PAUL KRUGMAN VS. SIMONE LEDEEN

Via Roger Simon... I think Ledeen takes round one. From Ledeen's National Review article:

When I was in business school several years ago, my macroeconomics professor assigned one of Paul Krugman's books for us to read; it was a collection of essays about President George W. Bush's economic plan. Dutifully, my classmates and I read the book, researched Krugman's position, and spent time analyzing his arguments. I was disappointed that in his June 29 article, "Who Lost Iraq?," Krugman didn't apply the same standards of honest research and analysis to me and my father, Michael Ledeen, that I had applied to him.

Criticizing what he claims are the failures of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq (CPA), Krugman wrote:

If the occupiers often seemed oblivious to reality, one reason was that many jobs at the C.P.A. went to people whose qualifications seemed to lie mainly in their personal and political connections — people like Simone Ledeen, whose father, Michael Ledeen, a prominent neoconservative, told a forum that "the level of casualties is secondary" because "we are a warlike people" and "we love war."

Instead of trying to find out who my colleagues and I really are and what we did in Iraq, Krugman created a fantasy world in which unqualified people got great jobs because they were children of celebrated or powerful Washington insiders. (I won't dwell on the fact that Krugman also quoted my father out of context; those interested can verify this for themselves.) Times readers are entitled to the real story, however. People were hired based on professional experience and abilities, not cronyism. The Pentagon had a website up for many months to recruit volunteers for both Iraq and Afghanistan. In my case, I have an MBA, spent a year in post-Communist Eastern Europe at a newly privatized publishing house, and have worked at an economic consulting firm and a venture-capital group.

No doubt, some at the CPA volunteered because of their political beliefs, but I don't know of anyone who was hired because of them. Contrary to Krugman's fantasy, several of my colleagues were staunchly antiwar and had voted for Gore, yet held positions of considerable responsibility within the provisional government. (full article)