Paul Krugman has done more to fracture the progressive healthcare coalition than anyone other than Hillary Clinton!

"You see, the Obama campaign has demonized the idea of mandates..."

Yes, my teacher, I see this now. Please be patient with my willful ignorance and blindness.

Speaking of unsurprising columns, did anyone read Erica Jong's piece in Washington Post today? Her reasons for voting for Hillary seemed to be: Hillary has had it rough due to being a woman, Hillary is smart, Hillary's life bears a remarkable resemblance to Erica Jong's.

She then mentions Obama supporters as "progressives" with scare quotes!

Then she says that she doesn't like Hillary's vote on Iran, but Hillary had to do it to show she was tough enough to play with the boys. (To me it would seem to count against a candidate rahter than for her that she votes for a policy she believes to be wrong in order to prove something personal).

Then, she says that Hillary does indeed have a knack for reaching out to "rednecks." SHe actually uses the word "rednecks"!

Worst of all, she strongly implies at the end that anyone voting for Obama is only voting for him to give a condescending pat on the head to a black candidate, and undeserved advancement. She actually uses the word "token"! HOLY SH*T! This is actually outrageous! First of all, isn't one of her problems with the patriarchy that they assume any women who gets ahead doesn't really have the qualifications? I don't know how anyone who has ever heard him speak could think that his supporters just feel sorry for a black man. This is all the worse, given that her own reasons for voting for Hillary all centered around her femaleness!

This is the worst of old school feminism.

Here's the bit at the end:

"You will also quote left-wing bloggers who love Barack Obama, and MoveOn.org peaceniks (I am one) who see no evil in him (nor do I). But I see little experience either. Obama is smart and attractive. Maybe he'll be president someday.

He was lucky enough not to be in the Senate when the Iraq war resolution was floated after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell lied about WMDs. That was the true tragedy of race: a black man lying for a corrupt white administration that was using him as a token, much as they use Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice now.

Obama is also a token -- of our incomplete progress toward an interracial society. I have nothing against him except his inexperience. Many black voters agree. They understand tokenism and condescension. "

And the link: www.washingtonpost.com/.../AR2008020303194.html

Actually, Epiccuito, Jong is wrong with that. Many Black voters actually don't agree with her.

I just don't get why it's such a horrific thing for an African American to benefit from identity politics, but it's okay for a woman to.

Paul Krugman is a lot of things, but surprising is not one of them.  

Also: Can anyone think of someone with less influence over how mass America votes than Erica Jong?  Osama bin Laden?  Sonja, the Queen of Norway?  Ed from Accounting?  

I was going to respond to the earlier post by saying I'm starting to really not like Paul Krugman. But I read his column today and was actually impressed. His tone is not strident, he clearly and compellingly makes the case, not only against Obama's plan, but his strategy and I think scores some good points.

As a non-health care wonk plebian I remain unconvinced that mandates are an essential part of any health care plan. But I do wish Obama didn't spend so much energy criticizing mandates on a fundamental level, for the reason Krugman mentions: he himself may have to consider mandates at some point and it will look like he rushed out a plan, struggled to defend it instead of admitting it had some flaws, and then had to start from scratch again as president. Bad strategy, I think. Better to declare that any plan is just a blueprint and that he can be trusted to work out a deal because he's so good at reaching across the aisle and getting things done...better that than to make attacks and defenses on the specifics of the shaky policy itself.

Do the Clintonites actually think they can win by wonking?

Bill's bonking will always overshadow Hillary's wonking.

Paul Krugman, predictable? Ya don't say...

At some point Pinch's cash-strapped TimesCo will decide it's more profitable to replace Krugman's column with a set of algorithms

Mice -- I certainly wasn't writing to agree with Jong!

