Obama’s Nobel Headache, Paul Krugman has emerged as Obama's toughest liberal critic

[tomm2thumbs]

Source: Newsweek - Cover story for April 6, 2009

Newsweek Cover: OBAMA IS WRONG - The loyal opposition of Paul Krugman ... In his twice-a-week column and his blog, Conscience of a Liberal, he criticizes the Obamaites for trying to prop up a financial system that he regards as essentially a dead man walking. In conversation, he portrays Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and other top officials as, in effect, tools of Wall Street (a ridiculous charge, say Geithner defenders). These men and women have "no venality," Krugman hastened to say in an interview with NEWSWEEK. But they are suffering from "osmosis," from simply spending too much time around investment bankers and the like. In his Times column the day Geithner announced the details of the administration's bank-rescue plan, Krugman described his "despair" that Obama "has apparently settled on a financial plan that, in essence, assumes that banks are fundamentally sound and that bankers know what they're doing.



<snip>

With dry humor, he once told a friend the story of attending an economic summit in Little Rock after Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992. As the friend recounted the story to NEWSWEEK, "Clinton asked Paul, 'Can we have a balanced budget and health-care reform?'—essentially, can we have it all? And Paul said, 'No, you have to be disciplined. You have to make choices.' Then Paul says to me (deadpan), 'That was the wrong answer.' Then Clinton turns to Laura Tyson and asks the same questions, and she says, 'Yes, it's all possible, you have your cake and eat it too.' And then says, 'That was the right answer'." (Tyson became chairman of Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers; she did not respond to requests to comment.)

<snip>

On the all-important questions of the financial system, he says he has not given up on the White House's seeing the merits of his argument—that the government must guarantee the liabilities of all the nation's banks and nationalize the big "zombie" banks—and do it fast. "The public wants to trust Obama," Krugman says. "This is still Bush's crisis. But if they wait, Obama will be blamed for a fair share of the problem."

The online title in the link to the article is 'Attack From the Left: Paul Krugman's Poison Pen'



Read more: http://www.newsweek.com/id/191393/page/1

---

This Newsweek cover story should get some interesting coverage.
Read the entire article at the link - these snips don't do it justice as a whole

[FrenchieCat]

1. The cover doesn't do justice to neither President Obama nor

Mr. Krugman.

Coming at the same time as the discussion of Obama's budget really
isn't doing anyone a service....in particular, us.

[No Elephants]

6. I agree with a lot of your posts, but opposing views from Nobel Prize winning Democratic economists

are very much a service, whether you and I agree with them or not. In fact, opposing views from even a Republican Nobel-prize winning economists would be a service, whether you and I agree with them or not.

All intelligent food for thought on national issues, whether you and I agree with it or not, is always a service. That's the reason that the First Amendment came into being in the first place.

[tavalon]

11. Yes! Isn't it magnificent that the lines of communication are open again

Sure, the media is going to spin this like it's a pro wrestling match, but that's what they always do - they truly are the lowest common denominator. But we are not and neither is Obama. It's so refreshing to see debate not ignored like in the Bush Junta years.

[girl gone mad]

2. It would be wonderful..

if it this was a catalyst for more depth to the reporting of the economic crisis by the mainstream news media. In particular, I'd like to see them give serious consideration to the criticisms of the Geithner plan coming from so many moderate and left-leaning economists and financial analysts. Krugman is just one of many economic Cassandras.

[chimpymustgo]

3. Exactly. Krugman is one of MANY critics. And from the LEFT. Krugman is US.

What is really best for the country (not just the bankster?).

[tavalon]

5. It would also be wonderful if pigs could fly

Don't hold your breath. The media will take this down to the gutter as they always do.

[tavalon]

4. Obama is strong enough to deal with criticism

He isn't the weakling that Bush was. Besides, Krugman has also been a stalwart supporter when it was warranted and when it was not, well, he's been a vocal critic. Exactly what a stellar man like Obama needs and hopefully wants. Tabloids can spin it into another Tanya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan fight but it isn't, and anyone with two brain cells to rub together can see it. Tabloids such as this one are just trying to sell their crap but that doesn't mean we have to eat it up.

Let's not let the idiot media children decide what the story is, okay?

