Paul Krugman: Deliverance or Diversion?

Can Barack Obama deliver?:

Deliverance or Diversion?, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: After their victory in the 2006 Congressional elections, it seemed a given that Democrats would try to make this year’s presidential campaign another referendum on Republican policies. After all, the public appears fed up not just with President Bush, but with his party..., and one might have expected the central theme of the Democratic campaign to be “throw the bums out.”

But a funny thing happened on the way to the 2008 election.

Unless Hillary Clinton wins big on Tuesday, Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee. And he’s not at all the kind of candidate one might have expected to emerge out of the backlash against Republican governance...

Mr. Obama, instead of emphasizing the harm done by the other party’s rule, likes to blame both sides for our sorry political state. And in his speeches he promises not a rejection of Republicanism but an era of postpartisan unity.

That — along with his adoption of conservative talking points on the crucial issue of health care — is why Mr. Obama’s rise has caused such division among progressive activists, the very people one might have expected to be unified and energized by the prospect of finally ending the long era of Republican political dominance.

Some progressives are appalled by the direction their party seems to have taken: they wanted another F.D.R., yet feel that they’re getting an oratorically upgraded version of Michael Bloomberg instead.

Others, however, insist that Mr. Obama’s message of hope and his personal charisma will yield an overwhelming electoral victory, and that he will implement a dramatically progressive agenda.

The trouble is that faith in Mr. Obama’s transformational ability rests on surprisingly little evidence.

Mr. Obama’s ability to attract wildly enthusiastic crowds ... is a good omen...; so is his ability to raise large sums. But neither necessarily points to a landslide victory...

Mr. Obama has never faced a serious Republican opponent — and ... he has not yet faced the hostile media treatment doled out to every Democratic presidential candidate since 1988. Yes, I know that both the Obama campaign and many reporters deny that he has received more favorable treatment than Hillary Clinton. But they’re kidding, right?...

If Mr. Obama secures the nomination, the honeymoon will be over as he faces an opponent whom much of the press loves as much as it hates Mrs. Clinton... Mr. McCain can do nothing wrong — even when he panders outrageously, he’s forgiven because he looks uncomfortable doing it. Honest.

Bob Somerby of the media-criticism site dailyhowler.com predicts that Mr. Obama will be “Dukakised”: “treated as an alien, unsettling presence.” That sounds all too plausible.

If Mr. Obama does make it to the White House, will he actually deliver the transformational politics he promises? Like the faith that he can win an overwhelming electoral victory, the faith that he can overcome bitter conservative opposition to progressive legislation rests on very little evidence — one productive year in the Illinois State Senate, after the Democrats swept the state, and not much else.

And some Illinois legislators apparently feel that even there Mr. Obama got a bit more glory than he deserved. “No one wants to carry the ball 99 yards all the way to the one-yard line, and then give it to the halfback who gets all the credit,” one state senator complained...

All in all, the Democrats are in a place few expected a year ago. The 2008 campaign, it seems, will be waged on the basis of personality, not political philosophy. If the magic works, all will be forgiven. But if it doesn’t, the recriminations could tear the party apart.

Comments

[Barack Understands the Current Mood]

PK..."Mr. Obama, instead of emphasizing the harm done by the other party’s rule, likes to blame both sides for our sorry political state."

I don't think this is at all out of step with popular opinion. Many people are fed up with waste, and special interest rent seeking. They want good gov that helps all citizens. Not continued waste on nonsense that either doesn't work, or only serves lobby groups (at great cost to the general population).

For many years voters tended to split gov between Dems and Reps, hoping that would help prevent excesses. It didn't work very well. Sometimes they tried Rep or Dem hegemony, but the recent disaster with that approach soured opinions. Now they are flocking to Barack's claim that he is not entrenched in current politics, and will make a change.

[NLS]

PK didn't give me one reason to embrace Hillary's fear mongering ("it's three a.m. who's going to answer the call"), her experience (Clinton 0, Industry Lobby 1), or her Iraq war stupidity.

It's silly to say the media has been on Obama's side. If the coin was flipped and Hillary had ll straight victories we'd all know where the press would be.

[dissent]

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I think the Republicans have been highly skilled purveyors of slime, and the MSM has enabled this. They've assisted.

What is interesting is that I think Obama is hard to slime. Partly it's the racial dynamic. Sliming Obama will be extremely hard to distinguish from attacking Obama in a racist manner. That is, it will be extremely hard to slime Obama without appearing racist.

Partly this is the nature of slimy attacks: they are vague, they operate via a combo of insinuation and character assassination. Given our history of racism, and Obama's eloquence, grace, and intelligence, a cloud of Republican slime around Obama would rebound to cause repugnance of Republicans.

[Lafayette]

MT: Can Barack Obama deliver?

Sure he can. He promises nothing and delivering nothing is easy.

All three candidates are trying to get elected in a country that has suffered from "dumbing down" for decades. So, the media hype is without political nutrition. It is all smiles and bombast with a far too healthy dose of personal ad hominem/feminen remarks.

The idiocy in the show is the stupid notion, current in American politics, that deprecating thier adversary makes a candidate look better. You have to be dumb, both as a candidate and a voter, to believe that -- meaning really, truly mentally challenged.

And, this circus will cost a neat half a billion dollars. Are there not better things we could do with that money? I should think so.

All this reminds me of when the computer industry was selling "vaporware". This was always the next, best thing since sliced bread. Just you wait, we promised, the next version will be a must-have that knocks your socks off.

And, of course, all those promises, like vapor, disappeared with the morning dew.

The shame of it all is that politics should have to be a silly story of promising much and delivering little. It is an enormously complex job pleasing a constituency that is sliced and diced in a thousand different ways, each with their own unique notions of relative importance. It is impossible to please everybody -- except promising a vague notion of "change". But, the details of change ... forget it.

I am genuinely impressed with the Swiss process of public referendums. Particularly the bit that reserves the right to citizens to repeal any law passed by the Swiss legislature by means of public referendum.

Of course, getting such a vote onto a referendum ballot is no easy matter. A citizens committee must petition for the referendum by collecting a significant number of electorate signatures (as a percentage thereof) -- and the signatures are verified by an independent electoral commission.

Also, the Swiss are called to vote on average ten times a year for various questions. Their democracy is truly participatory, even if the rate of participation in any given vote is fairly weak. But, it is certainly not the media circus that it is in the US.

Their political system has worked for over 150 years. So, it must have something to it. Democracy means nothing if not exercised regularly, methinks.

[Lafayette]

Article: And in his speeches he promises not a rejection of Republicanism but an era of postpartisan unity.

Yep ... this is really, truly a genuine piece of vaporware.

Mind my words -- post-partisan unity will disappear like the morning dew once he's elected. There's no way in hell that the Republicans will allow him to get away with it.

[kotzabasis]

This is no time for populist politicians like Obama, nor, could I say, for aural commentators like Krugman, who are attempting to bait the electorate’s hate of the Republicans. But for politicians with mettle, sagacity, and visual clarity and imagination to deal with the stupendous issues that America faces in a very dangerous world that emanates from the great Islamist threat. And McCaine is Napoleon’s “ voila une homme”.

