Letters to the Editor
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melthough
that is exactly my point. We WANT to do that, but we also want what's best for our country. Picking the right person to lead the country for the next four years is more important than a symbolic victory for the Democrats. And as sad as it is, I, and a surprising number of democrats would vote for John McCain before we'd vote for Hillary. I don't hate her and I don't say nasty things about her, but it's a fact.
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About that LBJ, MLK comment:
Krugman ought to take up the outrageous vitriolic Obama supporting interpretation with his own paper's Hillary endorsing editorial board. This from the morning after the NH primary:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/opinion/09wed1.html?scp=1&sq=unite+really+this&st=nyt
Mrs. Clinton ran an angry campaign in New Hampshire, and polls showed that voters noticed. She won narrowly, but came perilously close to injecting racial tension into what should have been — and still should be — an uplifting contest between the first major woman candidate and the first major African-American candidate.
In the days before the voting, Mrs. Clinton and her team were so intent on talking about how big a change a woman president would be — and it surely would — that some of her surrogates even suggested that it would be a more valuable change than an African-American president. Mrs. Clinton managed to energize the women’s vote in New Hampshire to win the contest, but the Democratic Party should be celebrating its full diversity, a refreshing and notable difference from the field of Republican contenders.
In Mrs. Clinton’s zeal to make the case that experience (hers) is more important than inspirational leadership (Mr. Obama’s), she made some peculiar comments about the relative importance of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President Lyndon Johnson to the civil rights cause. She complimented Dr. King’s soaring rhetoric, but said: “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. ... It took a president to get it done. ”
Why Mrs. Clinton would compare herself to Mr. Johnson, who escalated the war in Vietnam into a generational disaster, was baffling enough. It was hard to escape the distasteful implication that a black man needed the help of a white man to effect change. She pulled herself back from the brink by later talking about the mistreatment and danger Dr. King faced. Former President Bill Clinton, who seems to forget he is not the one running, hurled himself over the edge on Monday with a bizarre and rambling attack on Mr. Obama.
Mr. Clinton has generally been a statesman as ex-president, and keeping up this sort of behavior will undermine his credibility and ability to do more good.
We understand, and usually admire, Mrs. Clinton’s determination. Allowing her team’s wearyingly familiar strong-arm instincts to take over would be damaging for the Democrats in the fall, no matter who gets the nomination. Polls in Iowa and New Hampshire show that Democratic voters liked all of their candidates — they simply chose one. It would be a mistake for a politician whose unfavorable ratings across the nation have long been stuck in the 40 percent range to erase that good feeling about her party.
Truth is, Krugman's column jumped the shark during Bush's second term and has solidly commenced its death spiral during the primaries. I will not defend him against the right again, and don't feel it necessary to. There are plenty of progressive economists that are not hacks given to deception that I wouldn't be embarassed to defend. Professor Krugman is quite simply not trustworthy. He has bent over backwards to link this unsubstantiated charge against Obama to Bush, which is a ridiculous stretch. He is wrong about health care (http://sentineleffect.wordpress.com/2007/12/01/health-mandates-a-talk-with-obama-health-advisor-david-cutler/, http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/2/4/24033/97081/188/449344), penned a column about health care in which he promoted misleading statistics that he knows are misleading (advancing the idea that taxpayer costs = total costs, i.e. social costs by omission), was wrong about economic stimulus, (http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2008/01/stimulus-packag.html), did not re-raise these same, purportedly sincere, objections when Clinton ended up aping Obama's stimulus package, and, worst of all, has steadfastly ignored Hillary's right wing talking points campaign against Obama's progressive taxation plans,(http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/02/a_clinton_mailer_in_arizona.php), rhetoric that would undermine her own case were she to ever to push for it as President (i.e. the exact argument Krugman has so stridently made against Obama on health care mandates).
If there is anyone who is pumping vitriol into this Democratic Primary, and doing so with reckless abandon in a way that is unbecoming to him, and counterproductive to the ends he ostensibly backs, it is one Paul Krugman. Hack extraordinaire.
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Krugman who?
Is this the same Paul Krugman who wrote Peddling Prosperity, a scathing critique of Bill Clinton's economic policy? The same man who was so hurt that he did not get to be Laura D'Andrea Tyson that he despised everything and anything about the Clintons for years, including Hillary's botched health care reform?
How things change....Or, perhaps, not....for the new Council of Economic Advisors has not yet been selected. Though...who knows? Promises may have been made.
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Krugman
I guess Krugman sees little problem with Bill's behavior in South Carolina, even though Jim Clyburn told Bill to cool it. As did Ted Kennedy. I support Obama, and I think for good reason I fear the Clinton machine and its potential influence on the super delegates. The Clintons suffer from hybris, and they are not noted for playing fair, e.g. the pathetic attempt to get the vote in Florida and Michigan counted.
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SO TRUE MR. KRUGMAN
I have researched dozens of websites, posters, monitored the media and newspapers since November. The level of nastiness toward Senator Clinton is beyond comprehension. The race-baiting, attacking Bill Clinton, charges of co-candidates has reached a decibel level unheard of in politics this century. The Obama supporter's defense and protection of their candidate tops the campaigns and administration of George Bush by light years. To our family that is more scary than Bird Flu.
The Katie Couric interview with Hillary on 60 Minutes was beyong awful, it was pathetic. Steve Kroft gave Obama puff ball questions and touted his campaign as the event of the new century. Rich's column Sunday NYTimes was blistering against the Clintons, but his comments were running 10 to one against his bias.
We attended a rally with Bill Clinton Saturday night at Virginia Tech. While waiting in line for more than 2 hours we asked several of the Obama supporters, "What does Obama stand for?" Some said, "We don't care. We're are just going along for the fun ride." Others said, "Everybody is doing it."
Bill Clinton has been critized for just about everything, including running as a co-candidate when using "we". His reference to we is clearly "we the people". The Clintons do not deserve any of this. His interaction on Saturday with a couple thousand of the students was remarkable. He laid out the problems America faces and then followed with Hillary's solutions and how to pay for them. He met privately for more than half hour with the students/families who were wounded or killed on April 16. He mingled well into the night with the elderly and students who wish to touch him or speak one-on-one. This area will never forget his sensitivity and sincerity. He never uttered one word against Obama, only praise.
In Roanoke, Va On Sunday we were part of the more than 4000 who waited three hours in 65 mile an hour wind for a Hillary rally. Unfortunately, her plane could not land and the event had to be cancelled. Bill Clinton will be there today so the supporters will not be left out.
This area knows one thing for sure, the Clintons care about us. Obama is all about him and his star power. Today he cancelled his rally in Roanoke, since Hillary didn't make it, why should he bother?
As we waited in line, the conversations centered around the abusive treatment Senator Clinton has received from the media and Obama supporters. Most were concerned about what they called blackmail -- Obama and his wife saying if Clinton is the nominee, their supporters would not vote for her, but her supporters would vote for him. That is a far cry from what we heard among this solid Clinton crowd. Most of their votes would go to McCain.
Their greatest fear -- the Obama cult movement rolling to victory with a candidate who does not have the experience needed to solve the huge problems this country faces.