Paul Krugman -- this smart economist with whom we've largely agreed during the long and dreadful red years -- seems to have forgotten who the Democrats have become.
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.
Barack Obama is hardly wrong when he "blames both sides for our sorry political state." The Democratic party has a lot to answer for. Remember 2006 when many worked so hard for a Democratic majority in Congress? Glenn Greenwald reminds us about what we got by way of Democratic majority.
The signs are unmistakably clear that what was always inevitable -- full compliance by the House Democratic leadership with Bush's demands on warrantless eavesdropping and telecom amnesty -- is now imminent. House leaders spent the week floating their specific proposals for how they intend to comply in full, and yesterday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes went on CNN with Wolf Blitzer, refused to criticize the President or the Senate FISA bill, and repeatedly and meekly expressed his willingness "this week" to give what he called full "blanket immunity" to telecoms (C&L has the video of Reyes' astoundingly weak and incoherent answers in response to Blitzer's Bush-mimicking questions).
This is, of course, everything except surprising. No rational person who has watched Congressional Democrats since they took over Congress could possibly have expected them to do anything but what they always do: namely, whatever they're told to do by the White House.
Who is more identified with giving the White House what it wants? Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama? Who seems more like a Michael Bloomberg? Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama?
Paul Krugman's support for Clinton is a little frantic and more than a little resentful. We need his smarts and he is letting us down. He's confused about Democrats (the Clintonesque, triangulating party that betrayed us in 2007) and progressives, genuine progressives who want to leave all that triangulation, the corrupt old party machinery and the cynicism behind, and who see a much more convincing progressive Democrat and president in Barack Obama.
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