This diary is just a bit of late night rant but today's Paul Krugman article has finally convinced me that whether he is nuts, or a total toady for Sen. Clinton doesn't matter, he is a hack.
As usual Krugman is replaying Jay Leno's old bit What's My Beef but calls it What's My Beef with Obama? To be honest I stopped reading after the first paragraph revealed that this would be another Krugman nit pick fest over something Obama has said a la the Social Security language of crisis or the manufactured mandate controversy. I don't shy away from criticism of Barack Obama but Krugman's criticisms have always struck me as aggressively ignorant in that he finds some marginal issue and than aggressively avoids dealing with the core of what Obama says. And of course Sen. Clinton always comes out with the freshest smelling anus around (sorry to get all rude pundit on you).
Well today's article reminds me of the same. I didn't bother to thoroughly read it because this section tipped me off that it would be more of the same
During Barack Obama’s Sunday appearance on Fox News, the interviewer asked him for an example of "a hot-button issue where you would be willing to buck the Democratic Party line" and say that Republicans have the better idea.
Skip to next paragraph
Mr. Obama’s answer was puzzling because he gave credit where it isn’t due — and thereby undermined what could be a very effective Democratic line of argument.
In particular, Mr. Obama attributed to Republicans the idea that regulation can be flexible rather than a matter of "top-down command and control," and in particular for the idea of controlling pollution with a system of tradable emission permits rather than rigid regulations.
Well, that’s not at all what actually happened — and the tale of what really did happen has a lot of relevance to current events.
Ultimately, it went all yadda, yadda, yadda and maybe I am being unfair and there may be some important points in there but all of that gets dropped at this line
To be clear, both Democratic candidates have been saying things they shouldn’t; Hillary Clinton shouldn’t have endorsed the bad idea of a gas tax holiday.
But I think Mr. Obama
is doing much more harm to the Democratic cause by echoing Republican attack lines
on such issues as insurance mandates and Social Security. And now he’s demonstrating his post-partisanship by giving Republicans credit for good ideas they never had.
So Obama's echoing of Republican attack lines is doing the Democratic party more damage than Sen. Clinton enacting Republican attack strategies, or praising a Republican over a Democrat in the primaries or inciting Civil War and morally revulsing super delegates. To be fair for once Krugman actually admits that maybe Sen. Clinton isn't completely perfect, "she says things she shouldn't say." But Krugman's ability to overlook all of The Clinton's bullshit (ixnay on the aceray) has finally ended in my inability to continue to give him the benefit of the doubt. So in conclusion, fuck him.