And ratner -- yes, thankfully, she has less of an influence on electoral politics than, oh, I don't know, Phil Spector. The sentiments just pissed me off

Citizen K - I've no problem with Krugman's brain; I agree with many of his points. It's his spleen, the ridiculous one-note johnny partisan screedmongering, that annoys me. (Although, in his favor, he saves me a lot of time: takes me about 10-12 seconds to scan and absorb his column)

Tep,

I generally agree. But I'm starting to be concerned about Obama overplaying his hand on health care. I worry it come back to haunt him.

Much ado about zip. His bigger problem is symbolic. Mike Murphy's right: Obama badly needs a microphone and a Mr Breen, needs to show a moment of Presidential-caliber authority-- taking control combined with a bit of righteous anger.

"At some point Pinch's cash-strapped TimesCo will decide it's more profitable to replace Krugman's column with a set of algorithms."

Lol!

um, i'd say it's less surprising than maureen dowd's twice-weekly bitterly anti-Hillary psychobabble-rich screeds or Frank Rich's weekly columns decrying the entertainmentization of politics, except where obama is concerned, where he lauds it.

Rosebud, What bothers me about Mandates is that this (a few young people gaming the system) is not the problem in our health care system. Our problem is the vast majority of low income people working for jobs that don't offer coverage being priced out of the market. Every Goddamn distraction from solving this issue, and Mandates are a distraction, detracts from the issue. Let us not forget, we are fighting for these people, and not against a few young people who are temporarily uninsured due to life circumstances or general stupidity. FIGHT FOR THE UNINSURED AND LET THE REPUBLICANS FIGHT AGAINST!

Mandate are red meat for Republicans.

What is "predictable" about Krugman is that he's right:  he called the housing bubble, the post-housing-bubble-recession, he's one of the few liberal pundits who tell the truth about illegal immigration, and he's right about universal health care.  

To any health-care wonks out there:

I have a question for you regarding Krugman's take on Obama's health care plan. Today he writes, "The Clinton plan is...more explicit about affordability, promising to limit insurance costs as a percentage of family income. And it also seems to include more funds for subsidies." In debates and speeches Obama tempers his anti-mandate position with talk about a greater focus on affordability first. Is Kruman right on this, and if so on what basis is Obama making his claims?

Thanks.

lymon, he called the housing bubble? good lord, who hasn't? Beyond that economics and politics, different species. Krugman is wrong politically. And, damn it, there are much better plans out there than Hillary's and Obama's. If we patterned our healthcare system after the Japanese our problems would be solved. But hey, why bother to do that, lets freakin reinvent the wheel so the experts can feel important.

Krugman also called the dollar's decline

... in 1997

What's most predictable, it seems, is that no one here took on the substance of Krugman's article.  But anyway, what's that go to do with politics in the age of hope and change?

I'm voting for Obama.  I like what he stands for, think he win, and that he'll get more done as president. But I think this is a real flaw with his health care plan.  His mailer was also not particularly hopeful, either.

The only thing notably more predicatable than Paul Krugman's column is the new republic's typically tendentious response.

Kane, Obama claims his plan will be more affordable, but what Krugman, et al, are claiming is that sans mandate it will be impossible--if there is no enforcement mechanism to require people to buy into the insurance risk pool, only the sickest will buy health insurance, leading to a "death spiral," where the best plans become to expensive, so only the sickest buy in, etc.  The only way to ensure against this is 1) a mandate and 2) heavy regulation of the insurance industry, which they'd be more likely to accept if there's a mandate.

Also, Hillary's plan is quite affordable, as it includes tax credits that are progressively linked to incomes, that would cap the amount spent on health insurance premiums to a percentage of income.

sprechs, sorry buy that is nonsense. Only the sickest will buy insurance? You mean people with families are going to do without, hoping their kids never get sick, or older people will think they will be healthy forever? The only people most likely to not buy insurance in this scenario (affordable coverage with subsidies for poor people) are a few young people just starting out, and who often find coverage through their employer after a 6 month waiting period.

The vast majority of people who don't have insurance want it but can't afford it. Let us take care of them first, afterwards we can deal with the far smaller subset of people who don't have it because they don't want to pay for it.

"Why, then, is there so much venom out there? I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom...