Just finished the New Yorker Krugman piece. I realize that what the world needs now is another Bob Somerby like I need a hole in my head, but I’m always struck by what a watershed event the 2000 election was:
It was the 2000 election campaign that finally radicalized him. He’d begun writing his column the year before, and although his mandate at the outset was economic and business matters, he began paying more attention to the world in general. During the campaign, he perceived the Bush people telling outright lies, and this shocked him. Reagan’s people had at least tried to justify their policies with economic models and rationalizations. Krugman hadn’t believed the models would work, but at least they were there.
Update. Speaking of Somerby, he’s writing a book about the 2000 election that you can read here (h/t Dennis G).
WereBear
No one suspects… the economist.
JenJen
On initial glance I fail to find anything erroneous in that paragraph you quoted. Not like it’s a contest, or anything.
demkat620
It’s what woke me up too. I couldn’t believe people would vote for that idiot. But they did and then SCOTUS getting involved horrified me.
someguy
Good to know his wife has taken to spicing up his op-eds. He’s remarkably mild considering the egregious errors in right wing economic philosophy and their outright dishonesty. He/she are still way too soft on them but at this point I’ll take what I can get.
D. Aristophanes
Whoa – why are you bagging on Somerby, DougJ?
Dennis G.
And for those who want to follow our step by step decent into Hell, Somerby is putting his book on the subject up online, chapter by chapter. You can read the tick-tock of our collective nightmare here.
Cheers
DougJ
@D. Aristophanes:
I’m not, I’m just saying we don’t need another one. If I didn’t discipline myself, I would sound exactly like him.
Svensker
@demkat620:
Moi, aussi. It was like someone splashed cold water in my face.
Brick Oven Bill
I did not know that Krugman and Van Jones are to teach at the same place. This is also from where Hilzoy hails.
Wow!
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Really? Am I the last one alive who remembers David Stockman? And leaving aside economic matters, am I the last one alive who remembers that most of the mass murdering assholes responsible for Iraq also served under Reagan, Bush I, and even Nixon? Does Krugman really contend that he didn’t clue into the systematic lying until 2000? Not saying the article is wrong, but it’s hard to believe.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
No comparison dude. Reagan, with all his very bad domestic policies and some foreign, like in Central America, still showed a large degree of respect for basic traditional process in governing this country. Bush and Cheney were the Texas Mafia and took no prisoners, not to mention international war criminals on a fairly large scale.
Reagan did what all gooper presnits do and backed up a panel truck to the treasury to steal a modest amount for the plutocrats toward promoting the Oligarchy all wingnuts dream of. Bush brought a fleet of semi trailer trucks and pretty much cleaned us out.
eemom
not true. The world needs legions of Somerbys — just a little less neurotic and repetitive, and more effective at getting their point across.
jenniebee
The Reagan administration thought that they knew better than Congress regarding the Contras and regarding Iran and they thought they’d found some grand loophole in economics that would allow them to cut taxes to the rich and still have money flowing into the treasury even faster than before. They’d given up fighting over Medicare and they’d really given up on fighting over Social Security, but the fact that they got away with sending the debt through the roof and with defying Congressional authority taught them what might be done.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Iran-Contra, for instance.
Yep, I appear to be the only one who remembers this stuff.
Bill E Pilgrim
I left the US in 1998, and except for visits wasn’t there again until 2008. As time passes I only thank my stars even more at having essentially missed that whole period. My god.
Bad now too, with pimply Acorn-filming idiots and so on, but I get the impression it was simply insane in the first few years after 2001.
Brick Oven Bill
When Elites Self-Destruct.
Tenzil Kem
@eemom: If they were less neurotic and repetitive, and more effective, they wouldn’t be Somersbys.
mai naem
The problem with making Reagan looking bad is that Bush Jr. was so bad that its hard to make any Republican before him look bad. Except maybe Hoover.
RSR
What the world needs now is a new Frank Sinatra, so I can get you in bed
-Cracker
Yutsano
Someone remind me to never click on a BoB link again. I learned nothing and it’s now seared into my brain in a rather uncomfortable position.
Radon Chong
Not to be pedantic, but are you sure K-Thug is the proper blogname for Paul Krugman? As I recall it, The Editors at the Poorman Institute dubbed him K’thrugman, for his Cthulhu-like shrillness, which better shortens to K-thrug.
Martian Buddy
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Ah, yes, “Kemp-Roth was always a Trojan horse to bring down the top rate.” It’s amazing how well the con still works even after he gave it away.
ericblair
@Brick Oven Bill: I did not know that Krugman and Van Jones are to teach at the same place. This is also from where Hilzoy hails.
