The Subtweeting of David Brooks

There was obviously little chance that Krugman was going to let Brooks’s most recent cavalcade of howlers pass him by, and he doesn’t disappoint.

For some even cruder hackery, though, we must turn to the Wall Street Journal:

For an example of de facto falsification, one need look no further than a recent column by Bret Stephens of The Wall Street Journal, which first accused President Obama (wrongly) of making a factual error, then proceeded to assert that rising inequality was no big deal, because everyone has been making big gains. Why, incomes for the bottom fifth of the U.S. population have risen 186 percent since 1979!

If you think that Stephens is shameless enough to present income data without adjusting for inflation, you’re right! Truly hacktacular.