I have to say, I am becoming a really big fan of Paul Krugman. I really disliked him in the past because I found him to be another partisan hack lacking in objectivity. This was especially the case during the Obama / Hillary primary. In fact, so many of his columns were not about his specialty - economics - but about politics.
But ever since the economic melt-down and Obama taking office, I have found his voice to be extremely important. First, his economic perspective on the financial crisis has been invaluable. He has been able to explain what is going on as well as fight back against conservative attacks blaming the crisis on liberal policy. Second, his economic analysis of the health care debate is also extremely important since so much of the debate revolves around incentives and markets.
Finally, Krugman has been a good check on the Obama administration. While Republicans have been decrying Obama's moderately liberal solutions to the financial crisis, Krugman has reminded us that options that are farther to the left may be the even better option. This is extremely important since the tendency can be to assume that a policy is sufficiently liberal if conservatives hate it. It's good to have someone telling us that this isn't necessarily the case.
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