What is it about Paul Krugman?

A short time ago Noah Smith wrote a perceptive piece called krugtron-the-invincible.

It reasonably accurately summed up why Paul Krugman is so influential. He gets it right so often. Noah then examined why he is/was so accurate.
(Please note how many 'fights' Krugman has won in Smith's piece as well.)

Naturally people who call themselves conservatives would have none of this. In Australia we have people who clearly do not understand what he says nor his self-deprecation.( the last linked article deliberately avoided this)
However we can ignore them. They are people of limited intellectual development or writing for said people.

It then becomes a little distressing when a person of the esteem of Jim Hamilton accuses Krugman of 'careless mudslinging' . As it happens Jim's arguments are demolished in the comments section. Ironically he has been careless of mudslinging with regard to Krugman

I still find it strange he was not across the whole subject.

For those interested the following are the complete links involving the latest episode of the Rogoff-Reinhart 'affair'.

• Bred De Long with accurate-and-inaccurate-ways-of-portraying-the-debt-and-growth-association and then martin-wolfs-point-about-the-british-industrial-revolution-debt-and-growth
• Jim Hamilton on reinhart_and_rogoff-defend-themselves
• Kruggers replies here and here
• Robert Waldeman says what-reinhart-and-rogoff-should-do-now
• Daniel Kuehn on a-mostly-good-some-bad-criticism-of-Krugman
• Brad De Long comes in late with there-is-a-substantive-analytical-point-at-issue-between-reinhart-reinhart-rogoff-and-krugman-and-me-that-it-would-be-nice
• Robert Waldeman too on-dean-baker-vs-paul-krugman
• Lets now add Ryan Advent on debt, growth and competing risks
• VERY VERY late BUT ESSENTIAL via Brad De Long miles-kimball-and-yichuan-wang-contra-reinhart-and-rogoff-high-debtgdp-primarily-a-result-of-rather-than-a-cause-of-slower-growth Something if not ignored by Jim certainly rarely talked about. why?

I have been a bit lazy and simply cut and pasted my links from Friday's Around the Traps but they are all related.

My major point is you can criticise Paul Krugman but do it properly. David Glasner for example has criticised Krugman on a few occasions and come out the victor. He did so by sticking to facts and knowing his subject.

Jim please do not write such dross again. It devalues your reputation which is quite high ( and I expect to remain high).