[Lafayette]

BigMoney

BU: Now they are flocking to Barack's claim that he is not entrenched in current politics, and will make a change.

What naiveness.

How, pray tell, do you think such puerile sentiment will withstand the onslaught of inner-belt politics? It wont.

Do you really think the Republicans, who WILL NOT be swept out of the legislature, will stand by idly to allow a Democrat PotUS make the sort of change you are hoping for?

You are dreaming, and dreams are not the stuff of which effective politics are made. BigMoney has this country in a political gridlock. Expect no change in Higher-income Taxation that would bring inevitably more Income Equality -- by means of redistribution on Public Services that benefit the unprivileged.

If McCain can deliver on weakening or doing away entirely with BigMoney contributions to political campaigning, we would do better voting for him. Problem is, there is no reason whatsoever to believe that he, even as PotUS, could deliver on that promise.

His previous legislation on the matter has not staunched the flow, so why should any future legislation do so? He hasn't even promised it and I doubt he will, so wild-eyed is the notion of "fairness" in politics.

No fairness in the economy can be had until there is fairness in politics. And BigMoney will assure -- by influencing / manipulating Congress -- that their privileges are not diminished.

[Bruce Wilder]

PK: "he’s not at all the kind of candidate one might have expected to emerge out of the backlash against Republican governance"

"one"? Who is "one"?

The backlash against radicalism in American politics is always moderate and centrist.

When the pro-slavery forces adopted radical stances in the 1850's, it threw national politics into upheaval. What had been a poltics of nationalist moderation was discarded in a moment. And, the response to Southern radicalism was an Illinois Senator with a gift for oratory, very little experience, and very possibly the most conservative record in his Party. Professor Krugman can take heart though: Mr. Lincoln dealt rather harshly with the pro-slavery Democrats -- killing at least one-tenth and impoverishing the rest.

I really do not understand how Krugman can miss the algebra of 2008 politics. Possibly an eighth of the electorate is shifting from allegiance to the Republican Party to voting for the Democrats. When you have that kind of stampede already heading your way, you don't start shouting and firing off your cap-gun, for fear of turning them around. You do everything you can to soothe the herd, and make them feel relaxed in their new home.

Democrats would cede their considerable advantage, if they adopted highly partisan rhetoric, now.

The contrast between Obama and McCain in the general election could not be more stark, whether in terms of symbolism, personality or issues. But, probably ten or fifteen percent of the electorate will still manage to vote more or less randomly.

If Krugman really wants to see national health care enacted, or any other progressive agenda item, the key is the Senate. The Republicans are defending 23 seats, the Democrats only 12. It is the best chance, in a generation, to shift the balance of national power sharply. Democrats could actually win Senate seats in places as unlikely as Wyoming and Mississippi.

[Bruce Wilder]

If and when McCain quits his day job, the
Republicans will be defending 24 Senate seats. Woohoo!

[Cyrille]

"But for politicians with mettle, sagacity, and visual clarity and imagination to deal with the stupendous issues that America faces in a very dangerous world that emanates from the great Islamist threat."

You do realise that this is a strawman, right? That the main threats that USA face have nothing to do with Islam, right?
And that the, real though not major, issue of world terrorism is only made much worse by the policies that Republicans advocate, you do realise that too, right? You don't address terrorism as an enemy country in a war. It doesn't work.

[Cyrille]

"The backlash against radicalism in American politics is always moderate and centrist."

Bruce, Obama and Clinton are not centrists, they are rightists.

US politics have shifted so radically to the right that Democrats are now running way to the right of centre, even to the right of the US electorate actually.

"Democrats would cede their considerable advantage, if they adopted highly partisan rhetoric, now."

Well, if Roosevelt had followed that kind of tactics, you'd never have left the early thirties. What's the point of being a Democrat if you end up kowtowing to movement conservatism, right when the disgust of it has reached its epitome? With such calculations, you'll ensure that a Democratic administration, when it comes, will achieve precisely nothing. And the next Republican one will just keep brutally bringing things to its far, extreme agenda.

Remember, this is a time when on EVERY policy item, the electorate favours Democrats. Yet they can't dare to stand for what they are supposed to believe. That Obama guy sure is brave...

[esb]

For his inaugural address, Barak will ask one percent of our people to come to DC to witness the birth of a new era.

Three million citizens.

My advice is that that five times that number will attempt to come.

The birth of a new era indeed.

Prepare yourselves for an entirely new understanding of the meaning of political power in the United States of America.

A power that will be, for a time, truly irresistible.

[pgl]

Paul is partly right about the Dukakised process. It has started and it's nasty. But Paul might note that Team Obama is firing back quite effectively. But that's the process of getting elected, which Bill Clinton did quite well in 1992. The process of governing is quite different and some wonder how well Bill did on this score. I'm not so sure that Hillary would do better.

[hari]

Paul is wearing political blinders, sort of, so he can't see the field in front of him...

Either McCain is going to make a gulash out of BO and send it back to Illinois or Barack is going to install himself in the WH on a bipartisan ticket.

[anne]

"This is no time for populist politicians like Obama, nor, could I say, for aural commentators like Krugman...."

Notice the crazed language and understand there is a surpassing viciousness to contemporary conventional Republicans that I am always aware of. Crazed viciousness, all the time is what they are about. Understanding the meaning here.

[anne]

"Paul is wearing political blinders, sort of, so he can't see the field in front of him..."

Paul Krugman understands completely what Republican policy makers are about and understands how subversively unprincipled and destructive they have been and are.

[anne]

"Professor Krugman can take heart though: Mr. Lincoln dealt rather harshly with the pro-slavery Democrats -- killing at least one-tenth and impoverishing the rest."

Complete shameless metaphorical idiocy. Yuck.

[Lafayette]

Cy: You do realise that this is a strawman, right? That the main threats that USA face have nothing to do with Islam, right?

In the Greatest Nation on Earth, the menace is always from abroad -- like BigBrother in Orwell's "1984".

One cannot possibly imagine that the rot is from within. Like Rome. Like the Victorians. Like Tsarist Russia.

It's never US. It's alway THEM.

[Don Quijote]

Democrats: The party best trained at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

If the election is between Senator Clinton & McCain, the odds are probably even, if on the other hand the election is between Senator Obama & McCain, say hello to President McCain.

If Obama is the nominee, the Bradley effect will become known as the Obama effect. The Democrats usually win the North East, the West Coast and the Upper Midwest, what are the odds that Obama could win Pennsylvania or Ohio.

[save_the_rustbelt]

According to the morning news, Obama sent Prof. Goolsbee to the Canadian consulate in Chicago to reassure the Can's that all of the NAFTA talk really isn't going to lead to much (an internal Canadian government memo has been leaked).

How will this play in Ohio today? Stay tuned.

[anne]

"Obama sent Prof. Goolsbee...."

Please document this, since the account I read had Goolsbee acting independently:

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/02/nafta_crosstalk.php

February 29, 2008

NAFTA Crosstalk
By Matthew Yglesias

Yesterday, Canadian television reported that Obama advisers were telling Canada's ambassador in Washington not to take the candidate's NAFTA rhetoric too seriously. Now what really seems to have happened * is that Austan Goolsbee tried to get someone from the Canadian consulate in Chicago to be a bit less worried about Obama. Whatever the details, this kind of ambiguous messaging is likely to recur time and again.

