Former Enron advisor Paul Krugman
It’s starting to feel a bit like 1992 again. A Bush is in the White House, the economy is a mess, and there’s a candidate who, in the view of a number of observers, is running on a message of hope, of moving past partisan differences, that resembles Bill Clinton’s campaign 16 years ago. [...]
Whatever hopes people might have had that Mr. Clinton would usher in a new era of national unity were quickly dashed. Within just a few months the country was wracked by the bitter partisanship Mr. Obama has decried.
This bitter partisanship wasn’t the result of anything the Clintons did. Instead, from Day 1 they faced an all-out assault from conservatives determined to use any means at hand to discredit a Democratic president. [...]
No accusation was considered too outlandish
You mean like being accused of blowing up the WTC?
… So what good did Mr. Clinton’s message of inclusiveness do him? [...]
Meanwhile, though Mr. Clinton may not have run as postpartisan a campaign as legend has it, he did avoid some conflict by being strategically vague about policy.
[...] those who don’t want to nominate Hillary Clinton because they don’t want to return to the nastiness of the 1990s  a sizable group, at least in the punditocracy  are deluding themselves. Any Democrat who makes it to the White House can expect the same treatment: an unending procession of wild charges and fake scandals, dutifully given credence by major media organizations that somehow can’t bring themselves to declare the accusations unequivocally false (at least not on Page 1).
Because, of course, a Democrat President shouldn’t expect to be treated any different than a Republican one, right?
What the Democrats should do is get back to talking about issues  a focus on issues has been the great contribution of John Edwards to this campaign  and about who is best prepared to push their agenda forward.
In that strategically vague way. For the changiness.
Comment by Dan Collins on 1/28 @ 7:12 pm #
Those poor Clintons. Look what they’ve suffered.
Let’s give them another chance. NOT.
Comment by happyfeet on 1/28 @ 7:56 pm #
Paul Krugman just seems kind of immature to me.
Comment by Good Lt. on 1/28 @ 7:56 pm #
LEAVE TEH DEMOCRATZ ALONE!!!111!23
Comment by Dan Collins on 1/28 @ 8:10 pm #
Happyfeet! He’s a dwarf, you know.
Have you no feelings?
Comment by happyfeet on 1/28 @ 8:14 pm #
I thought that was Robert Reich. He’s very wee. I had no idea Paul was of the same tribe of pygmy academic dyspeptics. Um. Gosh, I’m sorry, but I kind of think there’s a solid insight to be found in that.
Comment by Dan Collins on 1/28 @ 8:17 pm #
No. I mean he’s a dwarf. Intellectually.
Comment by Timstigator on 1/28 @ 8:19 pm #
Can’t the NY Times find a more creative and interesting Republican-basher than Krugman?
Comment by JD on 1/28 @ 8:24 pm #
That like midget elf-person thingie has yet to find a topic he could not lie, spectacularly, about.
Comment by JD on 1/28 @ 8:25 pm #
pygmy academic dyspeptics
For some reason, these types scare me even more. I guess it is because around 40% of our country don’t realize how big of fucking liars they are.
Comment by happyfeet on 1/28 @ 8:29 pm #
Robert Reich is way phonier cause he adapts that creepy tone of reasonableness while saying really dumb things. When I hear Krugman he always sounds like a righteous mad dude while saying really dumb things. I think that’s way more honest.
Comment by happyfeet on 1/28 @ 8:30 pm #
That should be adopts really. President Bush seems to be having a good time, btw. Good for him.
Comment by JD on 1/28 @ 8:30 pm #
Short people got, no reason … Reich and Krugman go, no reason …
Comment by JD on 1/28 @ 8:33 pm #
Pelosi looks like it causes here physical pain to blink.
Comment by happyfeet on 1/28 @ 8:35 pm #
I know it’s wrong to say but I really think she looks way better than Hillary for her age. Dresses a lot better too.
Comment by happyfeet on 1/28 @ 8:37 pm #
Also, I think they did the Dysphoric Depression one on purpose.
Comment by Darleen on 1/28 @ 8:38 pm #
JD
if you had your forehead yanked and stitched up as taut as a snare drum, you’d find it painful to blink, too.
Comment by JD on 1/28 @ 8:41 pm #
My mother in law in making fun of her. The in-laws are counting her blinks. I think they said she looks like one of their relatives that had plastic surgery in VietNam, and is now so odd looking, after having once been breath takingly beautiful, that it is literally difficult to speak to her. Staring, and all.
