Several months ago, groundskeepers were unloading a pair of new trees outside the White House. These were fully-grown trees on flatbeds. They must have been brought in to replace some existing trees that had died.

Remarkably, Paul Krugman hasn?t yet written a column blaming President Bush for killing White House trees. But he?s blamed the administration for just about everything else.

The New York Times columnist has taken the president to task for ?deception and abuse of power.? For allegedly ignoring terrorism warnings before Sept. 11. For having ?mortgaged the nation?s future? with his insistence on cutting taxes. All that and more, in just the last month.

Krugman writes like a broken record. Virtually every one of his twice-weekly columns targets George W. Bush.

That?s all right as far as it goes. Krugman has a political axe to grind, and the Times is willing to let him grind away. But he long ago drifted far beyond mere political criticism into outright paranoia. To him, the Bush administration is omnipotent, bulldozing all dissenters. Consider Krugman?s April 2 column about what he?ll later call ?yawngate.?

On March 29 David Letterman showed videotape of a young man yawning during one of President Bush?s speeches. The tape was amusing, but also difficult to believe. After all, at one point the boy crouches over with his head between his legs before standing up again. Wouldn?t one of the people nearby have at least checked in with him to make sure he was okay?

Apparently, though, the tape was real. And here?s where the controversy begins. On March 30 CNN reran Letterman?s entire segment during its morning show. After the footage aired, anchor Daryn Kagan announced, ?We?re being told by the White House that the kid, as funny as he was, was edited into that video.?

Not according to Letterman. ?That is an out and out 100 percent absolute lie,? he huffed that night on his show. ?The kid absolutely was there, and he absolutely was doing everything we pictured via the videotape.?

Krugman smelled a rat. ?A White House that thinks it?s cute to have Mr. Bush make jokes about missing W.M.D. should be able to handle a little ribbing about boring speeches,? Krugman sniffed on April 2. Then he explained how something like this could happen: ?In short, CNN passed along a smear that it attributed to the White House. When the smear backfired, it declared its previous statements inoperative and said the White House wasn?t responsible.?

In short, Krugman believes the Bush administration called CNN -- within minutes of a segment airing, no less -- and somehow pressured them to announce that some video had been faked.
And that CNN immediately did so. Sure, that?s believable. In Krugman?s mind, it probably happens all the time.

What actually seems to have happened is fairly simple. CNN?s Atlanta headquarters did get a call from the White House -- CNN?s staff at the White House. Continued...