You nailed it. It’s a big conspiracy. I think you should go and hide in the closet for your own safety until we send out the all-clear. A-ight?
Cheryl from Maryland
No, I remember that weasel David Stockman. The Reagan years were the training grounds for the current dumb asses under Bush.
FlipYrWhig
Try to believe it, Dear Readers! Love Story! Earth tones!
One thing you’ll notice is that our side–our sneering, contemptuous, dick-joke-telling side–just isn’t very good at this, not even Our Own Rhodes Scholar or The Honest Ambassador. Not since 1999, when Ezra Klein once–and only once–told you the truth. Career liberals looked away. Gender nut Chris Matthews rubbed his thighs.
We’re not satisfied with the rest of this parody, so we’ll save it for another day. Hey rube!
DougJ
@FlipYrWhig:
That was really, really good.
Jim C
@eemom:
But then it wouldn’t be Somerby, would it?
Martian Buddy
@mai naem: It occurred to me while I was reading Dennis G’s piece on Franks that the W years may have even beaten Grant’s administration for sheer volume of corruption.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@ericblair: Ugh… look at the comments on this poor article.
mr. whipple
Ezra was, what, 18 at the time?
maus
“Became aware of” doesn’t mean that he’s actually paying attention, of course.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: And yet, now I have the almost-irresistible urge to click on it. Somehow, I will be strong.
K-Thug is my economic crush. I’ve said it before, but I would let that man talk economics to me all night long.
Obama got me involved in politics. I’ve always been a Democrat and passionate about the issues; I just never felt I had any room in politics–until Obama.
Brian J
@asiangrrlMN:
Back in college, when I was really, really high on reading Krugman’s columns to the point of getting into pointless fights with people over e-mail, as I was passing through the subway system in NYC I saw a banner for shirts that read Paul Krugman’s Army. I never did buy one, because I felt my College Democrats shirt that read “Do It for the Ass!” (get it?) was clever enough, and I thought I’d be a little weird. Then I saw that Brad DeLong bought one. And you can, too. I might one of these days.
asiangrrlMN
@Brian J: Holy shit. That’s incredible. I might have to buy one. And, I like the “Do it for the Ass”! idea as well. Thanks for the heads up.
Bill H
Somerby tends to be flowery, but I don’t let a day go by without reading him. I do wish that a) he would get over 2000 and b) he would ditch the “royal we” usage. I mean 2000 really pissed me off too, but ranting about it at this point just doesn’t seem productive, and it tends to detract from ranting about present day Republicans; sort of dilutes the message. And even kings and queens no longer use the “We are not pleased” formula.
FlipYrWhig
@DougJ: :D I actually don’t think he’s done “dear readers” for a while.
Bob Somerby’s odd about picking targets. And once he’s picked one, he never lets go. His grudges are _deep_.
And he’s _impossible_ to satisfy. When people don’t talk about the media treatment of Gore, he gets irritated about that. And when people _do_ talk about the media treatment of Gore, he gets irritated that it’s taken them too long.
I just wish he would get off this jag about how liberals are too mocking towards everyday conservatives. Conservatives in the media openly mock everyday liberals, and it hasn’t stopped them from being able to win converts. So I don’t think the public gets so turned off by the idea of mockery.
But his thing from the health care debate about how much of US health care spending doesn’t provide better outcomes, making it essentially “looting”… that really has stuck with me.
lenn
The 2000 election was a real mind screw but it was the Clinton impeachment a few years earlier that first convinced me that the Republicans were a group of braying jackasses.
Kobie
@lenn: The 2004 election disillusioned me FAR more than 2000. Probably more for the way Kerry rolled over and died.
salacious crumb
I still dont respect Krugman. yeah he gets all medieval on Republicans in a very nasty way, but he is still nothing but a Clinton hack. It still mind boggles me that he would have thought that Hillary would have been a radical departure from her husband, or Bush or Reagan or McCain. The first thing that she would have done, had she won, would have been to launch an all assault war with Iran, to please the AIPAC crowd and the Villagers, in an effort to please them and show “bipartisanship”, further sinking this country into debt and pissing off much of the world, except Israel and France.
Secondly, did he really believe that she would have done anything to rein in the bankers and the financial world and the hordes of lobbyists clamoring for her attention. Hell she would have appointed that soulless bastard Mark Penn to oversee health care reform.
Finally lets not forget something: The reason we are in a pile of shit is because we launched an unwarranted war against Iraq. Hillary supported it, and with great gusto. That Krugman still felt compelled to support makes me question his very sanity to this day. Fuck Krugman.
bob h
Krugmann owes his prominence to a keen ear for dishonesty and to his wife.