Comment by Nan on 1/28 @ 8:45 pm #
Did you ever notice that when faced with the strong possibility of a conservative President liberals are always swearing they’ll move to France? How come conservatives never say they’re going to emigrate? Maybe there’s nowhere for us to go?
Comment by N. O'Brain on 1/28 @ 8:48 pm #
Paul Krugman is a malignant dwarf.
Comment by shockcorridor on 1/28 @ 9:49 pm #
Try also to remember that Krugman teaches at Princeton, arguably THE most upper-class elite university in the country. The amount of money he makes at his gig there is most likely quite astonishing given what he’s paid to do. Scratch your head and wonder how a place like Princeton sees prestige in having on board someone with such a one-dimensional, unoriginal, simplemindedly partisan political viewpoint.
Comment by panther girl on 1/28 @ 10:06 pm #
“Did you ever notice that when faced with the strong possibility of a conservative President liberals are always swearing they’ll move to France?”
I just keep waiting for them to make good on their promises. It would make my workplace so calm and peaceful…
Comment by Education Guy on 1/28 @ 10:25 pm #
Krugman has a great gift of self delusion. In a way, his job affords him the possibility to pass that gift along to the rest of us. He’s a giver.
Comment by JD on 1/28 @ 10:52 pm #
Nan – I would go to Australia. Or Montana.
shockcorridor – That is what passes for thinking amongst the “elite”?!
Panther Girl – All of those celebs and others that said it, none of them actually followed thru. Liars.
Comment by chrisbg99 on 1/28 @ 11:24 pm #
I once called a friend on the whole “I’ll move to Canada/France/whatever” tantrum deal and they always get really defensive and act like I made the whole thing up.
Comment by geoffb on 1/29 @ 12:00 am #
“What the Democrats should do is get back to talking about issues  a focus on issues has been the great contribution of John Edwards to this campaign”
Issues, what stinking issues? They all talk about “feelings” and “identities”. Their only issue is how much of our money they can spend fastest and who they will give it to.
An auction of goods not yet stolen. “Vote for me I’m just like you and when I have all the power I will screw over that guy you hate and give all his money to you.” That’s what passes for “issues”. Who to screw and how much. No wonder Bill Clinton did so well.
Comment by Big Bang (pumping you up.) on 1/29 @ 12:21 am #
- “Their only issue is how much of our money they can spend fastest and who they will give it to.”
- But the best part of being a Democratic Po; is you get to make all these peomises to every minority/special interest identity group on the North American continent, and the after getting elected the majority of the handouts go to the “secret” Democratic fat cats in industry. You know, the Democratic Capitalists that don’t exist. Basically, the biggest Socialistic shell game in history. Out Marxing Marx.
- Darleen. Changiness is the handmaiden of truthiness, and the sister of realitiness, all of which spring from the bottomless pit of classwelfairyness. Apparently lacking any clue as to issues, the elites fill the time “feeling” about bullshit wordiness.
Comment by GeoW on 1/29 @ 1:13 am #
>>an unending procession of wild charges and fake scandals
Comment by GeoW on 1/29 @ 1:17 am #
let’s try that again –
(quote) …an unending procession of wild charges and fake scandals…
This is the kind of BS that has driven me away from the Dems. Like the Groucho line, “Who are you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?” is Krugman suggesting I am supposed to forget the 20-odd people who spent time in jail over Whitewater and Madison S&L scandals, which enriched the then-Governor and his high-powered corporate attorney wife? Am I supposed to just forget why it is that Norman Hsu seems like such a familiar character in a Clinton election?
Sickening, really. Orwellian. And yet I’m sure he believes, really believes that GWB has shredded our ancient liberties and trashed the constitution, while Michael Moore still trods our Safeways. In safety.
And yet, did Alberto Gonzales burn down a religious compound and incinerate like, 30 children? Did Bush try to give Terry Schiavo to Castro to grow up in a communist distatorship, or to her parents who simply wanted to help ease her suffering and be with her? And what’s so progressive about a Dem-controlled state/city/union lock on the public educational system from which, in L.A., half of the black and hispanic boys drop out before graduating from high school?
What is Krugman trying to defend, actually?
