Krugman Spat With Professor Explodes Online

Sniping turns to race when Ferguson calls Obama Felix the Cat

By Jason Farago, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 24, 2009 7:32 AM CDT

(Newser) – Niall Ferguson picked the wrong Nobel-winning economist to mess with. The Scottish historian, who teaches at Harvard, has been caught up in a high-profile academic feud with New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who has called him a "poseur" and a "whiner" in recent blog posts. Ferguson hit back at Krugman for being "patronizing"—but then made an embarrassing analogy of President Obama to Felix the Cat. "Felix was not only black," he wrote. "He was always very, very lucky. And that pretty much sums up the 44th President of the US."

The Independent details the academic brouhaha, which began at an April panel discussion where Ferguson warned of an American debt crisis, leading spending-hawk Krugman to laugh out loud. The economist then called his views "really sad" and "depressing," to which Ferguson responded that Krugman should take an economics refresher course. How bad is the catfight? Even Henry Louis Gates Jr has gotten involved—opining that black fur doesn't make Felix black any more than it does Mickey Mouse.

[Images (2)]

[Quotes (2)]

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman speaks during a press conference at the World Capital Markets Symposium in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Monday, Aug. 10, 2009. (AP Photo/Lai Seng Sin)

Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman receives the Nobel Prize from Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf, in Stockholm, Dec. 10, 2008. (AP Photo/Scanpix Sweden, Anders Wiklund)

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I can't fathom why Ferguson thought this was a good way to introduce a column. Admittedly, it doesn't really distract from his larger point, since as far as I can tell he doesn't have one. - Paul Krugman on Ferguson's comparison of Barack Obama to Felix the Cat

It is a brave or foolhardy man who picks a fight with Mr. Krugman. Yet a cat may look at a king, and sometimes a historian can challenge an economist. - Niall Ferguson, historian and Harvard professor

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Krugman Spat With Professor Explodes Online