Paul Krugman gets it
Paul Krugman has a great column in today's NYT. For those of you who can't read it because it's behind a subscription wall, you can take advantage of some intellectual property law violation and read it at Wealthy Frenchman instead. Here's the key quote:
...on key issues, reluctant Democratic politicians are being dragged by their base into taking highly popular positions.This is of course good news. And I'm proud to be part of the base that's doing the dragging. But when you stop to think about it, this situation reveals how messed up our political situation is. What are Democratic politicians so afraid of that they must be dragged into taking positions that two thirds of the American people support? The right-wing noise machine? The faux-centrism of the "serious people" who were all wrong about the war? That's pathetic. Is it too much to ask for just a wee bit of leadership?
By the way, this Krugman column is another example of one of my favorite species of journalism: famous people saying things similar to what I said before they said it:
One very beneficial side effect of all this [distortion of our political discourse] is that the progressive cause is now a majoritarian cause. No longer must progressives try to drag the American people leftward. Rather, progressives must drag the government leftward to where the American people already are. I think it is far easier to change the character of a government than to change the character of a people. The November 2006 elections were the beginning of a re-assertion of the political will of the American people, one that I hope will continue to unfold in 2008.Krugman also scores points with me for citing The Onion:
As The Onion put it with deadly accuracy, Mr. Giuliani is running for “President of 9/11.”
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