(The character of Republicans was already glaringly obvious in the 1994-5 time frame)
kay
@salacious crumb:
That’s not what he says in the article. He didn’t back Hillary because she would be a radical departure ( and, in fact, Krugman backed her husband’s trade policy).
He backed her because he thought she was more liberal and more partisan than Obama.
I agree with that.
The article, to me, is sort of a classic political awakening-then-disenchantment story.
He was an academic, he (finally) saw what was going on politically, he jumped in, he became disenchanted with the process.
He’s now vowing to stay true to principle, but he acknowledges how difficult it is to “get something done”.
It sounds like he got roughed up a little when jumped in there, and now has a better lay of the land, in terms of what he’s up against.
I think his is a really familiar story.
kay
@salacious crumb:
Just to be clear, I agree with you that HRC would have had the same struggles with lobbyists that Obama has. She as much as admitted during the campaign that they were absolutely going to be at the table in any health care reform.
If I understood her supporters, they felt she was a realist who acknowledged their influence, and would go in with no illusions, so the result would be better.
I thought that was a stretch then and I think it’s a stretch now, but that’s what they believed. That they needed a seasoned partisan warrior, someone familiar with the ways of “the levers of power” which is a phrase she actually used. She didn’t say she would be purer. She said she would be better at the game. I thought that was completely unsupported by her record, but there you go. That was the Hillary pitch.
I felt HRC supporters were operating on as much conjecture and faith as Obama supporters, but their “faith” just sounded tougher, and more definitive. She never showed the slightest inclination as Senator from NY to push back against Wall Street. Maybe she would have become a populist warrior, who knows.
salacious crumb
@kay
ok fair enough, kay, perhaps Krugman didn’t believe that Hillary would have been a radical departure. So why did he support her? you mentioned that he thought she was more liberal and partisan. But how could he have really believed that considering that she backed war with Iraq and then Iran….how could she have been partisan when her stance on just about most issues, especially when it came to labor unions, finance and foreign policy weren’t all that different than Republicans. Sure she was for the public option and gay marriage, but that’s where her difference with Republicans ended. My overall point is that at the end of the day Krugman backing Hillary wasn’t one of principle, but sheer loyalty.
This doesn’t take away from the fact that Krugman is a good economist or that he doesn’t care about average Joe. and it also doesnt take away from the fact that Hillary is a brilliant person. all im saying is that Im wary of Krugman when he criticizes Obama because I believe he is bitter that Hillary lost. His analysis is biased.
and yeah I also never believed Obama was the Anointed one or that he was gonna save the world.
salacious crumb
@kay,
I agree with your analysis on your second posting.
kay
@salacious crumb:
And, Krugman backed Edwards first, before Hillary, which was a real leap of faith, as Edwards was a center Right southern Senator, before he reinvented himself as populist liberal warrior. There’s the inconvenient actual record that has to be grappled with.
The way I see it, all of the backers of the various candidates were operating on faith. There wasn’t a whole lot of reality entering that picture, in any of the stated rationales for supporting any of them.
I give Edwards credit for climbing on the populist train before almost anyone, and I think HRC has enormous tenacity, but he wasn’t a populist when he had power anymore than Clinton had a history of bucking moneyed interests when she had power.
The Clinton and Edwards supporters had their own myths. They have the luxury of losing, so they can still carry the storyline, because it never had to encounter reality.
But that’s the one good thing you get when you lose, “it would have gone better had I won”, so I give them that.
kay
@salacious crumb:
I’m glad I read the article. I understand Krugman a whole lot better now.
I always thought he was honest and a little naive. I think he’s still honest but now he’s a little less naive. I’m pleased he’s “on my side”.
It will be hard to pull off, though. I don’t know that he can jump into politics and keep that academic distance. We’ll see if he can manage it. A lot of people fail.
kay
@salacious crumb:
This is anecdotal, but I talked to Hillary supporters here prior to the PA primary about her weird belligerent statements on Iran, and they were completely untroubled.
They thought it was politics, and that she had this secret set of liberal principles that she wasn’t sharing with the general public, because she had to get elected before rolling out the Lefty manifesto.
Which is hysterical, because that’s EXACTLY what Clinton attackers on the Right always say.
Brian J
I don’t think that was what he was thinking. For one thing, his first choice was Edwards. For another, he’s said a bunch of times that he grew to like Clinton’s fighting style. Bill Maher has said something similar, when he was thrilled that she screamed the words “slum lord” at Obama during a primary debate, because he knew she would do the same to the Republicans.
