Krugman and NAFTA

I was reading this comment at TPMCafe

Clinton pal Paul Krugman was ... a shill for the Clinton push for NAFTA.

Really? It was so obviously a bad idea, and he's such a good liberal. The Economist confirmed that everything we thought was going to happen with NAFTA did, in fact, happen, in their cheerful "plutocrats have devastated the economy and that's a good thing" style.

But, it turns out to be true!

Paul Krugman, a trade economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that for the United States, the agreement is "economically trivial." Professor Krugman supports the treaty, saying he thinks it will help to keep free-market reformers in power in Mexico. He sums up the war of words this way: "The anti-Nafta people are telling malicious whoppers. The pro-Nafta side is telling little white lies."

He was too honest to assert that NAFTA would be a good thing for us, but that's small comfort. Even as recently as May, he hedged with "whatever you think of NAFTA."

Ah, well. All halos get tarnished. I'm still a fan.