So where was the Newsweek (or any magazine's) cover with a picture of Krugman and the words "BUSH WAS WRONG"?

Very good point. That would just undermine that chummy establishment, now wouldn't it?

Only when it came to Katrina was the establishment finally able to call out Bush's incompetence.

Note that the establishment is doing nothing to fight the talking points issued by the right-wingers trying to blame the financial melt-down on the "irresponsible" loans that were "forced" on the system when racial red-lining was outlawed. Letting completely wrong talking points slide if they support the establishment is the flip side of your observation that we can never point out when the establishment gets it wrong.

Note Thomas' quoting of the YouTube rock song that calls for Krugman to be a member of the Obama administration:

A singer croons, "Hey, Paul Krugman, where the hell are you, man? We need you on the front lines, not just writing for The New York Times." (And the cruel chorus: "All we hear [from Geithner] is blah, blah, blah.")

Oh, those cruel liberals, so meanly suggesting that Geithner has nothing to say.

Thomas, unsurprisingly, takes the establishment side in the "what if" scenarios:

The government does not have the luxury of guessing wrong. If Obama miscalculates, he could truly crash the stock market and drive the economy into depression. Krugman's suggestion that the government could take over the banking system is deeply impractical, Obama aides say.

So, Krugman's approach of taking over the banks is just too risky and could lead to depression. The Geithner/Summers plan, on the other hand, with its own huge risks of depression that Krugman has pointed out, is much safer, presumably because it comes from the establishment.

Thomas' next piece could well include these lines:

"As our economy hurtles over the cliff into a depression now expected to last ten years, Treasury Secretary Geithner has just convened an economic summit under the title "Who Could Have Seen This Coming?". Notably absent from the speaking list is shrill New York Times columnist Paul Krugman."

Just the first three sentences of Thomas' piece have more revelations:

Traditionally, punditry in Washington has been a cozy business. To get the inside scoop, big-time columnists sometimes befriend top policymakers and offer informal advice over lunch or drinks. Naturally, lines can blur.

Glenn has been pointing this out to us for some time. It's nice of Thomas to own up to something we've known for a long time. But there is a very interesting additional subplot here, as well. Thomas is seeking the comfort of it just being "natural" that he would side with the establishment, because that's just the way things are done. But the sub-head of the article portends danger on the horizon:

Paul Krugman has emerged as Obama's toughest liberal critic. He's deeply skeptical of the bank bailout and pessimistic about the economy. Why the establishment worries he may be right.

Krugman is one of those pesky liberals trying to upset the establisment's world. The problem is that he just could be right.

Oh dear, what's a good establishment lackey to do? As more evidence comes in that Krugman is right, we're going to need to invest in a lot more fainting couches.

[Off to read the rest of the article, but this opening had too much to pass up...]

As I noted last week in an Oxdown diary linked at my name, Holder is not complying with his duty of looking into the war crimes that have been fully documented in press reports. CQPolitics had this:

“We will let the law and the facts take us to wherever we go,” Holder said. But he added that the administration does not want to criminalize policy differences.

Holder said the department is “mindful” of recent news accounts. But when asked whether there was a formal Justice Department investigation, Holder said, “I wouldn’t say that.”

Given the detail that is now available in the press accounts, Holder has no other option than to start an investigation. I suppose it's possible, through parsing his weasly response, that he has an informal investigation going, but I suspect it's much more likely that he still thinks he can just blow this whole thing off. Shouldn't blocking investigation of war crimes be an impeachable offense for an Attorney General?