Paul Krugman- The Crucifixion Of The Hillary

[DemocratSinceBirth]

And it still is. In fact, these days even the Democratic Party seems to be turning into Nixonland.

The bitterness of the fight for the Democratic nomination is, on the face of it, bizarre. Both candidates still standing are smart and appealing. Both have progressive agendas (although I believe that Hillary Clinton is more serious about achieving universal health care, and that Barack Obama has staked out positions that will undermine his own efforts). Both have broad support among the party’s grass roots and are favorably viewed by Democratic voters.

Supporters of each candidate should have no trouble rallying behind the other if he or she gets the nod.

Why, then, is there so much venom out there?

I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. We’ve already had that from the Bush administration — remember Operation Flight Suit? We really don’t want to go there again.

What’s particularly saddening is the way many Obama supporters seem happy with the application of “Clinton rules” — the term a number of observers use for the way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/opinion/11krugman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

[ProSense]

1. "With friends like Paul Krugman, Hillary Clinton doesn't need enemies"

Obamaland?

11 Feb 2008 02:06 pm

With friends like Paul Krugman, Hillary Clinton doesn't need enemies:

In 1956 Adlai Stevenson, running against Dwight Eisenhower, tried to make the political style of his opponent’s vice president, a man by the name of Richard Nixon, an issue. The nation, he warned, was in danger of becoming “a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win. This is Nixonland.”

The quote comes from “Nixonland,” a soon-to-be-published political history of the years from 1964 to 1972 written by Rick Perlstein, the author of “Before the Storm.” As Mr. Perlstein shows, Stevenson warned in vain: during those years America did indeed become the land of slander and scare, of the politics of hatred.

And it still is. In fact, these days even the Democratic Party seems to be turning into Nixonland.

By coincidence, I'm actually reading the galleys of Nixonland at the moment, and - well, let's just say that the comparison of the current Democratic race to the political landscape depicted in Perlstein's book strikes me as almost entirely laughable. But even more laughable is Krugman's culprit for the Nixonification of Democratic politics - one Barack Obama:

I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody ...

That last clause is an accurate description of one of my fellow bloggers and some of other pro-Obama independents, but almost nobody else on the Democratic side, so far as I can tell. As for Krugman's examples of the Nixonian "venom" supposed spewing forth from the Obamanians, well, he has exactly two:

During the current campaign, Mrs. Clinton’s entirely reasonable remark that it took L.B.J.’s political courage and skills to bring Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream to fruition was cast as some kind of outrageous denigration of Dr. King.

And the latest prominent example came when David Shuster of MSNBC, after pointing out that Chelsea Clinton was working for her mother’s campaign — as adult children of presidential aspirants often do — asked, “doesn’t it seem like Chelsea’s sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?” Mr. Shuster has been suspended, but as the Clinton campaign rightly points out, his remark was part of a broader pattern at the network.

So David Shuster is somehow an agent of the Obama campaign? And the MLK vs. LBJ fracas is supposed to be more telling than, say, Bill Clinton's transparent attempt to paint Obama as a Jesse Jackson-style racialist niche candidate? One would think that Krugman, who's given to claiming that the entire conservative ascendancy can be explained by the GOP's exploitation of Southern racism, would aware of the irony of accusing Barack Obama's campaign of employing Nixonesque tactics in this election.

I say this, mind you, as someone who doesn't think that a Nixon-style politics of cynical management is always worse than an Obama-style politics of moral uplift. (More on this topic once I've finished Nixonland ...) But neither does Paul Krugman, so far as I call tell! Indeed, his preference for Hillary seems to reflect, at least in part, his view of politics as brutal trench warfare in which Democrats need to be a brass-knuckled as the GOP if they're going to have a fighting chance. In other words, he likes her precisely because she's Nixonesque. Which only makes his reading of the Democratic primary campaign all the more absurd.

That Wacky, Wacky Krugman

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. Who's Mike Cohen?

He's a nobody...

[TomClash]

6. Paul Krugman was in the Reagan Administration

He should stick to economics - he doesn't know shit about politics.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. He Spent A Year Working For Reagan

That should endear him to Obama nation...

