Well, that didn't work out as planned.

Paul Krugman is rather fond of big government -- the bigger the better especially if it is the kind of government where he and his friends are in control. When people he doesn't like, such as Dubya, are in charge is rather unhappy with big government. Sort of like the Republicans, but in reverse. Both love big government just different mixes of big government.

Krugman recently participated in a debate on whether or not the federal government should nationalize health care. He started out basically saying he didn't want to look at the economics of health care. I don't blame him, the economics aren't really good for his case. Instead he wanted to drone on about compassion and morality and caring. I'm in favor of all of those myself but no dose of compassion will turn poison into tonic. And caring can't make the bad incentives of government control work. None of those are actually relevant to the discussion -- which no doubt is precisely why Krugman wanted to discuss them.

Krugman decided to prove the virtues of nationalized health care by taking a poll of his audience. But like most plans put into motion by the Left it didn't quite work out the way he intended. There was a strong debate on the quality of care in Canada and Krugman wanted to settle it by an impromptu poll of Canadians in the audience. Here is how the official transcript reports it:

PAUL KRUGMAN
And private insurance? That’s the thing, I— Actually, can I just
—I wanted to ask a question. And—
JOHN DONVAN
Please—please do—
PAUL KRUGMAN
—and I wanted to ask, actually two questions, to the audience.
First, how many Canadians, would Canadians in the room please
raise your hands. [ONE PERSON APPLAUDS, LAUGHTER]
JOHN DONVAN
We have about seven hands going up—
PAUL KRUGMAN
Okay, not as many as I thought. Okay, of those of you who are
not on the panel who are Canadians,, how many of you think you
have a terrible health care system. [PAUSE] One, two—
JOHN DONVAN
We see—almost all of the same hands going up. [LAUGHTER]
PAUL KRUGMAN
Bad move on my part. [APPLAUSE] I’ve got a selected--all right, I
won’t try it. But I will say, that—