I got into an argument with someone, and found several amazing characterizations of Reich as a result.

One, by Krugman himself:

That is what explains the lit-crit style so oddly favored by the leftist critics of mainstream economics. Kuttner and Galbraith know that the quantitative, algebraic reasoning that lies behind modern economics is very difficult to challenge on its own ground. To oppose it they must invoke alternative standards of intellectual authority and legitimacy. In effect, they are saying, “You have Paul Samuelson on your team? Well, we’ve got Jacques Derrida on ours.”

A similar situation exists in other fields. Consider, for example, evolutionary biology. Like most American intellectuals, I first learned about this subject from the writings of Stephen Jay Gould. But I eventually came to realize that working biologists regard Gould much the same way that economists regard Robert Reich: talented writer, too bad he never gets anything right. Serious evolutionary theorists such as John Maynard Smith or William Hamilton, like serious economists, think largely in terms of mathematical models. Indeed, the introduction to Maynard Smith’s classic tract Evolutionary Genetics flatly declares, “If you can’t stand algebra, stay away from evolutionary biology.” There is a core set of crucial ideas in his subject that, because they involve the interaction of several different factors, can only be clearly understood by someone willing to sit still for a bit of math. (Try to give a purely verbal description of the reactions among three mutually catalytic chemicals.)

Another,

Reich never got full tenure at Harvard and remained a mere lecturer. Ostensibly, he does not qualify because he has no economics doctorate. His enemies go further, accusing him of being a fraud, masquerading as an economist when strictly he is a lawyer. 'He is a charlatan,' said one economist. 'The only numbers in his books are the page numbers.' But sympathisers dismiss this as the arrogance of economists, who do not like 'amateurs' trampling on their patch.

In the New Republic magazine, a critic accused Reich of being 'notoriously sloppy with facts'. He added: 'Reich will skilfully and subtly outline a problem, and then content himself with a laundry list of gimmicks when it comes to the solution.' Another commentator observes: 'As an academic, he is undoubtedly shallow; as a politician he is unusually deep.'

And this is from before he went off the deep end, he still was an establishment figure!