Rumsfeld cancels NYT subscription over ‘repugnant’ Krugman column

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced he has canceled his office’s subscription to The New York Times following a Sunday blog post from columnist Paul Krugman calling 9/11 “an occasion for shame.”

“After reading Krugman’s repugnant piece on 9/11, I canceled my subscription to the New York Times this AM,” Rumsfeld’s office tweeted this morning.

In Krugman’s online-only article, posted on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, he wrote: “The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.” (RELATED: WTC survivor reflects on life and America since 9/11)

Keith Urbahn, Rumsfeld’s chief of staff, explained the decision further.

“Mr. Rumsfeld canceled his personal subscription to the New York Times years ago,” Urbahn wrote in an e-mail. “We still had a subscription for our office, but after reading Paul Krugman, he decided to cancel it. We may not be getting the New York Times anymore, but I doubt we’ll be missing much.”

Krugman, a Nobel prize-winning economist, writes a regular column for the Times called “The Conscience of a Liberal.”

Rumsfeld served as Secretary of Defense under presidents George W. Bush and Gerald Ford.