Redstate

By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Consistency | Hobgoblins | Miscellanea | Paul Krugman — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Dan Drezner wrote a blog post earlier in this young year stating that Paul Krugman's columns are getting a wee bit predictable and that they generally consist of the following points:

We're heading into a recession (ignore what I've said before -- this time I'm sure).

The Republicans are blinkered.

Everything is Alan Greenspan's fault.

I luuuuuv John Edwards.

Barack Obama is not a real progressive.

From today's column (read on):

It's starting to feel a bit like 1992 again. A Bush is in the White House, the economy is a mess . . .

Pretty much "we're heading into a recession" material. Check.

Whatever hopes people might have had that Mr. Clinton would usher in a new era of national unity were quickly dashed. Within just a few months the country was wracked by the bitter partisanship Mr. Obama has decried.

This bitter partisanship wasn't the result of anything the Clintons did. Instead, from Day 1 they faced an all-out assault from conservatives determined to use any means at hand to discredit a Democratic president.

[. . .]

First, those who don't want to nominate Hillary Clinton because they don't want to return to the nastiness of the 1990s -- a sizable group, at least in the punditocracy -- are deluding themselves. Any Democrat who makes it to the White House can expect the same treatment: an unending procession of wild charges and fake scandals, dutifully given credence by major media organizations that somehow can't bring themselves to declare the accusations unequivocally false (at least not on Page 1).

"The Republicans are blinkered." Check.

What the Democrats should do is get back to talking about issues -- a focus on issues has been the great contribution of John Edwards to this campaign . . .

"I luuuuuv John Edwards." Check.

I have colleagues who tell me that Mr. Obama's rejection of health insurance mandates -- which are an essential element of any workable plan for universal coverage -- doesn't really matter, because by the time health care reform gets through Congress it will be very different from the president's initial proposal anyway. But this misses the lesson of the Clinton failure: if the next president doesn't arrive with a plan that is broadly workable in outline, by the time the thing gets fixed the window of opportunity may well have passed.

This isn't so much "Barack Obama is not a real progressive." But it is "Barack Obama won't help bring about progressive goals." Call this a semi-check.

The only thing missing in this column was a denunciation of Alan Greenspan, so Drezner's predictions are a bit off. Then again, maybe there just was a word limit on this column and still, Drezner's overarching point is a valid one: Apparently, it is safe to replace Krugman with a bot at the Times that can be trained to regurgitate the same material throughout the year.