Paul Krugman never ceases to amaze...

And, no, I don't mean that in a complementary way.

I essentially agree with the column on his blog today which says that even without the public option, progressives would have to be nuts to oppose health care reform. But he can't resist getting off a swipe at President Obama: "A lot of people seem shocked to find that [Obama’s] not the transformative figure of their imaginations. Can I say I told you so?"

Nobody like a guy who says "I told you so," Paul...

And, besides that, no. I disagree. You're completely wrong about Obama.

Krugman faults Obama for not being bold enough with his proposals, starting with the stimulus plan. But, as I alluded to a week or two ago, Obama always had an uphill climb. Because of a united GOP minority, moronic parliamentary procedure, and an idiotic band of blue dog Democrats, a minority of senators have the power to do serious damage to the Obama agenda. And Obama has been very mindful of that fact -- much to his credit.

A lot of my fellow Democrats can't understand why the GOP was allowed to get away with so much under George Bush, and the Democrats get away with so little. I think the answer essentially lies in what Van Jones said: It's because the Republicans are assholes. (Not you, my dear GOP readers, whoever you are. I'm speaking purely of the party bosses and the elected leaders.)

Say what you will about the GOP, when it comes to votes, there is not much room allowed for dissent. They rigidly enforced party loyalty and cracked the whip when a senator or two had an attack of conscience. But most Republicans didn't need the crack of the whip. They are inherently a lot more loyal to their party than Democrats. And they are always thinking of the party's interests.

The GOP would never allow Joe Lieberman to fuck around with them like the Democrats have. And, yes, Democrats can learn something from them. After healthcare is passed do I think Lieberman should be punished? Without question. Given the fact that Lieberman was basically a Republican on foreign policy, it makes little sense to keep him in the caucus if he's turning against the party on domestic affairs as well. Lieberman's last few years in the senate should be made as unpleasant and as humiliating as possible for him. A message should be sent that there are limits to the amount of dissent the party will tolerate. (Allowing dissent is one thing; turning the Democratic party into Joe Lieberman's personal doormat is something else.)

But the question is: where, Mr. Krugman, does Mr. Obama's fault lie in all this?

Obama had two choices when he came into office:

1) Take as conciliatory a tone as possible, try to pick off Republicans, and keep the Democratic coalition as cohesive as he could.

2) Declare war on Republicans and ram as much Progressive legislation through as he can.

Obviously, Obama picked option (1) -- but let's briefly try to imagine what would have happened if Obama picked option (2).

Let's say he said: "The stimulus cannot be less than $1 trillion. Any lesser number will not do."

When the $787 billion plan actually passed the vote was 61 to 38. Does Krugman really think Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and Arlen Specter would have all voted for it if the figure was higher? Please. And Obama might have lost a few blue dog Democrats in the process. If he had lost two votes on the stimulus, it could have been filibustered.

So, instead of a $1 trillion stimulus, we would have gotten nothing.

This is Paul Krugman's solution?

As for healthcare, let's say Obama pulled a Bill Clinton. Let's say in his speech before Congress back in September he held up a pen and said that he would veto any legislation that did not include a public option.

I don't see how that would change anything as it currently stands now -- except it would have been highly embarrassing for Obama when the public option was rejected. There are at least four Democrats who are refusing to vote for anything that smacks of a public option. Nothing would delight Joe Lieberman more than sticking the knife into Barack Obama. (He might do it anyway -- even if he gets all he says he wants.)

I don't see how Obama taking a more aggressive stand would do anything. Let's say instead of appeasing Lieberman, Harry Ried started threatening him: If you don't vote for it you're out of the caucus. You lose your seniority. You're getting the shittiest committee assignments out there. We are declaring war on you.

I doubt very much that this would change Lieberman's vote. It might. But it might also prevent him from voting for a healthcare bill that doesn't have a public option in it. Which is much better than nothing. And (unfortunately) the Democrats have to keep their powder dry until after this vote.

Sorry Paul. Obama isn't the problem. Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson are the problem. If you wrote a column about what assholes they were, then you can tell me you told me so.

A slightly contrary position on the teabaggers

One of my more shameful political opinions (which I just have to suck up and live with) is the fact that for a brief period -- from about 2003 to 2005 -- I was in favor of the American invasion of Iraq.

I had my reasons for this position, but one of the things that might have nudged me into accepting some of the dumber pro-invasion arguments was the fact that the other side seemed even dumber.

The people who I spoke to on the antiwar left knew very, very little about Iraq. Their mantra "no blood for oil" struck me as ridiculous. (Although less ridiculous now.) And I was greatly offended about the casualness with which George Bush was compared to Adolf Hitler.

But more than that, they seemed like louts and bullies.

I remember a few months after the invasion going to see Paul Wolfowitz give a lecture at the New School where he wasn't able to get a word out, edgewise. The packed lecture hall contained dozens -- maybe hundreds -- of hecklers who continuously interrupted him with boos and insults and comparisons to Nazis. (At least one Lyndon Larouche supporter was seized and turned out of the hall when he charged the stage giving a Nazi salute.)

