In the roundtable discussion on This Week, Peggy Noonan’s analysis of last week’s debate lead to a heated exchange between Paul Krugman and Mary Matalin.
“We will look back on it as a historic moment in this election,” Noonan said of the debate. “It upended things. This is what it it upended: Barack Obama was supposed to be the sort of moderate, centrist fellow who looked at Mitt Romney, this extreme strange fellow. By the time that debate was over, Mitt Romney seemed a completely moderate, centrist figure who showed up as mitt Romney the governor, not as Mitt Romney the candidate.”
“Except that everything he used to prove his centrism wasn’t true,” retorted Krugman.
When Noonan called that criticism “unjust,” Krugman responded, “When you say my plan covers pre-existing conditions when it doesn’t, and when your own campaign has admitted in the past that it doesn’t, what do you say? That’s amazing.”
At that point, Matalin told Krugman, “You have mischaracterized and you have lied about every position and every particular of the Ryan plan on Medicare from the efficiency of Medicare administration to calling it a voucher plan, so you’re hardly credible on calling someone else a liar.”