I recall being at a meeting in Cambridge, MA around the time of the 2004 Democratic Convention where John Kerry's top economic and foreign policy advisers were essentially promising a group of assembled ambassadors that all of his anti-trade rhetoric was just empty rhetoric. This seemed like a typically Kerryish thing to have happen, but it would serve Obama to try to avoid the same kind of thing repeating.

* http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/180716.php

[hari]

@ Anne -

Why PK blog (NYT) only allows sycophants to register their comments and not other's?

[anne]

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jrFPkleRZmbmPtPxHBGNAPSzfUtwD8V5OLP00

March 3, 2008

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said Goolsbee's visit was not as an emissary from the campaign, but as a professor from the University of Chicago. He was not authorized to share any messages from the campaign, Burton said....

[There is not the slightest reason to believe that "Obama sent Goolsbee."]

[anne]

"Why PK blog (NYT) only allows sycophants to register their comments and not other's?"

Nonsense. The New York Times only wishes temperate discussion. The term "sycophants" is needlessly and wrongly insulting enough.

[hari]

I don't think you know what their policy preference is on comments 0R do you?

[anne]

Paul Krugman has no editorial ability, but my sense of the editing is that only comments that are considered to be attacks are deleted by a supervising blog editor. The only policy I have detected is politeness, but if you have had a comment deleted I would imagine there can be more since you are always polite.

Remember that different editors have different understandings and sensitivities and slants, and may simply make mistakes in reading.

[Lafayette]

dissent: ... and Obama's eloquence, grace, and intelligence

Bollocks. These attributes you mention above are all necessary but not sufficient.

What would be necessary AND sufficient is the added mention "operational experience". The only thing Obama has ever driven is a car.

Against Obama, McCain's the winner. So look for another Repub for 8 more years of Income Inequality.

[anne]

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2008/03/conservatism-an.html

March 3, 2008

Conservatism and Its Absence of Contents
By Brad DeLong

Jacob Levy thinks he has a problem: he cannot present conservatism attractively in his classes because there are no attractive modern conservatives:

Jacob T. Levy: * Tyler Cowen... makes the insightful point that "none [of the 20th century American conservatives] have held up particularly well, mostly because they underestimated the robustness of the modern world and regarded depravity as more of a problem than it has turned out to be."

It's a real problem--one I've often talked with people about in a teaching context, because there's no modern work to teach alongside Theory of Justice and Anarchy, State, and Utopia that really gets at what's interesting about Burkean or social conservatism.... The problem isn't... that the conservative temperament isn't easily reduced to programmatic philosophical works.... One of the problems is that history keeps right on going--and so any book plucked from the past that was concerned with yelling "stop!" tends to date badly to any modern reader who does not think he's already living in hell-in-a-handbasket. This is a particular problem because of race in America--no mid-20th c work is going to endure as a real, read-not-just-namechecked, classic of political thought that talks about how everything will go to hell if the South isn't allowed to remain the South.... Oakeshott has his own version of these problems; doesn't "Rationalism in Politics" end up feeling faintly ridiculous by the time he's talking about women's suffrage?...

I don't see any great answers in the comment thread yet. I guess I might say Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, and Kristol, Two Cheers for Capitalism, but the former isn't really distinctively conservative enough and I'm not sure the latter is a classic.

I say cut the Gordian knot. THERE ARE NO ATTRACTIVE MODERN CONSERVATIVES BECAUSE CONSERVATISM SIMPLY IS NOT ATTRACTIVE. DEAL WITH IT!!

[anne]

I say beyond being treated to lunch by them, which I always welcome, I find contemporary conservatives filled with ideas that are astonishingly empty of content, and those are the gentle tempered ones, not the crocodile smilers but the genuinely gentle tempered who I appreciate even beyond lunch though lunch helps.

[anne]

There are limits however, even to being gentle tempered. Who could imagine having lunch with Hayek, though I imagine the temper must have been anything but gentle.

[jamzo]

mr krugman sshrill's are the same as hilary shrill's

[save_the_rustbelt]

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said Goolsbee's visit was not as an emissary from the campaign, but as a professor from the University of Chicago. He was not authorized to share any messages from the campaign, Burton said....

If Obama cannot control his economic advisors, how could he possibly control the government?

Professors do not just wander into consulates to have chats about NAFTA - give me a break.

Plausible deniability here?

[Cyrille]

NYT lets a lot of bloggers expressing absolute wingnuts talking point post. They sure are not selecting comments with agreement with PK as a prerequisite. If anything, I'd be under the impression that you are more likely to get published if you disagree, although I'm sure that's just an impression.

[Worker]

I've posted critical arguments PK's blog before and never been edited, which should confirm that it is not heavily censored.

[anne]

"Mr. Krugman shrill's are the same as -------- shrill's."

Remember, what is important is to vilify Paul Krugman and a Presidential canidate. Notice the creepy language.

[Worker]

I don't get PK's fear of Obama/ desire of Clinton. As a member of the opposition, I wish Clinton would take the presidency. She is a divisive force.

Obama, while being very leftist, could possibly smoothtalk people into believing up is down, left is right, or whatever.

Regardless of which Dem is president, they will have difficulty pushing through the entire left wing wish-list because many left-wing agenda goals are unpopular and easy to attack. Politics is a cyclical business. The Republican's f'ed up catastrophically and the Dems will get there chance.

Many left-wing goals are popular of course (healthcare and the environment). But their popularity inevitably declines as the costs and trade-offs are fully explained. And faced with power for the first time since the brief 2 year reign in the 90's, there will be a temptation by the Dems to feed the base.

This will enable the opposition to characterize the democratic party in a familiar way, a group of special interests and anti-American guilt merchants looking to feed off the average American's effort.

A silver tongue spokesmen will be needed to sell the same agenda in a novel way in order for it to survive more than one cycle.

[Lafayette]

worker: Regardless of which Dem is president, they will have difficulty pushing through the entire left wing wish-list because many left-wing agenda goals are unpopular and easy to attack.

Over the past 16 years, too much has gone to too few who merited very little. And, too little has gone to too many who merited a great deal more.

You underestimate the depth of bitter discontent in this country, after 8 long years of inept cronyism. A Dem in the White House with a solid control of Congress could perform miracles.

Mind you, the chance of that happening is very slim indeed.

[hari]

@Anne -

Thanks for the clarity on (NYT) editorial policy.

I still think PK doesn't know(!) what NYT is doing with informed commentary on his blog. May the guy who is doing the "approval" is no more than in his/her teens and can't understand a lot...of it.

Anyway, The NYT (I started reading it in 1956!) is no longer the same paper, Anne! Scotty Reston is not longer...And if you read last Sun column by JimHoglund(WP) you'll understand what's happening to the print media.

