Instapundit Glenn Reynolds links today to this open letter from Ben Stein to NYT columnist Paul Krugman, attacking the latter for his column marking the death of economist James Tobin. In addition to the fact that the entire letter amounts to little more than a foul stew of gross distortion, ideological invective, and willful misrepresentation, I was particularly struck by the following sentence: "It really is shocking that someone of your limited background in economics presumes to judge a great man like Tobin or in eulogizing him to so pervert his opinions and work..."

Let me get this straight. Are we talking about the same Paul Krugman? The one who has been honored with the Eccles Prize for Excellence in Economic Writing, the John Bates Clark Medal, the Adam Smith Award, the Nikkei Prize (with M. Fujita and A. Venables), and the Alonso Prize? Is that the "limited" economic background to which Stein refers?

On the other hand, I suppose the columnist's CV would look much more impressive to Mr. Stein if Krugman had chosen to indulge his pedagogical impulse by hosting a game show on Comedy Central -- instead of actually teaching economics in less savory spots, like Yale, MIT, Stanford, and Princeton.
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