I haven’t done a TimesReject feature in awhile, because A) I can’t link to the articles, and B) Shooting down the likes of Krugman, Dowd and Rich is just too easy. But given the way the media have been attacking the growing economy, I figured I would look to lead attack dog Paul Krugman to find out what tactics they were going to use to make soaring economic growth look like a bad thing. In the process, I came across this quote in his latest column, “The Joyless Economy,” in which Krugman argues that the economy is not as good as the President says it is because the “economic fortunes” of most Americans have not kept up with GDP growth:

The disconnect between G.D.P. growth and the economic fortunes of most American families can’t be dismissed as a normal occurance… Nor, I should say, is there any easy way to place more than a small fraction of blame on Bush administration policies.

How does one even attempt to explain that last sentence? Is this an apology to Krugman’s readers, who’ve come to expect every column to blame something on Bush? Or is it just a joyless admission of defeat — acknowledging that this time his column has failed to fulfill its raison d’etre?