[swells]

Bruce Wilder said "killing one-tenth and impoverishing the rest:. While that may be true, let me share something with you here. I grew up in the rural south during the American Apartheid. After Lincoln was assasinated, it is arguably the case that African Americans were very nearly as bad off until the mid 1960's as they were during slavery. Yes, they were "free" but that freedom largely amounted to nothing. I personally saw black people beaten within an inch of their lives for having the temerity to try to order something to eat in a whites only restaurant. One of the people doing the beating was a police officer who was a deacon in the all white baptist church my parents drug me to every Sunday. That was just the tip of the iceberg of abuse, disenfranchisement and exploitation at that.

I think human nature has not changed much since those times. We have a culture, right now, where our government has been permitted to torture prisoners and to disappear people. We have a press that, with too few exceptions, resorts to euphemisms like "enhanced interrogation" in discourse about these events. The people who ordered the commission of these crimes will, in all likelihood, never face trial. Just as that white policeman who was a deacon at my church never faced trial for his crimes.

I guess my point is just this: Wouldn't the best transformation of government be to implement strict laws against coercion of anyone by anyone for any reason except for very strictly delimited cases of the exercise of the power of public use takings (and by that I don't mean letting aspiring Bushies condemn family farms so they can build a baseball stadium)? I'll be honest. I don't think human beings are very well equipped to handle the kind of leverage that comes with institutions allowed to engage in coercion. Too little rationality, too little compassion, etc., etc. ad nauseum.

I've contributed to Obama. I plan to vote for him too. But I don't think he will transform things. I don't think he, or anyone else will transform things, because too many people are unwilling to think sufficiently on a rational basis. I think the best we are collectively capable of in our present state is coming up with one principle and then sticking to it. That principle ought to be that if we want something from someone else we need to convince them that it is a good deal for them, not coerce their participation.

[anne]

"All in all, the Democrats are in a place few expected a year ago. The 2008 campaign, it seems, will be waged on the basis of personality, not political philosophy."

There is every reason to believe the direction of the Democratic campaign has precluded having political philosophy the basis of the general campaign an this can make policy changes all that much harder to come by even with a pronounced change in Congress.

I was puzzled when I heard Barack Obama claim credit for Illinois moving to universal health care, I had not known there was any such move. When I checked, all I found was that there was a commission in Illinois to discuss health care reform but no more. We will not have universal health care by only pretending we are moving in the direction over the following years.

[REALIST]

sometime ago i posted that the msm and the money behind it

were pushing barack obama as the dem candidate,but that

when push came to shove yuall would vote for the old

white man. it now appears to be about to happen.

how long has this been in the making? since 2004?

my take on the obama phenomenon,is that it is a sub-

conscious vote for reparations an issue that the

governemt ,the nation will not are afraid to face.

the young support for bo show where their heart lies.

[REALIST]

sometime ago i posted that the msm and the money behind it

were pushing barack obama as the dem candidate,but that

when push came to shove yuall would vote for the old

white man. it now appears to be about to happen.

how long has this been in the making? since 2004?

my take on the obama phenomenon,is that it is a sub-

conscious vote for reparations an issue that the

governemt ,the nation will not are afraid to face.

the young support for bo show where their heart lies.

[anne]

Supposing that a Democratic President really wishes to leave Iraq, there will be intense opposition both from political conservatives and from military officers. Republicans have been completely committe to remaining in Iraq, similarly the general officers who have been appointed by this Administration only speak in terms of many years of occupation. So, an election that does not clarify the philosophy that took us to Iraq an has supported an occupation may make a change in policy difficvult or remote even if the President really wishes such a change.

[James]

Left and Right extremes to the sidelines

Its funny almost to see Limbaugh and the right winger cheerleaders running to the sidelines to become hecklers and spectators, given their rejection of the 'moderate liberal' McCain.

Ironic, and almost equally funny, to see 'progressive activists' like Krugman threatening to head to the other side of the field, presumably to do the same, if Obama becomes the quarterback.

Be careful if the activists from both sides meet in the parking lot and find out how littler there really is between a statist of the right and of the left.

[Bruce Wilder]

I am amazed that so many people think McCain has even an ice cube's chance in hell of winning the general election against Obama.

The Republicans went through the first primary season battle since 1980, and all of their reputedly moderate candidates were forced to voice ridiculous, far-right opinions. The Democrats, by contrast, have had a contest, where Obama and Clinton have competed as moderate civil voices, to the right of their Party, while attracting record fund-raising and primary turnout.

Fund-raising and turnout on the Republican side have been anemic. The electorate in repulsion from corruption, Shiavo, Katrina and Iraq has drifted, year after year, steadily leftward; Bush has had approval ratings below 40% for a full year. Somebody asked if Obama can win Ohio; have you been in Ohio lately? Ohio, since 2004, has shifted dramatically, to become a solidly Democratic State. The country is losing two wars and, after a no-wage-growth Bush Boom, is tumbling into recession. The Republican candidate is a doddering old man, inclined to say whatever passes through his head.

I understand why Krugman and others might wonder if the Democrats, after 14 years of being ineffectual dupes, can be effective in power. Given the continuing power of the corporate Media and their professionally incompetent political press and punditocrisy to generate propaganda, I have my doubts that much will be accomplished. I think the plutocrats are staging a strategic retreat from political office (not from power), things will continue to go to heck, and Democrats will be blamed for the economic hardtimes, "losing" Iraq, and so on. So, I am not so far from Krugman in my cautious optimism masking continued pessimism.

But, even Krugman sees that the Democrat will be elected President -- that's a foregone conclusion. The Media, with commercial time to sell, will do their level best to make it look like a horse race, but the long odds on the Republican are difficult to disguise.

[Hiawatha Bouldin]

Good words "Swells" -- We may be a bit better off than pre-civil rights, it's just that the dominant culture has found sooooo many other population groups to be "fearful of, and thereby oppressing and limiting their progress.

I feel that Obama is in fact asking us to have a backbone
and to realize that no one person will ever change or
"fix" the problems that exist in our country.. It will take the collective will and work of all of us to come together for the good (survival) of us all.

That 10% (or less) that runs our country now, realizes that we are terribly segregated and can't fight them as long as we live, work and try to maintain our own little
silos. It's time to get out of the "elected officials"
what we pay them for. I'm sure we all realize that the
"best" person for the job, (or any job in our government),
is not running for it. We are in sane if we trully think that out of 300 million people, the best person to run our country will be one of the few candidates we will have on the ballots in November.

We need to let the candidates and every other elected official know that it's time for them to start working for
the citizens of American, but that won't happen until we stop looking for someone (one person - one party) to do for us what we have to do for ourselves. None of this has to do with culture, race, gender or experience. It has to do with knowing what our contry is about. The pursuit of
happiness. Pursuit people! go get it.

[James Kroeger]

I am quite certain that 3 months ago, I was just as enthusiastic as Paul Krugman was for John Edwards as the Democratic Party nominee. My misgivings about Barack Obama were also quite similar to his. I would listen to the man's speeches during the Iowa/New Hampshire period and complain that I didn't hear him spell out anything in particular that he was going to do to fix the economy for average folks.

The thing I am seeing in Barack Obama now that I didn't see before is that his willingingness to give thoughtful consideration to the arguments of The Other Side is not something that arises from the same 'triangulation instinct' that guided Bill Clinton's political career. It is, rather, a fortunate habit of mind that he has come to trust because he has found out that there is much to learn when you bother yourself to listen for a while. What I think he has ultimately discovered is that, when he trusts this bit of idealism, it has led to good outcomes and less divisions between people.

