Eric Ferhnstrom Probably Won't Be On TV With Paul Krugman Again-- Will ANY Romney Surrogate?

If Eric Ferhnstrom is the best Romney can do in terms of surrogates, maybe Obama can win this thing after all-- at least if anyone watches chat shows like This Week. Sunday's particular episode, however, is worth watching, as Paul Krugman roasted Ferhnstrom over a spit while Obama Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter basted him with a mixture of olive oil, lemon juice, shopped garlic and a dash of rosemary. Oddly, George Will brought along some lovely black Cypriot finishing salt when he insisted that poor befuddled Ferhnstrom respond to the question of Romney's support for Paul Ryan's vision of a society based on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, generally referred to as the "Ryan Budget." After first ducking the question, Romney's surrogate admitted-- perhaps forgetting Paul Krugman was sitting at the table with access to a mike-- that Romney is for the Ryan budget. Now's the time to get the popcorn:

FEHRNSTROM: Oh, he's for-- he's for-- he's for the Ryan plan. He believes it goes in the right direction. The governor has also put forward a plan to reduce spending by $500 billion by the year 2016. In fact, he's put details on the table about how exactly he would achieve that. So to say he doesn't have a plan to-- a plan to restrain government spending is just not true.

KRUGMAN: Can I say, the Ryan plan-- and I guess this is what counts as a personal attack-- but it isn't. It's not an attack on the person; it's an attack on the plan. The plan's a fraud. The plan is a big bunch of tax cuts, some specified spending cuts, basically for poor people, and then a huge magic asterisk which is supposed to turn into a deficit reduction plan, but, in fact, if you look what's actually in it, it's a deficit-increasing plan.

And so to say that-- just tell the truth that there is really no plan there, neither from Ryan, nor from Governor Romney, is just the truth. That's not-- if that's-- if that's being harsh and partisan, gosh, then I guess the truth is anti-bipartisanship.

FEHRNSTROM: So may I ask you, Paul, do you prefer the president's plan?

KRUGMAN: Oh, yeah. I mean, the president-- at least it's-- you know, I don't approve of everything, but there are no gigantic mystery numbers in his stuff. We do know what he's talking about. His numbers are-- you know, all economic forecasts are wrong, but his are not-- are not insane. These are - these are just imaginary.

I might add at this point that I'm reading Stephen Goldstein's fantastic new book, Atlas Drugged which should be the perfect reparative therapy for Paul Ryan's staffers who were forced to read the Ayn Rand novels that he claims animated his political career. Described as "the long-overdue obituary for the unbridled greed glorified by Atlas Shrugged, I find myself rationing the book so I can savor it without finishing it all in one gulp. Great review from Anthony Orlando in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

Stephen Goldstein does to Ayn Rand acolytes what Stephen Colbert does to Bill O'Reilly. Atlas Drugged is the most unflinching satire of the Right I've ever read. Goldstein has a mellifluous voice, and he puts it to deliciously ruthless use. Conservatives and libertarians will complain that it's unrealistically over-the-top, and so-called 'centrists' will complain that it's unnecessarily partisan, but as shown in recent interviews with and stories about the true Randites in the top 1 percent, this book is closer to nonfiction than... well, than any of us should be comfortable with. And that's the point. You shouldn't be comfortable with the status quo. You shouldn't condone sociopathic greed, much less succumb to it. To do so is to violate the very moral precepts that make our civilization possible. Goldstein's achievement here is to show us a world without those precepts and to challenge us to prevent it from becoming a reality.