I wouldn't call Krugman nasty names, but I do have to wonder why anyone pays any attention to someone who has been so consistently and uniformly wrong about virtually everything he's commented upon. Even a Nobel should only earn you so much slack in life.
If you look at his track record, it's hard to explain without resorting to accusations of a humiliation fetish.
Unfortunately a lot of (economics) research is co-opted to reinforce and obfuscate in service of power.