Wow, that was one bad Op Ed, even with the easter egg at the end.

He also seems to forget the whole philosophy behind Obama's candidacy of change, hope, turning the page. Yeah there was prosperity in the nineties, but the Clintons are the polarizing factor that led to the christian conservative stranglehold on the congress and the neocons in the executive. Hillary is tieing her claim to the presidency largely to her husband's administration. Obama has no choice but to run against it. Why doesn't Krugman get that?

On Krugman:

And one more thing: let’s hope that once Mr. Obama is no longer running against someone named Clinton...

I do not read this as a concession on Krugman's part that Obama will be the nominee. If you parse it very carefully, the sentence is predicated on Obama being the nominee.

The key phrase is: "once Mr. Obama is no longer running against someone named Clinton."

Rather glaringly, he also refers to Hillary as "someone named Clinton," in other words, the kind of phrase one might use to describe a faded superstar. This is probably subconscious on Krugman's part since he is a great admirer of the Clintons, esp. Bill.

Having said that, I do not see it as an endorsement of Obama. I doubt very much if Krugman is going to be an Obama supporter anytime soon, but I have a feeling he is resigned to the looming reality of his favored candidate becoming "someone named Clinton."

Paul has been steadfast all these years, but you remember where he came from right?

Enron.

Funny, I didn't finish his column. He started from the false premise that Obama suggested that the economy for the "heartland" was equally bad under Bu$h and Clinton. Obama said no such thing. He accuratedly stated that the economy FELL under the Clinton admim and that's a fact Krugman can't handle.

I clicked on his column very gingerly, after the last one, but I was also surprised to read the last bit; it does sound like he's resigned to an Obama candidacy. But will he support him? It seems doubtful.

You would almost think Hillary has promised Krugman a cabinet position or the chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, wouldn't you?

I, too, have been disappointed with Krugman but compared to ABC he, at least, attacks Obama on substance (the state of the economy under Bill, whether rural middle class voters base their votes on religious preferences or non-economic issues). Krugman lost it just before and after South Carolina, but now, still a HRC supporter, he is attacking on substance. No other member of the Obama pile on team (Hannity, Brooks, Stephanopolis, Gibson, etc.) is going after Obama on substance. Krug gets credit for that.

The real story is that the pile on is working against HRC nationally (Newsweek poll and in PA). HRC ran a preview of Republican attacks and her nastiness hurts her. I hope Rove sends McCain some new tactic; he will need it.

airwon said:
"Krugman says that Obama is "suggesting" that Clinton and Bush are equally guilty. I think it is an accurate interpretation of what Obama said because Obama's comment ignores the fact that the median incomes for working Americans increased during Clinton's tenure.

Obama's comment, like many of his comments, is an inaccurate generalization."

As an Obama supporter at this point, I'll go ahead and agree with you on this. I think BHO would have done much, much better to map out a "third way" economic policy that partakes wholly neither of Clintonomics nor Bushonomics, but takes an entirely new direction.

I still think it's ridiculous for all these pundits to take BHO so strongly to task for an ex tempore remark made at a fundraiser. It wasn't a lie, which IMO *is* a suitable type of ex tempore remark to take to task, since it necessarily implies dishonesty, a necessarily intentional thought process. Rather, it was a clumsy statement, *not* a suitable ex tempore remark to take to task since it implies accident rather than intent.

All that said, I think BHO would have been (and would be) better served to just point out that we had it better during the Clinton years, and that we at least had an administration that knew how to deal with some of the consequences of economic growth, that cared about some portion of the American people beyond the top 1/10%, and that cared about fiscal responsibility AND social services. But that's a long, drawn-out, debate-type answer. Never mind that it's the ONE question on a "gaffe" that he DIDN'T receive on Wednesday. As if Steffie and Gib weren't looking bad enough as "moderators"...

I learned a lot about cynical revolutionary power movements from Paul Krugman's book The Great Unraveling, which I thought went well as a companion piece to George Orwell's 1984 (especially the thought destroying Newspeak principles of crimestop, blackwhite, and doublethink) and his classic Road to Wigan Pier which foreshadowed, in its study of proto-fascist working-class movements in England, Thomas Frank's two socio-eoconmic classics: What's the Matter with Kansas? and One Market Under God. So it surprised me greatly to read of Krugman panning Thomas Frank's work in his attempt to eulogize "someone named Clinton" and what that "someone" (or a politically androgynous two "someones") had ostensibly done for working-class Americans during the decade of the 1990s.

Leaving aside the fact that one "someone named Clinton" -- namely, Bill -- cannot ever serve as President again, it begs the question why professor Krugman wishes to stroll down memory lane with the "wife of Bill" (whose only foray into government policy in the 1990s resulted in the abortive Healthcare fiasco and the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994) in some sort of weird attempt to bash Senator Barack Obama who will soon become the next Democratic President that anyone can remember. What has a "glorious" economic past that cannot return (and for many laid-off workers like me never happened in the first place) possibly have to do with the future we hope to instigate anew?

I think that Professor Krugman really has to know what a complete non-sequitur his slippery article reads like; and his implicit assumption of magical/osmotic transference of Bill's luck (and capitulation to most things Republican) into his wife's putative "experience" (doing not much, if anything) simply has no evidence to support or recommend it.

Paul Krugman has truly written an embarassing piece of crap with this article, and I do hope he comes to his senses about the cynical Orwellian fascist Republicans and resumes attacking them (with Thomas Frank's able assistance) instead of the most-likely next Democratic President that anyone can, and will want to, remember

Michael Powe, can you ever type a message on this website without making a sweeping generalization about people voting for Obama?

"Most of the people supporting Obama had to be shown how to fill out a ballot. And, it's probably the last ballot they'll fill out for another 20 years."

Really? More than 50% of people voting for Obama never voted before? Really?

"Obama-bots are assuming that pretty speeches will miraculously translate into plans. They're assuming that the day-to-day nuts and bolts of running a country will just somehow take care of itself"

Is that what they're doing? You don't think they're listening to the CONTENT of those speeches? You don't think they see a well managed, ethically run campaign and thinking, "hmm. this guy seems to be able to handle a big operation and maintain an even temperament?"

"and Obama supporters vote on slogans. If Obama is not on the ballot, many, perhaps most, Obama supporters don't care if things continue as they presently are."

Where do you do your ground breaking research? Perhaps you have a dog who is voting for Obama, and you ask him all these questions, and that's where you're drawing your conclusions from? I'm sure he would need help filling out a ballot, and I doubt he'll be voting in the next election once the election commission finds out he's a dog.

How about you stop making ridiculous generalizations? Obama voters are democrats. They feel passionately that something must change in this country. Just like Clinton voters.

I won't generalize about Clinton supporters, I will just say that one of them can't see the forest for the trees.

Good economy? Yes, many new jobs at Starbucks and Wallmart. Clinton's big business friends laid the real basis for the downturn that would come. It's not just Bush. It was selling out American union jobs across the borders.