It has. The crazier they get, the more eagerly their public seems to swallow the fantasies. We've seen comedians like Steve Martin use this shtick and almost go over the edge. But even that wild and crazy guy knows when to stop. Republicans don't.
Paul Krugman is watching them with fascination and hoping, like most of us, they'll smash on the ground. It's a measure of their supporters' credulity that they haven't -- not yet.
When the 2008 financial crisis struck, many observers — myself included — thought that it would force opponents of financial regulation to rethink their position. After all, conservatives hailed the debt boom of the Bush years as a triumph of free-market finance right up to the moment it turned into a disastrous bust.
But we underestimated the speed and determination with which opponents of regulation would rewrite history. Almost instantly, that free-market boom was retroactively reinterpreted; it became a disaster brought on by, you guessed it, excessive government intervention.
Republicans, meet Elizabeth Warren. She has the credibility and integrity Republicans lack: she saw the crash coming more than a decade ago.
Given Ms. Warren’s prescience and her role in shaping financial reform legislation — not to mention her effective performance running the Congressional panel exercising oversight over federal financial bailouts — it was only natural that she be appointed to get the new consumer protection agency up and running. And it’s hard to think of anyone better qualified to head the agency once it goes into action.
The fact that she’s so well qualified is, of course, the reason she’s being attacked so fiercely. Nothing could be worse, from the point of view of bankers and the politicians who serve them, than to have consumers protected by someone who knows what she’s doing and has the personal credibility to stand up to pressure.
Will Obama stand up, not stand up for her but stand with her against the Republican effort to take us back to the lawless terrain of deregulated financial markets? Will Obama, as Krugman puts it, take "a perfect opportunity to revive the debate over financial reform, not to mention highlighting exactly who’s really in Wall Street’s pocket these days"?
Krugman seems hopeful. I'm not. From his earliest days in the Senate to the darkest days of the financial meltdown, Obama has spoken often about justice and equity. But he remains standing firmly on the side of Wall Street.
___
For evidence of where Obama really stands -- Obama's fearful consistency, if not symmetry -- it's worth taking a fresh look at a profile of the new senator from Illinois, published back in November 2006.
Two excerpts come from a Prairie Weather post, quoting Ken Silverstein's profile of Senator Obama:
Let's not forget the senator is a very savvy politician, not detached from reality -- not detached from the modus operandi of Washington.
"Since coming to Washington, Obama has advocated for the poor, most notably in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and has emerged as a champion of clean government. He has fought for restrictions on lobbying, even as most of his fellow Democrats postured on the issue while quietly seeking to gut real reform initiatives. In mid-September, Congress approved a bill he co-authored with Oklahoma’s arch-conservative senator, Tom Coburn, requiring all federal contracts and earmarks to be published in an Internet database, a step that will better allow citizens to track the way the government spends their money.
"Yet it is also startling to see how quickly Obama’s senatorship has been woven into the web of institutionalized influence-trading that afflicts official Washington. He quickly established a political machine funded and run by a standard Beltway group of lobbyists, P.R. consultants, and hangers-on."
Indeed. Some of the connections established by the senator include promoters of NAFTA and other free-trade policies, corporate law and lobbying firms, Wall Street financial houses, and big Chicago interests, according to Silverstein.
And this:
He has a handle on the destructive polarization in the Republican party.
"Obama said that the 'blogger community,' which by now is shorthand for liberal Democrats, gets frustrated with him because they think he’s too willing to compromise with Republicans. 'My argument,' he says, 'is that a polarized electorate plays to the advantage of those who want to dismantle government. Karl Rove can afford to win with 51 percent of the vote. They’re not trying to reform health care. They are content with an electorate that is cynical about government. Progressives have a harder job. They need a big enough majority to initiate bold proposals.'"
It struck me then -- and it strikes me now -- that Obama's "they" are not so much Republicans and money interests but the "blogger community," "liberal Democrats," and "progressives."
