A short diary about the Clinton RFK remark.

The fact that Clinton even had to apologize shows just how ridiculous and cynical the partisans of hope are.

The feigned outrage is a farce.  And Olbermann will have a special comment tonight?

I've been posting a lot recently, at least a lot on my watch. I don't think many of my readers are getting a chance to see everything, since they aren't used to this many posts. So before you read this one, check out the previous few since the PA primary.

Paul Krugman, Princeton Economist and stupidhead, has been one of my favorite people the past couple of months. He's definitely been a stalwart Democrat through the tumultuous times in the past fifteen years, but has been offering fresh air into the recent conflict in the Democratic Party that is diving the progressive movement, and it all has to do with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. For some reason, the supporters of each candidate have become increasingly rabid. I have kept myself out of the fight, since I'm still in love with John Edwards, so I think I might still be able to provide some objectivity when it comes to observing this fight.

Supporters on both sides don't even seem to listen to what the other candidate and his or her supporters have to say. All they hear is "blah blah blah lies lies lies I'm an idiot." And this is very problematic for Democracy in America. This group of progressives is on the verge of making a major breakthrough in American democracy, reviving it, and advancing it to the next stage, a new golden age of American priciples. But we are really getting wrapped up in this my team vs. their team mentality in this primary race. The Left bloggers, especially, are very partisan in their attitudes, and are extremely hard on Republicans (warranted, I might add), but these hyper partisan attitudes are surfacing in defining Obama and Clinton as ultimate adversaries instead of friendly competitors who are striving to make each other better candidates.

I have a lot of respect for Paul Krugman.  I discovered him as a reassuring voice of dissent in 2001.  This campaign cycle, Krugman has taken every opportunity to remind us that he favors Clinton.  That's fine, he's entitled to an opinion.  I expect that it is an extremely well-informed opinion.  Krugman typically writes two op-eds each week for the New York Times and devotes one to bashing Obama.  This week, his Obama-bashing came on Friday.

He opens with a few choice digs just to make sure we know whose side he's on:

Imagine a prominent television newscaster saying this on air:

"....someone who can take Obama and Clinton out behind the shed, and only she comes out."

Just imagine.

In case you missed it, Keith Olbermann on Countdown said this Wednesday:

"....somebody who can take her (Clinton) into a room, and only he comes out."

Does Keith secretly want to eliminate all strong women, or just those who threaten to beat a man for the Presidency?

Take a look...

This is serious. It's a threat. Olbermann is implying that "someone" should physically remove Hillary Clinton.  Take her out.  Get rid of her.

Where is the uproar, the outrage, the demands for Olbermann's resignation?  We know that such comments would be unacceptable if they were aimed at Obama.

Clinton needs to be removed, says Olbermann, because of the "negativity, for which she is mostly responsible" in the Democratic race, quoting The New York Times editorial "The Low Road to Victory."

But the Times' Paul Krugman corrected the record today, and strongly rejected the Wednesday editorial in his piece "Self Inflicted Confusion:"

According to many Obama supporters, it's all Hillary's fault. If she hadn't launched all those vile, negative attacks on their hero -- if she had just gone away -- his aura would be intact, and his mission of unifying America still on track.

But how negative has the Clinton campaign been, really? Yes, it ran an ad that included Osama bin Laden in a montage of crisis images that also included the Great Depression and Hurricane Katrina. To listen to some pundits, you'd think that ad was practically the same as the famous G.O.P. ad accusing Max Cleland of being weak on national security.

It wasn't. The attacks from the Clinton campaign have been badminton compared with the hardball Republicans will play this fall. If the relatively mild rough and tumble of the Democratic fight has been enough to knock Mr. Obama off his pedestal, what hope did he ever have of staying on it through the general election?

Most rational people agree that both campaigns have attacked each other. Certainly Obama's campaign has not been innocent. It's called politics; this is a rough race for the most important job in the world.

