the liberal's lament

Here's Paul Krugman, whose latest column is making waves:

So there’s a growing sense among progressives that they have, as my colleague Frank Rich suggests, been punked. And that’s why the mixed signals on the public option created such an uproar.

Now, politics is the art of the possible. Mr. Obama was never going to get everything his supporters wanted.

But there’s a point at which realism shades over into weakness, and progressives increasingly feel that the administration is on the wrong side of that line....

...(P)rogressives are now in revolt. Mr. Obama took their trust for granted, and in the process lost it. And now he needs to win it back.

How can someone so brilliant be so foolish? It's a perennial question. But it never gets any less depressing.

I'm not as au fait with the latest slang as NYT columnists seem to be, but apparently "to punk" means to rip off or trick someone. Does Krugman think Obama has set out to fool people like him? That this whole "I'm going to reform healthcare" thing was just a tease, a shtick? That Obama and his team are now sitting in the White House, reading Krugman's column, and saying "Suckerrrr"?

Then there's the whining, childish narcissism. "He needs to win (our trust) back". No. He needs to find a way of passing health care reform. And for that, he needs the support and assistance of everyone in his party, including "progressives". They can't just sit back, waiting to be impressed, or jump in with insults when they don't get their way.

Krugman's column is obviously not the same as the crazy screams of "Nazi" or "socialism" or both. But in its emotionalism, and its reluctance to give the White House the benefit of the doubt, it's not exactly the opposite of it either.

Comments

[ejoch]

With friends like that...

[Jon]

Interesting comments. What I feel is that everything related to national policies in the US is seen as a zero sum game. Hardly anyone cares about the actual policy making as long as they "win", or in fact more frequently, "the others lose". So, in fact to pass health insurance reform, Obama needs progressives like Krugman to continue crying bloody murder. As long as they are unhappy, everyone will hail Obama as a bipartisan leader, who had the guts to oppose his "stupid" base (somehow republicans are never supposed to oppose their base, rather their every action is dependent on placating theirs.. I digress) and even some conservatives might sign on to a compromise. All they care about is that liberals lose. No one cares about whether the status quo is sustainable or the right policy is being made.

[peter]

Poor Paul Krugman still hasn't accepted that his candidate lost in the Democratic Party primaries last year. It would be nice if he were to use his undoubted intelligence in service of something other than his spleen.

[Tom]

Krugman makes a valid point when he says that there's a point where 'realism shades over into weakness.' I'd say that when your chief negotiating partner (in this case Senator Grassley) is on record saying that he will not in all likelihood support the deal he himself is brokering since the subject under negotiation is a non-starter, then to continue pinning your hopes on striking a deal with the other side is to shade into weakness.

If the congressional Repbulicans were acting responsibly then Obama's tactic would make sense. They are not and he looks weak. I expect we will see an adjustment to his approach come September.

[carole]

Baucus asked for a 9/15 deadline and got it. There is nothing wrong with agreeing to that. Krugman and the Progressives he writes about are partisan and resent the President even acknowledging a Rep. Krugman has 2 yrs. worth of anti-Obama columns to prove his bias. The President owes him nothing. He has never supported Obama.