Paul Krugman shamelessly enters the
"Please displease me" game, and uses a chopped quote from Obama's discussion about political timing, where he mentioned Reagan's 1980 campaign. Krugman uses the Reagan administration's subsequent
economic record to argue against Obama's (accurate) political observation about how Reagan presented himself on the 1980 campaign. That's just some awful punditry. Krugman could have spent five minutes looking at the actual video of Obama's interview (between the 17:00 and 22:00 minute marks), but apparently that would be too much work. He substitutes speculation for research.
Krugman
writes:
Contrast [Bill Clinton's 1991 comments] with Mr. Obama’s recent statement, in an interview with a Nevada newspaper, that Reagan offered a “sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”
Maybe Mr. Obama was, as his supporters insist, simply praising Reagan’s political skills. (I think he was trying to curry favor with a conservative editorial board, which did in fact endorse him.) But where in his remarks was the clear declaration that Reaganomics failed?
Again: if one takes the time to look at the interview, they'll see that Obama was making an observation about Reagan's political timing in 1980, and the trasformational opportunities that afforded his administration. And OF COURSE Obama was trying to curry favor with the editorial board. It's ludicrous to expect him to counter prevailing narratives about the Reagan administration's
record, when he wasn't even talking about such things. What's that going to solve? Obama wasn't discussing Reaganomics, he was discussing political timing, and the opportunities that a mandate presents for transformational change. Yet, if Krugman spent five minutes reviewing the
video of Obama's remarks, he'd see that Obama
did repudiate the Republican economic approach since Reagan, and indicated the new direction he would take the country if he were able to take advantage of the "times", with a solid electoral majority.
I transcribed the full quote to the best of my ability starting at the 18:45 mark. The video is
here. It is important to note that the tape has been edited here and that the question Obama is responding to-- probably a question about his ability to change the country-- is omitted. I've highlighted certain portions for emphasis, but just keep in mind that he's answering a particular question, not making a campaign speech.
I don't want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what's different are the times. I do think that for example the 1980 election was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing. Alright?
I think Kennedy, twenty years earlier, moved the country in a fundamentally different direction.
So I think a lot of it just has to do with the times. I think we are in one of those times right now, where people feel like things as they are going aren't working, that we're bogged down in the same arguments that we've been having, and they are not useful. And the Republican approach I think has played itself out. I think it's fair to say the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time over the last 10 or 15 years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom. Now, you've heard it all before, you look at the economic policies that are being debated among the presidential candidates it's all tax cuts. Well, you know, we've done that. We've tried it. It's not really going to solve our energy problems, for example. So, some of it's the times and some of it I do think there's a maybe a generational element to this partly. In the sense that I didn't come of age in the battles of the sixties, I'm not as invested in them. So I think I talk differently about issues... and values. And that's why I think we've been resonating with the American people.
... What I'm saying is that I think the average Baby Boomer has moved beyond a lot of the arguments of the sixties, but our politicians haven't.
Krugman criticizes Obama for feeding into a false narrative about
President Reagan, when he really wasn't doing so-- he was talking about
Candidate Reagan. The two are very different. And if liberals and progressives are so analytically constrained that they can't let an observation about Reagan's political skill in 1980 pass without insisting on an accompanying criticism of Reaganomics... that's a pretty sad state of affairs.
Krugman rightly says that historical narratives count, but then uses a chopped quote to willfully misinterpret what Obama said, and slams him for
not making an argument that had nothing to do with his central point. There was plenty of
good stuff to discuss from Obama's interview if one took the time to listen to it, yet Krugman joins countless others who want to play the tyrannical "chopped quote" game.
"Please displease me", says our brightest major liberal pundit.
Labels: Dismal Science, Elections and Campaigns, Obama
7 Comments:
I don't believe for a second that Obama is pandering to the GOP vote (as some others have suggested).
However, is it possible that the some of the pundits who are creating this false dilemma about what Obama said about Reagan are actually trying to promote Obama to the GOP by making up some false claim that he supports the ideas of Reagan and thus making him more palatable to Conservatives in the general election? (It is a stretch and probably not true, but just a crazy idea that came to my head)
I find it much more likely that some of those pundits are just wanting Clinton to win and want to find some way to make Obama unpalatable to Democrats and erecting some strawman about Obama that connects him to Reaganomics is probably the best way to do it without coming off as racist.
