Obama isn't perfect, he's just (in my view) the best candidate for reasons pointed out in earlier posts plus more. But he's suddenly got a lot of people going after him. Today Paul Krugman goes after him on the issue of Social Security. Krugman winds up sounding a little breathless and lightweight.
Krugman is one of my favorite columnists but for the past several weeks his columns have had the flavor of burn-out. Today's column is largely about how Obama is a dumb-dumb for thinking we could return to bipartisanship anytime soon on an issue Krugman is devotedly partisan.
Mr. Obama wanted a way to distinguish himself from Hillary Clinton — and for Mr. Obama, who has said that the reason “we can’t tackle the big problems that demand solutions” is that “politics has become so bitter and partisan,” joining in the attack on Senator Clinton’s Social Security position must have seemed like a golden opportunity to sound forceful yet bipartisan.
But Social Security isn’t a big problem that demands a solution; it’s a small problem, way down the list of major issues facing America, that has nonetheless become an obsession of Beltway insiders. And on Social Security, as on many other issues, what Washington means by bipartisanship is mainly that everyone should come together to give conservatives what they want.
We all wish that American politics weren’t so bitter and partisan. But if you try to find common ground where none exists — which is the case for many issues today — you end up being played for a fool. And that’s what has just happened to Mr. Obama.
While wholly concurring that bipartisanship in the Beltway "coming together to give conservatives what they want," I don't have any problem with the rest of us revisiting entitlements, even during times of extreme partisanship. That's because I think that among the chief duties and clearest pleasures of democracy and a shared budget is constant debate.
Of course it's annoying to debate people who believe there's only one point of view -- theirs -- and that debate is a sign of weakness. But Democrats/democrats know that negotiation is there to serve all of us -- the voters -- as well as the politicians. In my view, nothing is "off the table." Obama's acknowledgement of that (most noticeably in foreign policy) makes him look like much the most mature and statesmanlike of the "top tier" Democratic candidates.
