Which is pretty much all the time in the political arena these days. Paul Krugman targets critics of Obama's policy choices who criticize -- but who have no alternatives. He calls them intellectual cowards.
...The notion that the Obama administration erred by not focusing on the economy is hardening into conventional wisdom.
But I have no idea what, if anything, people mean when they say that. The whole focus on “focus” is, as I see it, an act of intellectual cowardice — a way to criticize President Obama’s record without explaining what you would have done differently.
The president doesn't get off scott free. On the contrary, Krugman throws his own word right back at him.
... Are people who say that Mr. Obama should have focused on the economy saying that he should have pursued a bigger stimulus package? Are they saying that he should have taken a tougher line with the banks? If not, what are they saying? That he should have walked around with furrowed brow muttering, “I’m focused, I’m focused”? Mr. Obama’s problem wasn’t lack of focus; it was lack of audacity.
Ouch! We thought he owned the concept of audacity, along with "hope." But he let the right get away with injecting their own brash hopelessness and cynicism into his policy initiatives, what you might call the "you can't get there from here" approach of Mitch McConnell and gang.
At the start of his administration he settled for an economic plan that was far too weak. He compounded this original sin both by pretending that everything was on track and by adopting the rhetoric of his enemies.
What next?
...There’s a subtext to the whole line that health reform was a mistake: namely, that Democrats should stop acting like Democrats and go back to being Republicans-lite. Parse what people like Mr. Bayh are saying, and it amounts to demanding that Mr. Obama spend the next two years cringing and admitting that conservatives were right.
There is an alternative: Mr. Obama can take a stand.
I don't think Obama is going to take a stand, do you? I think he's going to try an end run to success by focusing on foreign policy and then say, "See? I'm focusing! I'm focusing." Democrats, in an estimated large majority, want their president to be tough and persistent. I don't think they're going to get it. And we know for sure the opposition is doing everything it can to insure America fails -- and takes this president with it.