This willingness to listen is something that gives me some real hope for transformational change during a Barack Obama administration. Not because I think he will be able to end the divisions between Republicans and Democrats, but because I think that when Barack wins the White House with a great deal of popular support and the tacit approval of MSM, so much more will be possible than we can project right now. That is to say, I think that a lot of the listening he is going to be doing between now and then is listening to the moral and other arguments of economic progressives. I think they will will get their best shot ever at persuading a sitting President to embrace and advance their causes.

One thing I think can't be disputed, Paul, is that Barack Obama has the right sympathies. He needs to hear some good advice on how to reach for bold changes, but don't assume that he won't listen and maybe even accept your advice. If there is one thing that stands out in my mind more prominently than anything else it is what I perceive to be an almost utter lack of guile in his speech. During debates, he is remarkably unflappable because he is not trying to get away with anything. It's more than his intelligence; the word that comes to mind, that seems so much more appropriate, is wisdom.

Now that Hillary's candidacy is finally coming to a merciful end, I would encourage PK to start considering a new approach. Forget about the passionate attacks of BO's way-too-defensive supporters and try to make a pitch to Barack Obama directly. Assume that he is someone who will give your arguments thoughtful consideration. Don't assume that he is so invested in his stated proposals that he will not listen to your points.

[Patricia Shannon]

Lafayette says...

The idiocy in the show is the stupid notion, current in American politics, that deprecating thier adversary makes a candidate look better. You have to be dumb, both as a candidate and a voter, to believe that -- meaning really, truly mentally challenged.

I hate to tell you that negative campaigning has been shown to work, even though people say they don't like it. This is probably part of the general fact that once people have a belief, it is very hard to change it, no matter how much evidence there is against it, and how little for it.

[anne]

"Ironic, and almost equally funny, to see 'progressive activists' like Krugman threatening to head to the other side of the field, presumably to do the same, if Obama becomes the quarterback."

Deceiving rubbish; the only threat coming from such deception.

[anne]

"Now that Hillary's candidacy is finally coming to a merciful end, I would encourage PK to start considering a new approach."

I think Hillary Clinton has run a fine campaign that has attracted broad and deep support and against any other candidate than such an exceptional campaigner as Barack Obama would have been successful. We are fortunate to have had such attractive candidates. I would encourage not being insulting, and I think Paul Krugman is taking a fine critical approach.

[James Kroeger]

I think Hillary Clinton has run a fine campaign that has attracted broad and deep support and against any other candidate than such an exceptional campaigner as Barack Obama would have been successful.

I can say that I developed a great deal of respect for Hillary Clinton's mental capacity to serve as President of the United States over the past few months. That peaked two debates ago. Since that time, she has exhibited extremely poor judgment (IMO) in deciding to 'go negative' as her campaign consultants have advised. I don't believe it has helped her candidacy in any way and has only hurt the Democratic Party.

The thing that has always worried me the most about HC is the fact that there is absolutely, positively no way a woman could become President at this time without demonstrating continuously that she would be extremely tough on "America's enemies." Unfortunately, that is just about the last thing I want to see in Washington today. It was the wrong time for her and it was the wrong time for John Edwards, as well...

[Worker]

Lafayette,

I don't underestimate the depth of discontent, which btw was not so acute in the 1990's. But I have no faith in politicians' ability to address the root cause of such discontent- a decline in American political and economic hegemony that has been in place since WWII.

Many Americans are discontented because China, India and other productive emerging countries are rising-up and competing for global resources, fueled by low cost labor. This manifests itself in rising costs, but it also threatens America's self-image as THE land of opportunity, with a God given right to the most wealth and the right to dictate the terms of trade to the rest of the world.

The left, actually celebrates this decline. America can no longer command such a disproportionate share of the worlds resources, much of which we grotesquely waste on Hummers and hour long commutes to McMansions. But as always, the pols will find a bogeyman whether it be "the rich" or "big oil companies", or "trade".

We call India and China "emerging markets". Yet they are really re-emerging from at least 100 years of isolation, communism and/ or colonialism. What we have is a reversion to the mean in distributing the worlds resources. If you measured the China/India share of the world's wealth every century from 500AD, would it ever be lower than it was in 2000? The marginal American consumer will get squeezed. Trade may have accelerated their reemergence, but it did not create this reversion to the mean. US politicians simply can't cause these countries to become isolationist communist regimes with an inability to compete with the US and for the worlds' resources.

Some Democratic proposals, (universal healthcare, enhanced social insurance, education), can potentially address symptons of the discontent. But some Democratic agenda items will hasten the decline.

Are windfall taxes on oil companies going solve gas and heating costs? Of course not, and in fact will likely exacerbate the problem. And when it comes to $100mm trial lawyers vs. US manufacturers employing union labor, guess who the Dems will side with. How about teachers unions vs. underpriveleged urban students in crappy monopoly schools? There's a different hierarchy of greedy self-serving interest groups with the left, just a different flavor of wrong from GW.

The rich can pay more in taxes. But this and other Dem proposals are not a silver bullet to resolve the discontent felt by many Americans.

[anne]

Interesting analysis; I understand.

[Bruce Webb]

Krugman is right here. Hopefully Obama will beat McCain like a drum and head up a Democratic wave but anyone who dreams of some bipartisan bargain is delusional and the reason is simple electoral math.

A national columnist asked why Washington State Democrats are targeting Dave Reichert, a moderate Republican Congressman and strong supporter of one of our biggest environmental proposals out here-the creation of the Wild Sky Wilderness Area. I wrote a polite e-mail explaining that 'You hunt where the ducks are'. We are looking to take moderate Dave out and replace him with progressive Darcy. It's not personal, most people like Dave, but when push comes to shove he votes as directed by House Republican leadership. So bye, bye Dave.

If we do have the wave election that some are predicting then there probably will be no moderate Republicans left, they will all have been washed away leaving the hard core of wingnuts behind. It is exactly the Senators you can talk to (like Gordon Smith and John Sununu) that have big targets on their backs, the really odious hard core conservatives are by and large untouchable.

If Democrats win big the end result will be a hardening of the fault lines between the Parties, the notion that remaining Republicans will be frightened or attracted to compromise for its own sake being pretty naive. It is not in the long term interest of the Republican Party to have a successful Obama Presidency, they have lots to lose and nothing to gain in that event and surely they understand that even if Obama doesn't. This doesn't make Obama a bad candidate and the more independents and moderate Republicans he can draw the better, but if we are going to make progress in the next term it will be by Obama working with a Democratic majority in the face of down the line Republican opposition. That is just the way the reality stacks up.

[Don Quijote]

I am amazed that so many people think McCain has even an ice cube's chance in hell of winning the general election against Obama.

You underestimate the innate racism of the American people.

[hari]

This thread is becoming something like a Deliverance - not a divergence - as suggested by PK.

I'm of course NOT franchised to vote in your election. Yet I've a lot of sympathy for SWELL's - Korger's - other's above - ALL I suppose are trying to reconcile with OB as the nominee.

