The rage I felt at Frank Rich last night has subsided, although his column was filled with lies and libel, since trustworthy Paul Krugman has come to the rescue! He doesn't strap Obama onto the rack and twist and turn the way Rich did Hillary, but in even better fashion he puts things in perspective. And where Rich was foaming at the mouth and filled with hate, Krugman is sane, reasoned, adult - which makes sense since he appears to be supporting Hillary.
About Hillary and Barack he says this, the first best line from the piece:
Both have progressive agendas (although I believe that Hillary Clinton is more serious about achieving universal health care, and that Barack Obama has staked out positions that will undermine his own efforts).
Thank you, Paul!
But the best part is here:
Supporters of each candidate should have no trouble rallying behind the other if he or she gets the nod.
Why, then, is there so much venom out there?
I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality.
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Here's the link to Krugman: Hate Springs Eternal. You know he means business when he uses the word "hate" in the title and then suggests in the peice that "most of the venom" is coming from the Obamas.
About Obama's cult of personality he adds:
We’ve already had that from the Bush administration — remember Operation Flight Suit? We really don’t want to go there again.
Why don't more people see this? Even after one of the most clear-eyed and analytical columnists out there points it out?
He goes on to descibe what he calls "Clinton rules," which basically means that anything Hillary or Bill say will be used against them in the court of public opinion and they will be considered guilty even after being found innocent (i.e. Whitewater). He shows how Clinton rules have applied to Hillary during this primary season (MLK/LBJ-Gate, MSNBC Pimpgate), but also reminds us that they applied just as well to Al Gore during the 2000 campaign.
I call it Clinton rules, but it’s a pattern that goes well beyond the Clintons. For example, Al Gore was subjected to Clinton rules during the 2000 campaign: anything he said, and some things he didn’t say (no, he never claimed to have invented the Internet), was held up as proof of his alleged character flaws.
I imagine that he couldn't cite Rich's swell columns from that period, which helped to defeat Gore, or the one from yesterday, since they share the same page.
But he reminds the Obama supporters not to rejoice so quickly, because the Clinton rules will most certaintly be used against Obama come the fall if he is the nominee:
For another, if history is any guide, if Mr. Obama wins the nomination, he will quickly find himself being subjected to Clinton rules. Democrats always do.
Although I will vote for Obama if he is the nominee, and even though I would want him to win, I have to admit that I would like to see how he will deal with this, especially since he has whinnied and whinned and acted petulent and sullen at the slightest small attacks during the primary season, and been exceedingly ungracious even at those times when the attacks on her have benefited him (i.e "you're likeable enough, Hillary").
Why can't the Obama campaign see that their attacks against Hillary (i.e the Republican-inspired, insurance-lobby scripted attack against her health-care plan) will be used against him, and probably successfully. And that even if he wins, we lose, because they will then use those attacks to make sure there is never anything closely resembling major health care policy or major economic reforms benefiting the middle and working class. Krugman didn't mention this time that Obama is the only democrat to use the economic right-wing talking point that social security is in "crisis" - a notion that Hillary and Edwards both reject - since it comes straight out the Milton Friedman Chicago School far right wing free market think tank universe. They will surely use that against him too in order to make him move farther and farther to the right - although all his pronouncements, and his cast of advisors, suggest that he is already free market all the way.
Krugman also cites a book about Nixon and the period from 1964-1972 that I now can't wait to read. I;ve written some diaries a long time ago about Nixon in his late years, a truly absorbing and fascinating character, who contrary to what Obama said, did change the direction of this country profoundly (i.e. in many ways, Reagan was Nixon's heir):
Nixonland,” a soon-to-be-published political history of the years from 1964 to 1972 written by Rick Perlstein
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Now, on the other side of the Op-Ed page, reprehensible Bill Kristol contemplates the fall of the house of Clinton and the rise of Obama, basically begging the supedelegates to give Obama the nomination, and he specifically makes appeals to Gore and Pelosi:
If they stepped forward at the right time, they would earn the gratitude of their party. And they might also enjoy contemplating a derivative effect of their good deed — the fall of the house of Clinton.
Anytime Bill Kristol lobbies for something - say, the war in Iraq, an attack on Iran - and now the nomination of Barack Obama! - you not only have to be skeptical and scared, you have to run in the opposite direction as fast and as furiously as you possibly can! If this isn't a wake-up call to people voting in upcoming primaries well then I don't know what is. Clearly, Kirstol, the ultimate insider in the neo-con and republican think-tank universe, knows something. And clearly he wants Obama to get that nomination. So make of that what you will.
Here is Kristol: Obama. The Obama supporters should really think long and hard about why someone like Kristol would want Obama to be our nominee.