But you never know... it could just be that people read what they want to read.
Yeah, but I don't know if the public at large makes the distinction between candidate Reagan and president Reagan, and whether at this point people even care. While Obama's statement is not at all a deal-breaker for me, I wonder about the ongoing myth of Reagan and what it says about the modern political process...that is to say, has it become necessary to genuflect at the altar of Reagan in order to be taken seriously as a candidate?
To be sure, Krugman certainly has been critical of Obama for some time, and yeah, you can make the case (and, YOU do, pretty effectively) that he's looking for nits to pick...but personally, I'm tired of the myth of Reagan...and I'm equally tired of the myth of Jimmy Carter, as I noted in a post of my own re: Krugman's column. I think it's important not to forget that it while the GOP declared war on anti-poverty programs (that, as I believe Josh Marshall pointed out a while back, actually worked), Democrats, as personified by Carter, essentially abandoned the same (and I wonder what Carter might have done to OSHA, NHTSA, or the EPA had he been re-elected, i.e., would he have "reined in" the "excesses of the 1960s and 1970s"?). Why they did so would make for a fascinating study, although there's most likely a mix and match of political cynicism AND fiscal prudence. Of course, fiscal prudence was abandoned during the Reagan era, despite St. Ronald's campaign stance of deficit-hawk (no less an "authority" than Dick Cheney has pointed out that "Reagan proved deficits don't matter.") Money flowed like water from the federal coffers during the Reagan era...but to the politically connected, as opposed to the poor or even the working and/or middle class.
This video seems like he was having an informal discussion with a pal regarding the effectiveness of candidates at delivering their message and rallying support. I keep waiting for the camera to shift and show poker chips and beer on his desk. At least that's what Obama's tone and delivery indicate to me.
Clearly, Obama is a great student of politics and that is what on display more than anything in the clip. Reagan was a great politician but his policies were horrific. Obama is clearly not advocating Reagan's administration. For his opponents to cherry-pick these quotes and not have the American public take the time to consider Obama's words is what troubles me. Maybe Americans have gotten too lazy or the "Clinton didn't create the same trajectory" pissed off the anti-Obama democrats.
It's almost like Oyster and myself debating the Clash vs the Ramones over a few beers, only with the entire nation watching us.
Watching y'all debate the Clash vs. the Ramones would make for a better discussion than most of the "debates" this campaign season.
Krugman is not being fair in this column. Keith Olbermann had a fuller transcript of Obama's words on this evening showing that critics are not addressing the entire content and that the parts left out are crucial to the meaning of what Obama said. I don't see him bowing at the altar of Reagan at all.
By the way, my candidate is Edwards, but he seems on the way out.
I continue to have major problems with the historical frame that Obama is buying into here.
If, as you repeatedly state, Obama is trying to describe the politically saavy way "candidate" Reagan connected with public dissatisfaction, then he should be more honest and clear about where that dissatisfaction originated.
Describing it in terms like "excesses of the 60s and 70s" when "government had grown and grown" is just restating the conservative code talk of the Reagan era for "Civil Rights Backlash Now!"
It would be perfectly acceptable for Obama to admire Reagan's "electoral" appeal to turn this backlash into a movement but he should say what it was.
Instead he sugarcoats this by saying that the Republicans were "the party of ideas" That is world-class cowardly pandering.
nike air max 90
nike air max 95
nike shoes
nike air
nike air shoes
nike air max tn
nike air rift
nike shox r4
sports shoes
nike air rifts
nike air rift trainer
nike air max 360
nike shox nz
puma cat
air max trainers
mens nike air max
nike air
puma mens shoes
puma shoes
puma speed
nike shoes air max
nike shoes shox
air shoes
Lucyliu IS Lucyliu
nike shoe cart
puma future
levis jeans
nike rift shoes
cheap nike air rifts
bape shoes
cheap puma
nike rift
jeans shop
diesel jeans
