What Krugman said:
Well, there actually is a large constituency in America for a political leader who is willing to take responsible positions — to call for more investment in the nation’s education and infrastructure, to propose bringing down the long-run deficit through a combination of spending cuts and tax increases. And there is in fact a political leader ready and willing (maybe too willing) to play that role; his name is Barack Obama.
So why Americans Elect? Because there exists in America a small class of professional centrists, whose stock in trade is denouncing the extremists in both parties and calling for a middle ground. And this class cannot, as a professional matter, admit that there already is a centrist party in America, the Democrats — that the extremism they decry is all coming from one side of the political fence. Because if they admitted that, they’d just be moderate Democrats, with no holier-than-thou pedestal to stand on.
Concise, accurate, and to the point.
Why for once?
I don’t really follow the “for once” in your title? You can link to Krugman this time because he said something nice about the President and called him responsible? As opposed to any other time he ever bitched about Republican extremism or media faux centrism?
I never knew he was persona non grata around here. Though I’m sure there will be those who grind their teeth over what he put in those parentheses. He just can’t help himself.
what don’t you understand? Krugman almost defines “Yes, but…”
Suit yourself. I don’t take that kind of thing personally, I guess.
If there’s an inadequate response to an apartment building fire, it’s fair to point out that it was because saboteurs slashed the fire engine tires at the station…but at the same time, the building still burned to the ground. The fire captain “being on the side of the angels” doesn’t change that.
What’s weird about your example is that Krugman is like the retired fire chief who arrives at the scene of the inferno and rages that the firemen aren’t using a helicopter they don’t have, a ladder that is taller than anything they own, etc.
Yes, those things would be excellent ways to extinguish the fire, but since they are not available, it’s really more productive to say we should invest in those things so we can use them in the future than to rail at the firemen who are doing the best they can with the tools they have.
If you want to make it a matter of investments, in three years time, when the various trade and academic organizations that audit the state of American infrastructure publish their big, showy, media-bait annual reports that give us another C- grade or whatever and ask why more wasn’t done during a period of record low financing costs, I trust you’ll just throw up your hands, point to some lonely solar panel farm out in Nevada and say they did the best they could.
No, I will point to things like this:
I should add that Boehner is obviously not considering any tax increases and says he’s planning to fight to preserve the Bush tax cuts.
So, Obama cannot stimulate the economy and must destimulate it or face another default crisis.
No helicopter. No ladder.
If you yell at him from not having a helicopter and a ladder then you’re a moron. And that’s what Krugman has spent far too much time doing over the last three years. Yes, he’s right. We should borrow now while money is cheap and unemployment is high. But we can’t do that. So, can we move on?
i can’t believe I’m agreeing with Bazooka Joe.
To try to make the best of the analogy, the chief hired deputies who argued against creating the helicopters and ladders that are so desperately needed now. In fact, his deputies and the saboteurs are pretty chummy with each other. And during the four years that ladders and helicopters weren’t made, the chief was making speeches — not about the absolute urgency of making helicopters and ladders, but about the importance of being gracious to the saboteurs, whose perspectives and intentions he respects.
Absolutely right. The Dems had 2 years to lay the groundwork and wasted it on PR about “bipartisanship” and similar mindless crap. And then Obama chose some of the worst plutocrat pigs in America (think Summers) to take advice from and hand over the reins of economic power. He could have changed the dialog, but acted as a manager instead of a person with vision.
Yes, he inherited a disaster, but he made it much worse for himself by pretending that the disaster just happened, and act of god, and in no way the consequence of any persons or institutions.
And you don’t? Obama makes everyone on his side crazy with his temporizing and obsessive need to placate the enemy. (And yes, they are the enemy, far more than any commie, for example, ever was.) Including you, if you haven’t just been making shit up all these years. So now you think Obama’s spotty record is holy ground, intended by God to be criticism-free? If not, WTH are you talking about. Too bad you had to derail a substantial discussion with a dumbass headline.
He doesn’t make me crazy at all. Even when he does things I profoundly disagree with, he doesn’t make me crazy. Paul Krugman is a good example of someone who is so stunned by our crazy system that he misattributes the craziness to the participants. If Obama were our prime minister, we’d have almost no cause to be crazy about anything.
Boo, I just think you are profoundly wrong about Krugman, except on the point that he can be politically naive in terms of what is possible under the system we have. But he is not naive about best policy, and not naive about pushing for best policies, and not naive about complaining when the President foolishly adopts right wing economic frames that are ultimately destructive to progress. It is good to have a rational actor like Krugman pushing for best policies from the progressive side, and arguing against the President when he does something wrong.
I have no problem with that. I have a problem with asking questions like, “why doesn’t the president do….” when a twelve year-old can explain why the president can’t do it.
Calling a spade a spade just simply cuts through the excuses. Bout time pundits stopped chewing around the edges and recognized that we don’t need a quantity answer to a quality problem.
I’d never quite thought of it as a professional class of centrists. It’s one of those things that becomes blindingly obvious once somebody points it out. It helps explain how a term with no possible meaning can dominate an entire national news media (with a few exceptions). Nobody can define a “centrist” in a way that makes any sense at all. What would a “centrist” think about a school bond issue, or abolishing Social Security, or
judicial murderthe death penalty? Nothing. because you get to compromise from opposing sides. Getting there from the “center” is a contradiction in terms.I think Krugman underestimates the size of the constituency for this literal nonsense, however. This country is full of weak minds, frightened minds, lazy minds that need to feel “serious” but don’t/can’t make the effort to actually learn or think. So they turn to Brooks, et al, as cover. Now when some political discussion sneaks into their lives, all they have to do is say “I’m a centrist” and pretend their thoughts have relevance to something.
Anything with thresher blades is worth my time.
“And there is in fact a political leader ready and willing (maybe too willing) to play that role; his name is Barack Obama.”
Oh really. I read that Obama sent Geithner to the latest Petey Peterson “responsible” budget meeting. “Responsible” translated as continued money faucet for the rich at the expense of the rest of us.