Finally, inspired by happyfeet and my mood and the late hour, I offer this haiku:
pygmy adademic
dyspeptic,in clown
makeup, children’s ward
Comment by Mikey NTH on 1/29 @ 6:41 am #
“Can’t the NY Times find a more creative and interesting Republican-basher than Krugman?”
If they did that, you have to consider how that would affect their other columnists. Bob Herbert would actually have to get out of the 1970’s and Maureen Dowd would have to grow up! My God, man! Think of the carnage! Think of the children!
Comment by Mikey NTH on 1/29 @ 6:48 am #
If we emigrated Nan, we wouldn’t be able to taunt the liberals. Where’s the fun in that?
Comment by Semanticleo on 1/29 @ 9:11 am #
Krugman has a point.
IMO Obama could be elected, but the margin would be so timy as to
make 2000 look like a landslide. The divisiveness would only increase,
and the poisoned political atmosphere would resemble Uranus. But
if it’s gonna happen no matter which Dem is elected, I’m for Obama.
Comment by Semanticleo on 1/29 @ 9:12 am #
BTW
Darleen, is Krugman’s ties to Enron meant to be a derogation?
Comment by eLarson on 1/29 @ 9:17 am #
I understand Deval Patrick had a lot of the same rhetoric as he was running for governor in Mass. How’s that worked out?
As an aside, all the people who raise JFK and RFK and even MLK do realize that none of those stories ended happily, don’t they?
Comment by eLarson on 1/29 @ 9:19 am #
ugh… Can someone just toss #33 on the pile of misapplied, basically non sequitur posts? This one, too, while we’re at it. Sorry.
Comment by Education Guy on 1/29 @ 9:28 am #
…I’m for Obama.
Leaving apart the rest of your post, which is just likely to make us argue, I’m curious why. Care to tell?
Comment by JD on 1/29 @ 9:29 am #
semencleo – My morning bout of idiocy. Thank you. You are as predicatable as the sun setting in the west.
Krugman has a point. A pointy elfish gnomish type head maybe.
The divisiveness would only increase Why is it that divisiveness is blamed on Republicans, whether or not they are in charge? That must be part of the bipartisanship meme, where bipartisan means R’s acting like D’s.
Krugman is a hypocritical lying little elf-person, cleo. He had no problem taking their money, sitting on their Board, and then acting holier than the world after the fact. A lying crap weasel. I wish the Times would just put him and MoDo back behind the firewall.
Comment by JD on 1/29 @ 9:29 am #
Education Guy – Obama says pretty fluffy things.
Comment by Great Banana on 1/29 @ 9:37 am #
IMO Obama could be elected, but the margin would be so timy as to make 2000 look like a landslide. The divisiveness would only increase, and the poisoned political atmosphere would resemble Uranus. But if it’s gonna happen no matter which Dem is elected, I’m for Obama.
And the dems are going to play nice and not be divisive if a republican wins?
Comment by Semanticleo on 1/29 @ 9:39 am #
“I’m curious why.”
Tongue-in-cheek. He hasn’t really shown me much other than his
November 2002 speech (opposing Iraq invasion) when he was a State Senator, and like 99% of the
Congressional Dems, he has bowed too many times to King George.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 1/29 @ 9:49 am #
‘King George’
Heh.
That was almost funny five years ago.
Comment by JD on 1/29 @ 9:51 am #
KKKleo and IJS both trotted out the “king” meme this morning. Which leftist site is pushing this idea today?
Comment by RTO Trainer on 1/29 @ 9:52 am #
is [sic] Krugman’s ties to Enron meant to be a derogation?
Of Krugman? No. It’s, yet another, illustration of leftist double-standards.
Comment by B Moe on 1/29 @ 10:08 am #
“Tongue-in-cheek. He hasn’t really shown me much…”
What has Hillary or Edwards shown you, specifically?
Pingback by In the name of changieness ... [Darleen Click] on 1/29 @ 10:22 am #
[...] me what Barry would actually do as President? I understand he is engaged in Bill Clinton’s strategic vagueness and the unprecedented pre-convention endorsement of Ted Kennedy belies the oft expressed sentiment [...]
Comment by Education Guy on 1/29 @ 12:25 pm #
Comment by Semanticleo on 1/29 @ 9:39 am #
OK, thanks. I tend to have much different ideas about the ways we should accomplish things than Obama, so as a result I’m not a huge fan.
That said, I wonder if there are any effective legislators who don’t trade at least some of their idealism in order to attempt to be more effective for their constituents.