Paul Krugman had his 'Denver debate moment

On both MSNBC's Morning Joe and their respective blogs, Joe Scarborough and the New York Times' Paul Krugman have been debating over the last few months whether the national debt actually matters.

Scarborough (and really, most people) say it does. Krugman says it's inconsequential, particularly in a struggling economy.

It came to a head last night in an hour-long, televised debate on PBS. Krugman appears to believe he lost... He wrote in a post-debate blog post:

Well, we’ll see how it comes out after editing, but I feel that I just had my Denver debate moment: I was tired, cranky, and unready for the blizzard of misleading factoids and diversionary stuff (In 1997 you said that the aging population was a big problem! When Social Security was founded life expectancy was only 62!) Oh, and I wasn’t prepared for Joe Scarborough’s slipperiness about what he actually advocates (he’s for more spending in the near term? Who knew?)

The "Denver debate moment" refers to the first presidential debate between Mitt Romney and President Obama. Obama was widely seen to have delivered a severely dispassionate performance, leading to an upswing in poll numbers for Romney.

Watch the Scarborough-Krugman debate here.