NOSTALGIA INTRO: As feared, Paul Krugman has gone over the edge again. Accordingly, for the benefit of those of us who were big Krugman fans before he got the NYT job and devolved into the equivalent of a tape-recorded screech on continuous play, I am inaugurating a new feature. For each monotonous Krugman screed that graces the NYT Op-Ed page, I will link to a better, more substantive example of Krugman's writing from his previous incarnations. Most of the links will come from Slate, but not all. Today's entry was originally published on May 16, 1997 in Slate regarding rational choice theory as an explanation for political corruption. This may have been one of Krugman's weaker Slate pieces, which gives you an idea of how far he has descended with his NYT efforts.