PK is also doing the same, inspite of his knowledge that GOP ruling class will put philosophy, as the centre piece of their argument to stay in power, and not hot-air battering about bipartisanship (not since Ike's Admin!).

B Wilder cannot understand HOW Dems can lose the election. Well, I've news for him. GOP will tear-to-pieces the wisdom of OB and make him come down to their brusing level of competitive argument - not only on Iraq War and its solution - but the economic stagflation which is more or less inevitable. OB is not capable of standing up to the incessant attacks - unlike HRC. He's still a lot to learn and get under his skin before even a potential bipartisanship governing coalition is possible.

I've witnessed Adlai Stevenson against Ike as a student in the Bay Area (and the lot since), and I agree with SWELLS that (political) morality demands a bit more of understanding when a Afro-American may become next POUSA. And don't forget, if that happens, it'll be the biggest propaganda for US style democracy, I can assure you.

Will McCain relent to such a historical happening or not? There's nothing in his character/experience that says he must. Don't be surprised (also) if he wins...

[anne]

"The thing that has always worried me the most about HC is the fact that there is absolutely, positively no way a woman could become President at this time without demonstrating continuously that she would be extremely tough on 'America's enemies.' "

I understand and fear the pressures; we can also be grateful to John Edwards.

[anne]

Darn, I was referring exclusively above to James Kroeger's interesting comment.

[Worker]

Obama's problem won't be the Republicans as much as it will be the Democratic left.

People like Obama because he doesn't come across with the same old party line.

[hari]

@ Don Quiote -

I thought of taking up the "racism" diatribe and put it into perspective - you've done it perfectly!

[anne]

"People like Obama because he doesn't come across with the same old party line."

What is the same old Party line, beyond despising teachers for wanting the protection of unions or despising lawyers who like represent people who would otherwise not be represented? Why do Republicans despise certain lawyers along with teachers? What kind of lawyers do Republicans despise? How miserable does a teacher have to be to please a Republican?

[Majorajam]

Professor Krugman sees FDR in Hillary Clinton, and shows tremendous courage and unique insight in so doing. Here on planet earth however, we would do well to remember that FDR was elected in the middle of the Great Depression, replete with its 25% unemployment, starvation and bread lines, during which the threat of full on Marxist Revolution was real and none to trivial. This was a world unrecognable to the relative prosperity and peace for 98% of the populace of the present time, our problems notwithstanding. So if Professor Krugman thought it would be possible to revist that radicalism because unemployment has gone up to 5.5% and people are tired of their crap government, maybe he ought to consider thinking a bit more. Perhaps trade a few of those persuasive links between Obama and Dukasis for a fact or two, even an argument. Seriously, can anyone think of an essay less cogent and more disjointed than this latest freak accident by PK? This election season has exposed this guy for what he is- an integrity challenged, if well educated, hack.

save_the_rustbelt,

It's plausible you're cranium is more dense than Hickory. First off, the substance of the talks is disputed by Goolsbee. Secondly, he was meeting with a low level consul which doesn't sound much like an official communicae, nor would it remotely advantage the campaign to assure Canada privately in any way. So denying that Goolsbee was sent on an errand doesn't much seem implausible to me, but then my head doesn't swell when it rains. Thirdly, the rightist Canadian government is pushing an agenda with this, and by doing so, insinuating itself into US politics. Fourthly, all sides agree that Goolsbee indicated at that meeting that Obama was interested in better controls on the labor and environmental components of NAFTA more than overturning it. That is 100% consistent with everything Senator Obama has ever said in public.

[anne]

There is an interesting sort of meanness thsat goes with Republicans neeing to show just how rotten teachers are for like wanting to teach and how rotten lawyers are for like representing a certain sort of client wholly unlike any Republican. Republicans apparently never need lawyers or teachers.

[anne]

Majorajam:

"Thirdly, the rightist Canadian government is pushing an agenda with this, and by doing so, insinuating itself into US politics. Fourthly, all sides agree that Goolsbee indicated at that meeting that Obama was interested in better controls on the labor and environmental components of NAFTA more than overturning it. That is 100% consistent with everything Senator Obama has ever said in public."

Please explain what the Canadian government might be about, since I was puzzled in thinking about this.

[anne]

"This election season has exposed this guy for what he is- an integrity challenged, if well educated, hack."

Darn, do not bother responding, after writing such a vicious lie since I will know any response would only be another vicious lie.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Majorajam:

I'm never bothered by insults from my intellectual inferiors.

So an economics professor just happens to drop by the Canadian consulate for a spot of tea or a cold Molson's and just happens to end up talking about NAFTA?

I know a lot of economics professors and I can't think of one of them who has ever dropped by a consulate for a chat, even with a low level functionary.

Gimme a break. I kinda like Obama, but he could become just another politician with stunts like this. And spinning the people of Ohio really burns my butt.

[anne]

No doubt what we have here is an instance of a conservative Canadian government wishing to interfere in the American Presidential campaign in the hope that Canadians will still be allowed to invade Mexico as they are even now planning more or less in secret. Hockey players to the front.

[Majorajam]

It's a lie because you don't agree? I do not think this word means what you think it means. Professor Krugman has on numerous occasions written things with the intent to deceive or mislead about Barack Obama. A pattern has been established that, in my view, reveals him for a hack.

Take for instance the Obama bashing article, (I think number 6 in the 12 piece series), where he reports the costs of the two candidate's health care plan. The substance of that particular hit job, and there is very little to go around in each of these, was that Obama's plan cost less to the taxpayer and covered less but that the ratio was far better for Clinton than Obama's plan (hers costing slightly less and covering many more). However, Krugman as an economist knows that cost to the taxpayer is not a particularly relevant way to evaluate social programs, (e.g. the cost to the taxpayer of capping carbon emissions is zero, the social cost is certainly not), and that looking only at the cost to the taxpayer disproportionately favors Senator Clinton's plan, (mandates being a regressive tax that does not go on the books). So did we get a word, an utterance, a caveat about any of this? No- instead we got something close to an insistence that his figures showed something they do not. As surely as night follows day, you can imagine that there are very few voters out there who would be able to challenge those figures much less the esteemed figure citing them. That, IMO, is where advocacy crosses the line into dishonesty. And there are many more such instances.

So before you go calling people vicious liars, try to learn from the fallen Professor Krugman's mistakes- stick to that which is supported by fact, avoid deception in argument, and take it easy on the hyperbole.

[Majorajam]

save_the_rustbelt, sound a bit more plausible now?

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=4365922&page=1

a source close to the Canadian prime minister's office tells ABC News that the original communication was between Austan Goolsbee, Obama's senior economic adviser and an economics professor at the University of Chicago, and Georges Rioux, Canada's consul general in Chicago, about Obama's rhetoric against NAFTA.

According to the source, Wilson exaggerated the communication between the Obama campaign and the Canadian official during discussions this week with Ian Brodie, the prime minister's chief of staff, who leaked the story to CTV.

And anne, for your cuteness, you get a popsicle: http://thestar.blogs.com/politics/2008/02/sourcing-a-cros.html

Now, Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae sees this as pretty serious. He believes that the Harperites are actually trying to sink Obama's campaign.

