Krugman Attacks Obama For Past Success

Paul Krugman needs to learn to realize when he is wrong and drop the subject. Krugman has launched yet another weak attack on Barack Obama. I’ve already noted that in his attacks on Obama Krugman is wrong on principle, wrong on the realities of health care, and wrong on the politics of the issue. At his blog, Krugman reviews Obama’s actions in the state legislature and concludes:

My thoughts: being president isn’t at all like being a state legislator, Illinois Republicans aren’t like the national Republican party, 2009 won’t be 2003, and the insurance industry’s opposition to national health reform — which must, if it is to mean anything, strike deep at the industry’s fundamental business — will be much harsher than its opposition to a basically quite mild state-level reform effort.

The problem with Krugman’s thoughts is that Obama was successful in what he attempted in the state legislature, while Hillary Clinton was not successful in her attempts to bring about health care reform. Obama should be praised for his success, not criticized.

Yes, being president isn’t at all like being a state legislator, but why does Krugman assume that Obama does not realize this? Obama has never said that he will do things exactly as he did in the past. What matters is that Obama understood how to pass legislation, and there is no reason to doubt that he will use similar skills to propose legislation which can pass in Congress should he be elected president.

Robert Reich also wonders yet again why Krugman is persisting in making these arguments against Obama:

Will someone please explain to me why Paul Krugman has it in for Barack Obama? And why the Times oped page continues to devote its prime real estate to Krugman’s repeated attack? Here he is again today, for the third time in two months, excoriating Obama for compromising too much with insurance companies and drug companies in his health care plan, without mentioning that (1) HRC’s health care plan compromises at least as much, (2) all the leading Democratic plans are basically the same apart from mandates, which would apply to a tiny fraction of the currently uninsured, and (3) Obama’s may be marginally better than HRC’s if he’s correct in judging that the most of the currently uninsured couldn’t afford to pay HRC’s mandate anyway.

1 Comment

  1. 1
    vwcat says:

    Krugman may be an Edwards supporter but, he sure is acting like a Hillarylander.
    I think Krugman is suffering from 2 different things.
    One is his support of Edwards, and because Edwards is trailing a bit behind, he feels the need to lash out against Obama.
    Usually I find Edwards supporters to be good people but, Krugman is not acting like most of his supporters.

    Two is that many in blogs have elivated Krugman to god of the progressives status and because of this, may have messed with his ego. He feels the need to carry their water and prove he is worthy. Afterall, he may feel, for a member of the traditional media to be so stoked up like this, it would skew his ego management.

    Either after the next month and depending on where Edwards is and/or if Krugman makes a mistake and gets trashed for it on the blogs, he will find himself again.

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