“As boring to watch as a space walk,” a friend said about Barack Obama’s latest round of media appearances, including the best one Sunday night, on “60 Minutes.” Paul Krugman, whose wisdom I also trust, is worse than bored this morning. He’s filled “with a sense of despair.” Krugman has been feeling that way for some time now. Here’s why. Postscript: 4:38 p.m. — Today’s Dow rally notwithstanding.
PPS: March 25 — Continuing right along, here’s Tuesday night’s prime-time press conference:
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Say what you will — that he is the Professor Prez or the Puppy-Dog Prez or the Pragmatic Prez — it’s more than obvious that Obama is a huge reprieve from the Bullshitter-in-Chief whose head was stuck so far up his ass he sounded like the talking asshole with a Texas twang. “… a bubbly, thick stagnant sound, a sound you could smell,” as William Burroughs once wrote in “Naked Lunch.” Listen to Burroughs tell you all about it.
OK, you asked for comments…..
My problem with Krugman is that he is just as much fixated on a single solution as the wingnuts on the right. Any program that does not revolve around massive government intervention a la FDR is ipso facto useless. Because of his ideological commitment, he infuses his economic predictions with a far greater air of inevitability than that uncertain science should receive. Paul dilutes his substantial value as an economist/shepherd for the uneducated (like me) by getting it all bollixed up with his second calling as a political polemicist. He’s far better at one than at the other.
It should have been obvious to any attentive observer that Obama is not a classic post-New Deal liberal, at least in process terms. He certainly shares the liberals goals (universal health care, increased oversight for maverick elements of the financial system, etc.) but he is not at all committed to traditional liberal processes. He sees the private sector (or at least its more enlightened elements) as being potential partners in effecting progress towards liberal goals in a way that doesn’t create violent schisms in the political fabric. In short, he’s not a zero sum warrior. Krugman is.
Sorry, but I’m an old line member of the Demo Left, lived through the 1960s and 1970s, suffered with candidates like McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, Tsongas, Bradley, Gore and Kerry whose appeal was limited to the coastal intelligentsia, and have concluded that this is a 51-49 country, with 43-44% firmly embedded in one camp or the other. So, it comes down to making the remaining 2-4% comfortable with where you’re going, and how. That’s still true today, despite the wave of neo-Watsonian populism sweeping the country right now.
It feels great to storm the ramparts, or initiate a coupe de main, but it doesn’t get you anywhere in contemporary America. I know; I was with McCarthy in 1968. If you behave moderately, you stand a chance of implementing liberal goals. Otherwise, you’re a loser.
So, fire away.