"This is Republican International in action. The Harper government is so ideological and so tied to the Republicans that they will use any opportunity to throw a wrench into the Obama campaign," Rae says in an email sent out this afternoon. (Read the full email at the end of this blog post)

The both of you would do well to learn from this sincere but ultimately doomed effort to outwit yourselves.

[Worker]

Not mean, Anne. My sister is a public school teacher and I refuse to comment on my use of attorneys from time to time. Assuming he wins and the opposition is further marginalized, Obama will be managing the various interest groups that make up his coalition, while keeping the "swing voters" who are not so enthused with leftist ideology. With swing voter appeal, he is more capable of maintaining control in an all-Dem government than Hillary. Hillary would be more capable of controlling her coalition in a divided government.

Myself, I hope he wins so as to reap the international good will of first African American president Obama without paying the "richman's burden", as Expat Worker. By the time I return, hope the reactionary wave will be crashing on the shore, or I'll be wealthy enough to turn Democrat.

[kotzabasis]

CYRILLE

It’s an easy intellectual escape, when one is devoid of arguments, or should I say when one is replete with hackneyed arguments, to dub one’s interlocutor’s points as being a “straw man”. You still see war and great dangers emanating solely from states and you cannot see, due to lack of imagination and historical perspective, those “stateless” invisible enemies who operate both from within and from outside the countries they are attacking are even more dangerous, especially when, the rapid technological development accelerates and consummates their possibility of acquiring weapons of mass destruction, and indeed, nuclear ones.

Further, your contention that Republican policies created terror is your own REAL straw man. It’s America’s unprecedented success in the history of mankind in the fields of the economy, science, technology, and cultural and political power and its status as the sole superpower that has created the envy and also the hate of many people of the world against it, especially of people with retarded cultures and chiliastic religious beliefs. Residing in countries of corrupt and authoritarian governments, and as a result of this they have been left behind in the race of economic development and tend to scapegoat America for all their ills.

It seems to me that you are the spokesman of cognitive, imaginative and historical bereft ness.

You can visit my other website if you are not afraid of fireworks.

[BJ Feng]

Hillary Clinton went negative as a last, desperate attempt to salvage her campaign. But it can't and won't work because she is so similar to Obama in viewpoint and ideas that she can't attack him on any substantive grounds. With two candidates that are so close in ideology, voters will and are voting for the candidate that is more likable. Hillary can't make herself more likable in time, though she's tried hard, very few people can match Obama's likability. It was a perfect storm that sank Hillary's bid.

As for Obama, Hillary's right in that he speaks in platitudes. I mean who doesn't want a better America for everyone? Not Black America or White America, but the United States of America! How can you not stand up and applaud? Yet when he comes up with details, I cringe. How will a health plan that does not mandate coverage be universal? He says if health care is made affordable to all, people will buy, but the people who are healthy and don't want coverage clearly won't since they can already afford it. That leaves millions uninsured. He wants to raise taxes, and restrict trade. Believe it or not but a substantial, and I believe a majority of Americans don't share that view.

The latest polls show McCain beating both Hillary and Obama. Obama has not had to deal with any sort of harsh criticism while McCain has already taken a beating from his own party along with a widely denounced hit piece from the New York Times. Don't think the election is the bag. As for McCain, I'm glad he's promised not to raise taxes and to extend the Bush tax cuts if possible. Along with fighting earmarks, he's promised to restrict the growth of the budget. That's what fiscal conservatives have been waiting to hear. As for the religious types, well I'm glad that we're finally moving away from religious values as the main priority, those are individual choices.

[anne]

"retarded cultures and chiliastic religious beliefs...."

Simply notice the language and understand what it means to be so nutty you are incapable of understanding your own language, not that I am surprised. No matter, I never did care for Chilis.

[swells]

kotzabasis, don't want to get too deep into your exchane with cyrille, but I do want to make a point. No it wasn't exclusively a republican phenomena. For at least decades, the US (republican and democrat administrations) has been getting into bed with most every tin horn dictator in the middle east. Exactly why SHOULD people in the middle east like us? We've been supporting tyrants there for years. Our record is not good in the region.

Now, that said, I don't like religious fanatics there any more than I do our home grown ones. But, we gave them an awful lot of fuel for their fire that we shouldn't have given them.

[anne]

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/02/healthcare-numbers/

February 2, 2008

Healthcare Numbers
By Paul Krugman

Jonathan Gruber, one of the country's leading health care economists — and someone not affiliated with any of the campaigns — has a new paper * on covering the uninsured. He makes use of a detailed simulation model that he's been developing for several years to assess alternative strategies.

One conclusion is that trying to cover the uninsured with tax credits, Bush-style, is — surprise, surprise — a very inefficient strategy: lots of revenue loss, while most of the people who get the benefits would have been insured anyway.

But the big conclusion, relevant to current debates, is on the role of mandates. Gruber compares a program of mandate-less subsidies to help people pay for insurance — broadly similar to the Obama plan — with a program that combines subsidies with mandates — broadly similar to the Edwards and Clinton plans.

The table below summarizes the key results. The mandate-less plan covers only about half the uninsured. The plan with mandates gets almost everyone, at an additional cost of $22 billion — about $1,000 per additional person covered.

Next time you hear someone telling you that the dispute over mandates is unimportant, remember this table:

Without Mandate With Mandate

Reduction in number of uninsured
23 45

Total cost
102 124

Cost per newly insured
4400 2700

Yes, mandates matter.

* http://www.nber.org/papers/w13758

[Winston]

I live in Ontario, Canada, and I can say with confidence that nobody here seriously believes that either Obama or Clinton will radically restructure NAFTA once elected. At the most, they will add to the agreement some stipulations on labour and environmental standards, things that most Canadians support.

To even entertain the thought that the next American president might end NAFTA is just naive. Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty has already made it clear that any drastic changes to NAFTA will mean an end to America's preferential access to Alberta's oil sands.

[swells]

anne, I don't understand your point about retarded cultures and chiliastic religious beliefs. I mean the word chiliastic usually refers to the christian belief in the reign of Jesus for 1000 years upon his purported return but there is a broader sense of the word where it means something like the establishment of heaven on earth. In that sense, the desire of Islamic fundamentalists for the return of the caliphate would seem chiliastic. Like most any system of thought based on historicism, be it religious or political or philosophical, it is fair to consider it retarded.

[Zxcvbnm]

John McCain will say whatever he needs to appease the GOP's base, and that means no taxes. I'd say his fiscal conservatism is skin-deep.

[anne]

Paul Krugman was, of course, careful and though we are always dealing with estimates here, Krugman and Jonathan Gruber are correct. The order of difference in numbers of insured and per capita costs would hold. There will be no requirement that individuals have health care insurance, and that will limit the move to universal insurance an raise costs for the insured.

[anne]

"retarded cultures and chiliastic religious beliefs...."

This is prejudiced trashing for the sake of prejudiced trashing by a crazed prejudiced trasher. This is the language of hate-mongering, really scary hate-mongering. Learn to understand immediately what hate-mongering is and amounts to.