There was something endlessly frustrating about the fact that the guy wouldn't even be given the chance to speak. That he was shouted down by someone louder. It seemed downright un-American; what happened to freedom of speech? What happened to reasonable debate and intelligent discussion? "What a bunch of jerks!" I thought.

Which brings us to the latest bunch of jerks drowning out opposition with their loudness --

The teabaggers.

As you undoubtedly know, they've been showing up at townhall meetings about healthcare and making themselves an all-around-pain-in-the-ass to disrupt debate about healthcare.

These people are armed with little or no information (they think old people are going to be euthanized? they don't know medicare is a government program? seriously?) and their only weapon is their power to be extremely annoying.

I think there is a temptation to counter these jokers; to shout back and shout loud. Or to point out that moneyed, conservative organizations have been the organizing factor here.

I'm all in favor of pointing out that the grassroots nature of these mobs are phony and organized by arms of the healthcare industry or the GOP. I'm a little less inclined to shout back. (Although my political instincts might be off on this.) I think there is the strong possibility that this kind of thing will backfire. If these guys continue making themselves look like a crazy, unruly mob, what will the rest of the country think?

Maybe that they're a crazy, unruly mob.

Krug bait

I sort of understand now how easy it is to hate Paul Krugman.

For the last eight years, Krugman was my hero. During the Bush administration he was the most partisan, vicious and intelligent voice in the media attacking Bush -- and he would back himself up with all of the factoids and data points that mere mortals like myself could never hope to come up with.

My Republican friends couldn't stand him. It was great!

But I have to say: He hasn't been a team player for the Obama Administration.

Of course, that's sort of an intellectually indefensible position. Obama is fair game for criticism. And why shouldn't Krug point this out? (It's in a long Jewish tradition, actually, of the "Two Jews, 12 opinions" category.) But Paul really needs to lighten up and give this guy a chance. I grant you that Paul Krugman is an extremely smart man who knows way more about economics than I do. But Larry Summers is also a smart dude. As is Tim Geithner. As is Christina Romer. I'm not sure that Krugman is right and all these people are wrong.

Newsweek offers its take this week, with a cover story about Krug as a thorn in Obama's side. (My favorite line in the article was this line: "Last Thursday morning, he was gleeful because he was able to thump a blogger who insisted, wrongly, that Keynes did not use much math in his work." Hopefully, Krug has some sort of crazy super-mega search function on his computer and he'll link to this post, debunking me. That would be so awesome.)

There are a couple of things wrong with this story, however.

For one thing, I wish it had focused a bit more on how Krugman behaved during the Democratic primary, when he was clearly in Hillary Clinton's corner and was regularly taking shots at Obama's healthcare plan. At some point, Krugman must have made a decision (consciously or not) that HRC is the better candidate (or has the better healthcare plan) and anyone who disagreed was a fool. (I also suspect that Krugman might have been influenced by Clinton groupie, Sean Wilentz, who was quoted in the article as his pal.)

There were, in fact, things about HRC's healthcare plan that I do think were superior to Obama's and worth saying. But one thing that I always kept in mind about HRC was that this was her second shot at healthcare. Her first shot missed.

And that's one of the important things to realize about our Republic; we often fail to do the exactly right thing. But sometimes a half a loaf is worth having anyway. Krugman hasn't seemed to have learned this simple truth. (Rahm Emanuel said as much in the New Yorker article about Rahm a few weeks ago.)

Obama's healthcare plan (whatever it turns out to be) doesn't have to get every single American coverage for it to be a success. If it puts 10 million people on the rolls who weren't there before, it'll be a moderate success. (It'll certainly be a success for those 10 million people.) If it puts 20 million on, it's a great success. If it puts all 46 million uninsured Americans in some kind of healthcare program it will be a complete success. But it's pretty unrealistic to expect complete 100 percent success every time.

And while I loved Krugman for his non-ending barrage of machine gun fire against the Republicans during the Bush years, I think that Obama's decision to take the high road and attempt to reach some sort of bipartisanship consesus wasn't naive. In fact, it was politically very shrewd. (It happened to also be the right thing to do.)

One of the things that was so unbearable about the Bush years was the fact that the administration went out of its way (during times of serious crisis) to alienate the opposition and leave them out of the fold. Since Obama took office, the GOP has made the decision to slap away Obama's hand (as is their perogative) but by making the offer, the GOP are the ones who look petty and obstructionist. If the economy gets back on track by 2010 (as everyone, save Rush Limbaugh, hopes) watch the Republicans get crushed yet again in the election.

The only thing that I think could stop this, quite frankly, is Democratic infighting, which already seems to be happening. (See Jonathan Chait's piece in the New Republic this week.)

Krugman, it seems, wishes that Obama were more like a Democratic version of George W. Bush. Frankly, I don't think Bush did the GOP any favors.

But the thought has occurred to me: I wonder if Paul Krugman is going to be the conservative's columnist of choice in the New York Times in the coming years.