.

More than half of Democrats believed Bush knew

I've been looking for a good analogue to the willingness of Republicans to believe, or say they believe, that Obama was born abroad, and one relevant number is the share of Democrats willing to believe, as they say, that "Bush knew."

There aren't a lot of great public numbers on the partisan breakdown of adherents to that conspiracy theory, but the University of Ohio yesterday shared with us the crosstabs of a 2006 poll they did with Scripps Howard that's useful in that regard.

"How likely is it that people in the federal government either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East?" the poll asked.

A full 22.6% of Democrats said it was "very likely." Another 28.2% called it "somewhat likely."

That is: More than half of Democrats, according to a neutral survey, said they believed Bush was complicit in the 9/11 terror attacks.

I'm still not sure this represents actual belief, as opposed to a kind of trash talk about a president you hate. (Bush wasn't mentioned in that survey question, but had been earlier in the poll.) . . .

Very funny piece on 9/11 conspiracy theories from the Onion

9/11 Conspiracy Theories 'Ridiculous,' Al Qaeda Says

911 not very helpful for this student

I find it very disturbing that the police will not release the 911 tape. I would hope that there is enough of a ruckus that there would be real pressure for them to release the tape. The story is here:

Police: Slain student apparently dialed 911; help not sent

By RYAN J. FOLEY
Associated Press Writer
May 2, 7:51 AM EDT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- A college student apparently called 911 from her cell phone shortly before she was killed but a dispatcher hung up, failed to call back and never sent police to investigate, authorities said Thursday.

Madison Police Chief Noble Wray said it was too early to know whether a better response could have prevented the April 2 slaying of Wisconsin-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann or helped police capture her killer.

Authorities refused to release the content of the phone call, but Wray said it should have been enough for the Dane County 911 Center to take it seriously.

Thanks to Rich for sending this to me.