[swells]

anne, I still don't get it. How can saying something that is true be a bad thing? I don't know the poster, he/she may be a hate mongerer for all I know. But the particular phrase in question; i.e., retarded cultures and chiliastic religious beliefs is objectively true as far as I can tell. How can saying what is true be a bad thing (except in the sense that one shouldn't tell one's uncle Harry exactly how bad his golf swing really is)?

The ways in which the superstitious, patriarchal cultures of the middle east are indeed retarded almost defy enumeration for their abundance.

[Cynthia]

Plus I'll add that this emphasis on style over substance, charm over competence and personality over performance is part and parcel of the dumbing down of America!

[anne]

Enough of the prejudiced rubbish, enough.

"retarded cultures and chiliastic religious beliefs...."

This is crazed hate-mongering, and the caliph this and caliph and caliph the other is more of the language of hate-mongers and has nothing to do with any culture save that in the minds of those who are steeped in prejudice and only care to spread prejudice.

There can be no "objective truth" about such pernicious stereotyping. Learn what prejudiced lying is about. Enough, hate-mongering.

[save_the_rustbelt]

save_the_rustbelt, sound a bit more plausible now?

Actually, it sounds like the campaign sent Goolsbee to deliver a back channel message to the Canadians, someone on the Canadian side leaked it for political leverage, and then the Obama campaign tried to backpedal out of it.

None of which is terribly shocking or anything, it just dulls the luster of Obama's purity a bit.

And I don't people who BS Ohioans.

[Majorajam]

Spare me your offense strb. If you cared so much I presume you'd actually read the details of the story, which include the established and undisputed fact that it was this Professor/Consul who contacted Goolsbee, and you might ask yourself what particularly Obama had to gain from assuring the Canadians one way or another, other than securing the endorsement of the Mounties that is.

You know, it is the people who are most prone to believe an assertion, or to be moved by a suggestion that are most likely to be duped. If you don't want to be in that number, differentiate yourself.

And speaking of duping: http://www.nysun.com/article/72209. She really had us going there...

[WangoTango]

anne says:

"Notice the crazed language and understand there is a surpassing viciousness to contemporary conventional Republicans that I am always aware of. Crazed viciousness, all the time is what they are about. Understanding the meaning here."

I say:

anne is mentally unstable.

[anne]

"Actually, it sounds like the campaign sent Goolsbee to deliver a back channel message to the Canadians, someone on the Canadian side leaked it for political leverage, and then the Obama campaign tried to backpedal out of it."

We simply do not know that Goolsbee was sent by anyone, especially sent with knowledge of the candidate, but when can speculate even if the discussion seems foolish. Canadians really do not have to worry about America occupying Montreal, even the French is not quite French. Better Paris an have the real thing.

What I do not understand though is why such a meeting might be leaked, for what kind of leverage beyond the sake of leaking. Who would leak and why? I know the Canadian government is conservative, but so what and who actually wants Montreal?

[Majorajam]

Anne, those costs are taxpayer costs. I made an effort to draw the important distinction, which you as most who consume Krugman's bile like so much cherry pie do not grasp, between taxpayer and social costs. However, though not visible in his writings, there is no chance Mr. Krugman does not understand the distinction- meaning he trades on it. That is the definition of a hack.

[James Killus]

Just for the record, I was a child toward the end of the Jim Crow south, and it was pretty dreadful, but there was no Fugitive Slave Act. As a result, after the Civil War, a fair number of former slaves Got the Hell Out. It's true that there was plenty of racism and injustice in the rest of the country (and still is, for that matter), but very few of those who left the south to try for better lives elsewhere went back to the South because their lot in the North was just as bad as it was in the south during slavery. Indeed, it was better than living under Jim Crow laws, generally.

My mother grew up in Georgia during the Depression. She has told me that those most willing and able to help her large family of dirt poor white trash were the local black farmers, some of whom owned their own land. This was flat-out impossible prior to the Civil War.

The hundred years in the South after the Civil War were hard times for former slaves and their dependants, but anyone who thinks they were as bad off as they were during slavery has gone badly off the rails.

[anne]

"This is no time for populist politicians like Obama, nor, could I say, for aural commentators like Krugman, who are attempting to bait the electorate’s hate of the Republicans. But for politicians with mettle, sagacity, and visual clarity and imagination to deal with the stupendous issues that America faces in a very dangerous world that emanates from the great Islamist threat."

"retarded cultures and chiliastic religious beliefs...."

Notice the crazed language and understand there is a surpassing viciousness to contemporary conventional Republicans that I am always aware of. Crazed viciousness, all the time is what they are about. Understand the meanings here "aurally."

[dd]

News from the Embassy of Canada

Statement by the Canadian Embassy

Washington, D.C., March 3, 2008 — The Canadian Embassy and our Consulates General regularly contact those involved in all of the Presidential campaigns and, periodically, report on these contacts to interested officials. In the recent report produced by the Consulate General in Chicago, there was no intention to convey, in any way, that Senator Obama and his campaign team were taking a different position in public from views expressed in private, including about NAFTA. We deeply regret any inference that may have been drawn to that effect.

The people of the United States are in the process of choosing a new President and are fortunate to have strong and impressive candidates from both political parties. Canada will not interfere in this electoral process. We look forward, however, to working with the choice of the American people in further building an unparalleled relationship with a close friend and partner.

http://geo.international.gc.ca/can-am/washington/menu-en.asp?lang_update=1

[anne]

Truth:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/02/healthcare-numbers/

February 2, 2008

Healthcare Numbers
By Paul Krugman

Next time you hear someone telling you that the dispute over mandates is unimportant, remember this table:

Without Mandate With Mandate

Reduction in number of uninsured
23 45

Total cost
102 124

Cost per newly insured
4400 2700

Yes, mandates matter.

* http://www.nber.org/papers/w13758

[anne]

"----, those costs are taxpayer costs. I made an effort to draw the important distinction, which you as most who consume Krugman's bile like so much cherry pie do not grasp, between taxpayer and social costs."

Slandering idiocy.

[anne]

"Seriously, can anyone think of an essay less cogent and more disjointed than this latest freak accident by --? This election season has exposed this guy for what he is- an integrity challenged, if well educated, hack."

There is a curious sort of person who must slander and lie and intimidate.

[Bruce Wilder]

The truth about mandates is that we would not even be having this stupid conversation, if any of the major Democratic candidates, including Edwards, had been willing or able to propose some form of single-payer reform.

Mandates are obviously not going to do the job, when 80% of the uninsured cannot afford health insurance; some kind of subsidy will have to be offered, and the success of the program will depend on the generosity of the subsidy, not the mandate.

Someone's projection should not be offered as fact, let alone "truth".

[RW]

"...we would not even be having this stupid conversation, if any of the major Democratic candidates, including Edwards, had been willing or able to propose some form of single-payer reform."

And on that I think we can pretty much agree.

[save_the_rustbelt]

All of the spinning and dodging and weaving is much more entertaining with the Internet and 24/7 news channels.

The misinformation flies faster, and the spin to cover up the misinformation flies faster, and the counter-spin flies faster, and the ....... oh well.

And some people actually believe it.

kotzabasis says...

Swells

Policies can objectively evaluated geopolitically and morally ONLY within the context they are made. Hop