Now, Obama's whining is having such an impact on his media pals that they are calling for Clinton to be taken "into a room?"

It's criminal to suggest that Clinton should somehow be restrained because Obama seems to have suffered a setback in this heated contest.  As Krugman says, if Obama can't survive the relatively tame primary battle, he'll be useless in the general election.

Olbermann should be fired for implying that it would be appropriate to harm a presidential candidate.

Outrageous.

(Cross posted at texasdarlin.wordpress.com. Also see SusanUnPC's post on this topic at No Quarter.)

The one progressive who is expert on the economy has compared all of the candidate's plans on health and economy, and economic recovery says continually:

Obama's plans are as close to republican as they can get.
Clinton's plans are solid and viable.  Obama's are not.

Elizabeth Edwards is endorsing Clinton's health plan.

Today, Krugman talks about what seriously bad shape we are
all in economically.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/opinio n/14krugman.html

Do Obama supporters THINK?  Or is it a glaze-eyed
snark fest kind of thing?

I have yet to read one thoughtful, convincing, TRUTHFUL
piece on Obama.

If you have to lie about your candidate, if you have to
go out and Boo his competition, and harass his
supporters in the blogs.

BUT YOU CANNOT WRITE ONE COMPELLING REASON TO VOTE FOR HIM,

don't you think you ought to leave your snarking glaze-eyed
buddies, go to a private place and think things through?

"The war is indeed a grotesque waste of resources, which will place huge long-run burdens on the American public. But it's just wrong to blame the war for our current economic mess: in the short run, wartime spending actually stimulates the economy. Remember, the lowest unemployment rate America has experienced over the last half-century came at the height of the Vietnam War."

-Paul Krugman

The war is likely not the sole source of all our economic ills ... but if it's effect is so stimulative, why the hell are we in such a fix?

We've paid for the war with debt and cut taxes to be stimulative.  The taxes were supposed to stimulate the economy to a degree that tax revenues actually increase.  But no credible economist believes this to be true and it hasn't happened.  So, the deficit is fueled by both a shortfall in tax revenues to pay for traditional spending and borrowing to finance the war.  A double stimulus -- and we are still slipping into a recession?

Oil prices go up with uncertainty.  It's higher cost goes into about every good produced and delivered.  Some postulate that interest rates are pressured up by increased deficit spending although historical data fails to produce clear support.  But, uncertainty demands higher returns on investment -- i.e. higher interest rates.  Higher interest rates triggered the rate resets that started the mortgage collapse.  The mortgage market itself exploded in growth due to efforts to satisfy demand for high yield, quality debt (debt with less uncertainty) by "creatively" creating more of it.  A lot is explained by an uncertain world and the war that helped make it more so.

Paul Krugman, the distinguished, progressive economist, is not particularly impressed with Obama's handle on how the war has shaped our economy.

Krugman is one of the few NYT regulars whose brains have not been swept off to the wondrous land of Obaphoria.

I hope that one of you with more time than I, can use his fine article for the diary that it deserves.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/opinio n/24krugman.html?_r=1&hp&oref=sl ogin

This week, Krugman's Monday Obama piece takes on a slightly different tone than his previous efforts.  For months now, Krugman has devoted his Monday column to dissecting various policies espoused by Obama to assure us that Hillary Clinton was actually the better candidate.  He garners great respect in Progressive circles and so his columns provided a rich, if not unbiased, perspective on the differences between the Democratic candidates.

Apparently seeing the writing on the wall, Krugman forgoes a discussion of policy this week and instead warns that if Obama does not win the election and become the next FDR, "the recriminations could tear the party apart."

Krugman, it seems has concluded that if his candidate (Clinton) does not get the nomination, there is a real danger that the whole party could collapse.  Now if that is not an endorsement, I'm not sure what is.  Unfortunately, it has the ring of "sour grapes" and perhaps a certain stage of grief.  Nevertheless, it does suggest that Obama has won the nomination.