And really, there’s something to that. I can’t say for sure what form Clinton’s policies would have taken as president, except to say they wouldn’t be like Kucinich’s, nor can I say that she would have had an easier time dealing with Republican bullshit. But she would have almost certainly not had a problem holding her foot on the throat of these clowns. When you think of how relentless they have been in trying to being, well, gigantic assholes at every stop, that trait becomes all the more appealing.
salacious crumb
@kay
The thing is, kay, a lot of us on the left never really got swooned by Obama’ campaign (that Will.I. Am video on Obama and the whole Yes We Can chant was truly syrupy and tongue wagging worshipping). I never believed Obama when he said he was truly gonna ban lobbyists, change the Muslims world attitude regd America and really, bring about any super positive change with respect to status quo. Some of us saw the primary campaign as a lesser of 2 evils campaign. who was more evil? Obama or Hillary? Hillary had a track record to prove that she wasn’t gonna change the status quo very much. The fact that she had establishment people like Mark Penn, Lanny Davis, Terry McAuliffe running her campaign provided just a glimpse of what her administration would look like.
So I understand why Krugman was disgusted by Obama’s campaign. he saw all that blind worshipping by Obama’s supporters and thought, “this guy cant be a serious!”. But he very conveniently overlooked all the crooked people running Hillary’s campaign. Did he really think Mark and Terry would even bother to get the conversation on HCR started? At least Obama did that, and even though I am ticked off that we don’t have public option and that Rahm sold us out, at least HCR is being discussed. I don’t think Hillary would have even bothered to bring it up had she been elected.
The New Yorker article is fine in that gives us some more insight into Krugman’s thinking. Still its hard for me to understand how a smart man like himself could have come to support Hillary. you are right in that a lot of people were backing their people out of faith, but like I said there were a lot of Obama skeptics backing Obama because they saw him as the lesser of 2 evils. but Krugman was always vehement in his defense of Hillary. and lets not even go on the topic of John Edwards. Edwards came across to me early on as too smug to be a presidential candidate. the fact that he would overlook his wife’s cancer and still decide to run is truly abhorrent. I bet Elizabeth was against his running again, considering her cancer was coming back and she had 3 kids to take care off, and yet he decides to run. and then confides with Hillary that he doesnt think Kucinich should run. what a smug prick!
Oh well, i think im going in circles. point is I agree with you for the most part.
Steeplejack
@kay:
I think the key will be sticking to facts–supporting his opinions with actual information that can be verified–rather than just opining from, say, the salad bar at Applebee’s. So far he has done a good job of basing his political critiques on “real” stuff–mostly from economics. But that’s good, because that’s his thing. I particularly like how he regularly guts the voodoo (pseudo-)economics of the Republicans.
salacious crumb
@Brian J,
yes I agree with you that Hillary would have been better at fighting the Republicans but that’s all she would have been doing: Fighting. her administration would have been secretly agreeing with the GOP agenda and giving them ground on every issue but pretending to “fight” with the GOP on the surface.
Her nomination would have been fodder for the likes of Fox news, Drudge, Beltway Journalists and all those assholes that feed off this rivalry. We would have been back to fighting the old battles of the 60’s and 70’s. and while the country would have been again distracted by these pointless fights, the lobbyists and bankers would be ensuring the Hillary and her band of thugs, as well as the GOP, were working on destroying every bit of rules and laws that were still in place to protect the average American.
And thats what people like Krugman didnt realize. That Americans were fed up with the Clintons and fed up with the Bushes. They didnt want anymore dynasties or cat fights. They just wanted their country back.
kay
@salacious crumb:
We agree on Edwards. I thought he was a good salesman who found the perfect pitch for liberals circa 2008.
But I don’t think he meant a word of it, and I thought that long before his affair was revealed.
The affair itself is an indictment on his rhetoric versus his reality. Edwards was telling us that we were looking at the imminent failure of the republic if he wasn’t elected. Millions were going to DIE if McCain prevailed.
Then he had an affair? I thought he said this was do or die? He took that risk for such a selfish, small reason?
I mean, Christ. Talk about a bullshitter. Couldn’t have been all that important if he put it at risk to sleep with his campaign aide.
Arclite
Yeah, I think the 2000 election is what also turned Glenn Greenwald into the blogger he is today. For someone to give up his law practice to become a pajama clad blogger probably making a third of his previous salary says a lot about what that election did.
22state
Radicalized???
Krugman… really.
The Overton window has really moved. Krugman as radical is a radical statement.