And I didn't know economists are ignorant of politics or vice versa...

[TomClash]

19. Moving from the specific to the general I see

No one said aynthing about "economists" - I was quite plainly talking about Krugman.

It's really nice to compare Obama to Nixon and call his followers cultists. Great politics - I'm sure that will save Billary's faltering campaign by convincing many to vote for her. Nice to see that Bates medal wasn't wasted.

[Politicub]

Excellent - he can help with reaching across the aisle for the

Obama supporters. Lucky you to find such a gem hidden in the editorial pages of the NY Times.

[TomClash]

20. He is a Clinton supporter

so he would be perfect for continuing the politics of triangulation.

Pretty hard to have a "cult" of millions, but why should logic get in the way?

[ProSense]

7. Mike Cohen:

Michael A. Cohen is a senior vice president at Robinson, Lerer and Montgomery where he provides communications, public affairs and crisis management support to a variety of corporate clients. He is also senior project leader at the World Policy Institute where he helms the Privatization of Foreign Policy Project and an adjunct lecturer at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. Previously, Michael was the chief speechwriter for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson, U.S.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. In 1991 he was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal by the American Economic Association.

The biennial John Bates Clark Medal is awarded by the American Economic Association to "that American economist under the age of forty who is adjudged to have made a significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge". Named after the American Neoclassical economist John Bates Clark (1847-1938), it is considered one of the two most prestigious awards in the field of economics, along with the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Following an average wait of 22 years, approximately 40% of past Medal winners have gone on to win the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economics, presented annually since 1969 at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm.

[ProSense]

11. Can this guy tell him he's wrong:

January 15, 2008

Stimulus Packages: Edwards, Clinton, Obama

I think Paul Krugman has got this one wrong. He writes:

Responding to Recession - New York Times: John Edwards... driving his party’s policy agenda... has done it again on economic stimulus: last month, before the economic consensus turned as negative as it now has, he proposed a stimulus package including aid to unemployed workers, aid to cash-strapped state and local governments, public investment in alternative energy, and other measures. Last week Hillary Clinton offered a broadly similar but somewhat larger proposal. (It also includes aid to families having trouble paying heating bills, which seems like a clever way to put cash in the hands of people likely to spend it.) The Edwards and Clinton proposals both contain provisions for bigger stimulus if the economy worsens....

The Obama campaign’s initial response to the latest wave of bad economic news was, I’m sorry to say, disreputable: Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser claimed that the long-term tax-cut plan the candidate announced months ago is just what we need to keep the slump from “morphing into a drastic decline in consumer spending.” Hmm: claiming that the candidate is all-seeing, and that a tax cut originally proposed for other reasons is also a recession-fighting measure — doesn’t that sound familiar?

Bear in mind that I don't yet believe that the case for a fiscal stimulus is strong--although I may change my mind in a month or two, depending on how the data flow looks. The principal organization for successful stabilization policy is the Federal Reserve. Congress and the president have a role to play only in two situations: first, if monetary policy has shot its bolt and cannot do anything more--and we are far from that point--and second, if the Federal Reserve has been caught flat-footed in the wrong policy position, unemployment is rising rapidly, and it is important to get cash quickly into the hands of people who will spend it and so keep the rise in unemployment from being as large. We are not there yet--at least I don't think so--but we may be there in three months.

From this perspective Obama's plan looks pretty good:

Obama stimulus package emphasizes quick cash in hand: a $250 tax credit to 150 million workers to offset the payroll tax paid on the first $8,100 of earnings. He urged a further $250 tax credit per worker if employment declines three months in a row. He also would give a one-time, $250 payment to Social Security recipients who would not benefit from the tax credit, followed by another $250 payment if employment declines three months straight. The immediate relief would cost $45 billion, plus another $45 billion if the economy weakened...

