Once more with feeling… I love Paul Krugman.

This article is the latest salvo in a tiff between David Brooks and Krugman on the NY Times editorial page. (And thanks to Cal Pundit for pointing out the context of the editorial.)

And, as often is the case, I powerfully agree with Krugman. The right has been playing dirty politics for a long, long time. What they did under Clinton was offensive at best. (And I still think at times it was illegal at worst.) And now we have a President who plays by the same smear-tactic rules as his media allies. And now people like David Brooks and even Rush Limbaugh have the audacity to suggest that the left needs to just calm down and return to a more civil discourse.

Well, for my money, the left is still reporting while the right smears… only Bush’s policies and politics don’t stand up to the bright light of reporting and analysis. They are bad for this country, and saying so may be uncivil, but as Krugman says, that doesn’t make it any less true.