Krugman Raises

And so the Krugman-Obama feud escalates. Ever since Obama had the gall to point out that Krugman's rhetoric on the Obama health plan has been very inconsistent, Krugman has been bent on revenge with the fury of an Anton Chigurh. Today, Krugman takes it to the next level, taking Obama's denouncing of pro-Edwards 527 groups as indicative of a deep-seeded hatred of unions. There are several problems here, including Krugman's claim that unions are somehow not special interests, and Edwards' past opposition to exactly this type of special interest lobbying. But the biggest problem is that Krugman really doesn't seem to know, or at least doesn't note in the op-ed, the basic facts of the case. As Ezra Klein (a critic of Obama's lack of a mandate) says, the union 527s are running ads attacking Obama; I don't know about Krugman, but I'm not generally surprised when candidates object to ads attacking them. Krugman also fails to acknowledge another person objecting to the ads. Edwards, at least publicly, opposes the ads, even as his former communications director is the one orchestrating them. So, evidently Edwards, Krugman's obvious choice in the primary, hates unions too. Or maybe no one hates unions, and Krugman just has a personal vendetta against Obama and really doesn't care about such quaint things as facts when pursuing it.

Comments

[Greg Kuperberg]

I think that perhaps both you and Krugman are too caught up in the foisted feud between Clinton and Obama. My philosophy is that even a brilliant president is largely just a facade for a team of advisors. Sometimes it seems as if ghost work is the only kind of work that there is in Washington. Carolyn Washburn made the point that Obama and Clinton have many of the same advisors. So I see no point in quarreling over personalities and tactics. Whichever one is nominated is fine with me.