The plan is clean: there is no place for lobbyists to hang ornaments on it--which means that quick passage is possible. The first $45 billion of checks could be cut and sent out with this April's tax refunds. It meets Elmendorf and Furman's http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2008/0110_fiscal_stimulus_elmendorf_furman/0110_fiscal_stimulus_elmendorf_furman.pdf requirements that a fiscal stimulus be timely and temporary. It does not do so well on "targeted"--it doesn't do a great job at making sure the money gets to people who will spend it and thus boost aggregate demand--but this is at least partly offset by its simplicity, which is indeed essential if we are going to get the timely and the temporary right.

John Edwards's and Hillary Rodham Clinton's plans look, to me, likely to be less effective. Consider Hillary Rodham Clinton's:

Talking Points Memo | Clinton offers economic stimulus plan: a $30 billion housing crisis fund to help states and localities deal with the fallout of foreclosures... ease the effects of vacant properties with anti-blight programs and helping local housing authorities buy and rent out vacant properties. Setting a 90-day moratorium on subprime mortgages of at least five years, or until housing lenders have converted mortgages into loans families can afford. The proposal also would increase the portfolio caps at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Providing $25 billion in emergency energy assistance for families facing rising heating bills.... Providing $10 billion to extend unemployment insurance for those struggling to find work while supporting families. Providing $5 billion in energy efficiency by doing such things as giving tax credits to encourage purchases of low emission vehicles and efficient appliances windows and other clean technologies. She also proposes funds to train and put to work people making public buildings more energy efficient...

These are all worthy causes--things that the government should be spending more money on. But this is not a bill that can be passed quickly--the housing provisions, at least, are one of those things where the devil is in the details of the drafting and where quick, clean passage and implementation is almost impossible. Funds to train and put to work people making public buildings more energy efficient--well, those aren't timely. The proposal is not Obama's: we are going to stimulate demand by cutting a lot of identical checks via a refundable tax credit--a thing that the government can do well and quickly. And this, I think, matters a lot. As Stan Collender wrote last Thursday:

Christmas 2008 May Be Coming Early For Lobbyists | Capital Gains and Games: A tax lobbyist friend told me yesterday that he's gone into the economic stimulus business. In response to my inquiring look that begged for more information, he said that I'd be surprised how many industries and professions have tax reductions that they want in any economic stimulus package that is considered this year and are looking to him to come up with arguments that confirm they will, indeed, be stimulative. In other words, even though it hasn't yet been introduced, the economic stimulus that has become all the rage in Washington these days has already become a Christmas tree with everyone and anyone who has something they want to do trying to reframe that proposal in terms of its positive impact on the economy. In case anyone hasn't noticed, this includes the White House, with the president all but saying that the reason the economy may be slowing is because of uncertainty about whether the tax cuts enacted during his administration will be extended when they expire in 2010. None of this is suprising. Even though its chances of being enacted are small, an economic stimulus bill may be the only thing that actually moves through the legislative process this year. In lobbyist parlance: it may be the only train leaving the station in 2008. But no matter how good the messaging, loading up the bill with a variety of provisions is one of the things most likely to lead to its demise. It will be too big, too political, too expensive, and take far too long to debate and pass.

The best way to keep a stimulus bill from becoming a lobbyist-pleasing ineffective and destructive Christmas tree in which a lot of the money goes to people who won't spend it and a lot more to people who shouldn't get it is to keep the legislative vehicle simple and clean. Boosting employment in the short term by cutting a lot of identical checks by April if we need to is something congress and the IRS can do. And Obama's plan seems to me to have the best chance of doing that--if he can sign Pelosi and Reid up to move a clean, focused bill.

John Edwards and Hillary Rodham Clinton and their staffs--they don't seem to have grasped that governance is best when you ask congress to do things that are within its competence, and ask the administrative branch to do things that are within its competence. They might respond that these stimulus packages are political rather than policy documents--acts of campaigning rather than acts of governance--and they are right, up to a point.

James Bradford DeLong (b. June 24, 1960, Boston) is a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley and a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the United States Department of the Treasury in the Clinton Administration. He is also a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and is a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.<1>

DeLong is co-editor of The Economists' Voice,<2> and has in the past been co-editor of the widely read Journal of Economic Perspectives. He is also the author of a textbook, Macroeconomics, the second edition of which he coauthored with Martha Olney. He writes a monthly syndicated op-ed column for Project Syndicate.

