Newsbusters' Seton Motley couldn't have screwed this one up more badly if he had tried. The right-wing media critic picked a fight with New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, but only succeeded in making himself look like a fool.

Here's Motley, trying to ridicule Krugman's column about Toyota deciding to open a new plant in Ontario, Canada:

Krugman's Nobel-prize winning economic mind then offers up:

So what's the impact on taxpayers? In Canada, there's no impact at all: since all Canadians get government-provided health insurance in any case, the additional auto jobs won't increase government spending.

Really? Adding workers brought in from outside Canada to the government rolls won't increase government spending? A little of Krugman's new math: X plus 5,000 still somehow equals X.

Who said anything about “Adding workers brought in from outside Canada”? Not Krugman. In fact, Krugman specifically wrote that Toyota chose Canada in part because of the quality of Ontario's work force.

Oops.

Motley then purported to rebut a Krugman point about the quality of health care in Canada and the U.S. But while Krugman cited an actual study that used, you know, actual data and stuff to measure the effectiveness of various health care systems, Motley “rebutted” it by assertion:

The key words being “timely” and “effective” - two words never associated with government medicine.

OK, Motley didn't have data or studies to point do -- but he did have bold and italics to bolster his case. He must be right.

Then, at the end, Motley suggests Krugman do “a little due diligence and some rudimentary research.”