Krugman has long been critical of many of Obama's moves, but on healthcare he has been largely supportive. He now tells how Obama has gotten to t his point. No question there is a leadership crisis. Krugman - like many of us - cant believe the admin is so shocked by liberal outrage over the pub opt. But he hits the root of the trust crisis now crowding this administration. The root is-
the tarp bank bailouts. Tim Geithner. Larry summers. right off the bat Obama put wall st types in and liberals serious mistrust began. then the stim bill compromised away. and so on. So Krugman doesnt get why this WH caters at so much to industry and not the prog base which will determine whether he remains president.
Krugman notes politics is the art of possible. Obama must make right with progs or risk the destruction of his presidency and ripping apart of his party.
I also think us progs do not only now mistrust obama-we mistrust Harry Reid after his failed promises for years. reid and obama permitted baucus to take control of the health bill. Pelosi have recitified much of the mistrust in her early on with the fight on the stim bill as she fought all kinds of crap and what was cut out she got put back in the stop gap bill-ie poor women's health funds. Pelosi said today she cant pass a bill with p.o. period. Pelosi is the only dem passing anything. Passed climate change leg, passed cramdown, is about to pass direct govt student loan lending and much more. Pelosi can legislate.
What has reid done? Reid should be ousted but wont-then again as the progressive movement gets it s groove back who knows.
So where do we go now? where does all this lead? yikes.
Paul Krugman
Obama’s Trust Problem
...On the issue of health care itself, the inspiring figure progressives thought they had elected comes across, far too often, as a dry technocrat who talks of "bending the curve" but has only recently begun to make the moral case for reform. Mr. Obama’s explanations of his plan have gotten clearer, but he still seems unable to settle on a simple, pithy formula; his speeches and op-eds still read as if they were written by a committee.
Meanwhile, on such fraught questions as torture and indefinite detention, the president has dismayed progressives with his reluctance to challenge or change Bush administration policy.
And then there’s the matter of the banks.
I don’t know if administration officials realize just how much damage they’ve done themselves with their kid-gloves treatment of the financial industry, just how badly the spectacle of government supported institutions paying giant bonuses is playing. But I’ve had many conversations with people who voted for Mr. Obama, yet dismiss the stimulus as a total waste of money. When I press them, it turns out that they’re really angry about the bailouts rather than the stimulus — but that’s a distinction lost on most voters.
So there’s a growing sense among progressives that they have, as my colleague Frank Rich suggests, been punked. And that’s why the mixed signals on the public option created such an uproar....
http://www.nytimes.com/...