This Just In, Kind Of: NYT Catches Up to Wall St. Protests

The New York Times let fly over the weekend with a trio of Op-Eds about the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations happening around the country, most notably (and most forcefully) Paul Krugman’s rumbling salvo, “Panic of the Plutocrats,” in which Krugman flames the nascent movement’s “remarkably hysterical” critics for their response to the protests and the people making them.

Also worth a look was celebrated communication scholar and media critic Todd Gitlin’s take on Occupy Wall Street vis-à-vis the tea party, as well as the paper’s editorial, which points out the plight of the young and the jobless, among other representatives of the 99 percent, and asserts that, “[a]t this point, protest is the message.”  —KA

Paul Krugman in The New York Times:

Consider first how Republican politicians have portrayed the modest-sized if growing demonstrations, which have involved some confrontations with the police — confrontations that seem to have involved a lot of police overreaction — but nothing one could call a riot. And there has in fact been nothing so far to match the behavior of Tea Party crowds in the summer of 2009.

Nonetheless, Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, has denounced “mobs” and “the pitting of Americans against Americans.” The G.O.P. presidential candidates have weighed in, with Mitt Romney accusing the protesters of waging “class warfare,” while Herman Cain calls them “anti-American.” My favorite, however, is Senator Rand Paul, who for some reason worries that the protesters will start seizing iPads, because they believe rich people don’t deserve to have them.

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Krugman takes charge: The New York Times’ resident economic think tank is on the Occupy Wall Street story.