As an official in the Treasury Department in the Clinton administration, he worked on the 1993 budget, on the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, on the North American Free Trade Agreement, on the unsuccessful health care reform effort, and on other policies.

He writes a weblog, Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal, which covers political, technical, and economic issues as well as criticism of their coverage in the media; he also contributes to Shrillblog and maintains a political commentary site, Egregious Moderation.

DeLong is both a liberal in the modern American political sense and a free trade neo-liberal. He is part of a loose grouping of center-left bloggers who include Kevin Drum (formerly "CalPundit") of The Washington Monthly, Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo, Matt Yglesias of The Atlantic Monthly, Ezra Klein, and the group webloggers of Obsidian Wings, The RBC, and Crooked Timber, among others. He is also part of a lively grouping of economics-focused webloggers including Mark Thoma of Economist's View, Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution, Dani Rodrik, George Borjas, Andrew Samwick of Vox Baby, Jim Hamilton and Menzie Chinn of Econobrowser, Max Sawicky of Max Speak, You Listen!, and Brad Setser of Roubini Global Economics, among others.

DeLong lives in suburban Lafayette, California, and is married to Ann Marie Marciarille <3>, AARP Health and Aging Policy Research Fellow at Pacific McGeorge's Capital Center for Government Law and Policy <4>. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1987. Before moving to Berkeley, he taught at Harvard, Boston University, and MIT.

How about this guy?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

12. Unless A Nobel Prize Winner In Economics Like Robert Solow, Paul Samuelson, Or Joe Stiglitz Weighs

In I'm Not Buying...

Nobel Prize>John Bates Clark Medal

[ProSense]

13. I don't have an MBA, but I can still recognize that Bush is one of the worst presidents ever.

I can recognize that Krugman's current article is full of BS!

[QC]

14. Lobbyist? n/t

[THUNDER HANDS]

2. more like the crusi-fiction of Hillary

the fiction being the idea that she can run a competent campaign.

[Politicub]

8. Another well thought out comment by an Obama supporter

Instead of saying something pithy but utterly without wit, why don't you read the article and comment on the substance of it?

I know there's a lot of stuff in the article you could slap up here to disagree with - for example, Krugman sees the cult of personality being built around Obama akin to the Bush "Operation Flight Suit."

But if that's all you see, then you are doing yourself a disservice because Krugman is one of the best voices for liberalism and progressives that there is.

[truedelphi]

15. She says she is expereinced, strong and effective

And then more or less brags about how much she is victimized.

I don't get it. I don't wanna vote for a victim.

[Politicub]

4. Krugman articulates a key reason why I support Hillary

"although I believe that Hillary Clinton is more serious about achieving universal health care, and that Barack Obama has staked out positions that will undermine his own efforts."

I hope I get this comment in before the folks with the long knives start calling for Krugman's head on a pike.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

5. be careful of the 'she rose again' after the crucifixion!

[high density]

16. Well it's Clinton that is dismissing every state she loses

As if the opinion of those voters don't matter. This talk about how her husband didn't take the states either makes her sound like she's got contempt for us. At the same time she mentions her wonderful super delegates, which she's obviously intending to have for overriding the "activism" of the Democrats on the ground that prefer Obama's candidacy.

Sorry, but she's the one helping out with the venom. I'd have no problem voting for her vs. McCain in November, but I sure as heck hope that she does not make it that far.

[babylonsister]

17. Krugman is really sinking imo; he's been a major factor in this

rift. And he's talking about venom? He should read his own articles.

[Quixote1818]

18. No kidding. Sounds like a case of the Pot calling the Kettle black.

I am sure he just sees his cabinet position evaporating before his eyes which has to be tough.

[jackson_dem]

21. I admire Krumgan for telling it like it is despite knowing he would incur the wrath of you know who

[jackson_dem]

22. I admire Krumgan for telling it like it is despite knowing he would incur the wrath of you know who

[DiamondJay]

23. if only people like him coudl bring light to the drive-bys

because he is right about everything. its really something when this is the only-pro-hillary commentator we can actually see about