No. The real story, which even Krugman's own newspaper the New York Times recently reported, is that government job figures rely on the increasingly faulty Establishment Survey, in which a sample of existing businesses are asked how many people they employ. But this count completely misses new businesses and the self-employed where the job growth often is, and also means that if someone leaves two part-time jobs to take one good job, for instance, it's still counted as a "job loss."

The other government measurement, which we are beginning to hear more about because many economists believe it paints a clearer jobs picture, is the Household Survey. It looks at a rotating sample of real households and asks its members whether they are working. Under this count, America has added 1.8 million new jobs to the economy since January 2002, notes economist Donald Luskin. He is the chief investment officer of Trend Macrolytics and author of the forthcoming book, "The Conspiracy to keep You Poor and Stupid" (poorandstupid.com).

In the end, though, Krugman is really just a symptom of a larger "doom and gloom" mentality which has plagued the Left in this country for decades.

They honestly don't seem to like the fact that America, as a country, as an economy, or as an idea, is dynamic, versatile, adaptive, innovative and, egads, most of all successful.

One gets the impression, from Krugman and so many on the Left, that they really are rooting for a certain level of chaos and economic uncertainty in America.

How else to justify their pet goal of ever more government involvement in our lives?

But whatever their agenda, for the Left to so consistently hang on to its seemingly visceral animosity toward America shows that they may, in the end, be the ones unraveling.

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Betsy Hart, a frequent commentator on CNN and the Fox News Channel, can be reached by e-mail at: mailtohart@aol.com.