[Peace Patriot]

8. Excellent comment, Tavalon! Obama is an adult, and can deal with democracy--AND

he LISTENS. The peoples' job--our job--is to be heard. Sometimes I think that some DUers got so used to tyranny and the DEAFNESS in Washington DC, that they interpret healthy debate as an assault on the Obama presidency. It is nothing of the kind. It is the very process for making the Obama administration better and helping to insure its success. Bush failed at everything he did--or, rather, his handlers and puppetmasters failed at everything they did--because there was no debate. The dictate came down from on high, "torture prisoners" and too many people said, "Yes, sir, Mr. Dictator." It was covered up, it was hidden, and the only debate was, how do we wriggle out of legal culpability with clever memos to each other? Or the dictate came down, ignore banking regulations. The result--disaster. A lot of "Yes men" is not democracy. Democracy is rip-roaring debate on every issue, so that the best ideas can be heard, can arise from the democratic "marketplace of ideas," and have some hope of implementation. Torture and banking deregulation were horrible ideas that got carried out because NO DEBATE was permitted.

I find it amazing that so many DUers can't grasp this notion, and are constantly seeking to stifle debate. What do they think democracy IS? Where is this fear of debate coming from?

Well, I think it does derive both from inexperience with a healthy democratic system, and also from an unconscious or semi-conscious fear that any disagreement with Obama or his people will be twisted around, by our VERY unhealthy corpo/fascist 'news' monopolies, into a false narrative of Obama failure, or disapproval of Obama, preparatory to stolen elections in 2010 and 2012. And that IS a danger. But the way to address it is to get rid of the goddamned, riggable, Puke-corporate controlled, 'TRADE SECRET' code voting machines--not to create of fear debate, or try to smother debate and disagreement. We haven't made this bad, bad situation of the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines conscious enough yet. It is a mostly subliminal fear. If and when it becomes more conscious, then we can do something about it, and not fear another stolen election.

[tavalon]

10. I totally agree with everything you said

Don't worry though, I'll be sure to let you know if I disagree with something you say later. That's what adults do with other adults. Those damn machines are a huge problem and yeah, the smear machine could take some of our comments and twist them around but they don't really need our help to twist things, now do they? To stifle debate is to abrogate our responsibility.

[ErinBerin84]

7. it's nice that Krugman is getting attention

but I was hoping that it would be more about his problems with the Geithner plan/what he's advocating. It ends up being more like a goofy profile that I'm not sure entirely does Krugman justice, though the picture of him with the umbrella was cool. I wish they had used that on the cover, the Newsweek cover they chose makes him look kind of wild eyed, lol.

[SlingBlade]

9. Quote: he portrays Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and other top officials as,

tools of Wall Street

Seriously People, Obama didnt create this mess, He did not
create the Federal Reserve or the Wall Street Old Boys Network, Which Reminds me.

Who was the last Secretary of the Treasury, Chief of the Fed, Etc,Who was NOT a tool of Wall Street

I'll be here patently waiting for the answer to that one

[tavalon]

12. Point of English - if you are going to quote, you place " " around the quote

and you actually list verbatim what he said. You paraphrased, which is okay but don't call it a quote.

[G_j]

13. we were talking about change

were we not?

[SlingBlade]

14. English Composition I believe

[Pastiche423]

15. Just because there have been Wall Street tools

in previous administrations, does not make it right.

Obama is WRONG to appoint the foxes that raided our henhouses.

Why some people can not understand that very simple statement is beyond me.

[SlingBlade]

16. WTF ? "Why some people can not understand....

that very simple statement is beyond me"

Do YOU understand the word, Systemic ?

Look it up.

At that point REAL discussion on the REAL problem can begin :argh:


:kick:

[Pastiche423]

19. Yes, I know what systemic means

I also know that hiring the thieves that created our crisis is monumentally stupid and harmful to our country.

[riverdeep]

17. If it was just Krugman, that would be one thing.

The problem is almost no known economists agree with the plan, on any part of the spectrum. For many of us, the fear was the appointment of people Summers and Geitner and Bernanke would be the end result of either timidity to do what was needed, or cowtowing, take your pick.

I would disagree with Krugman in saying the public doesn't believe this will be Obama's fault. The right is having a field day with describing him as a socialist, and the public sentiment is turning fast.

[chaska]

18. Hey everybody, lefty opinion is starting to turn against the Obama plan....

And as much as I would like to be able to support my president, he's wrong on this. He's trying to resurrect a corpse, a corpse that should not only not be resurrected, but one that should never have lived in the first place. And one that will die again, and long before we've managed to pay for THIS mess.

Please check out what William Greider, Mike Davis, John Michael Greer, among other good liberals have to say about this. They are right.