The Political Chase

Krugman response to Obama supporters

Krugman posts a response on his blog to all the email he received about his piece yesterday slamming Obama supporters.

I’m starting to get emails from angry people who tell me that I’m ignoring all the terrible race-baiting the Clintons have done. I think I’ll just outsource my response to Clive Crook — who is, by the way, an Obama supporter.

Some commentators accused Bill of playing the race card when he called Obama’s account of his position on the Iraq war a “fairy tale”. How so? What did that have to do with race? And does Hillary’s comment about King, the only instance Morris bothers to offer, even qualify? She merely said that getting the job done required a can-do president as well as an inspiring and visionary champion. And so it did. I cannot see that this subtracts anything from King’s stature, or that it was intended to. Whatever its merits, this is the Clintons’ old theme, not a sinister new one: if elected, she would hit the ground running, whereas the inexperienced Obama would be out of his depth. It took a hyper-sensitive press to turn that comment into a racial slur.

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I think the press played the race card, not the Clintons.

It really makes me sad to see so many people get played by the media on this. If you prefer Obama, fine — but the evil, race-card-playing Clinton campaign is no more real than Al Gore’s claim that he invented the Internet.

And to Obama supporters, just remember: these people are not your friends. After they take down Hillary Clinton, if they can, your man will be next.

Add: If you want to see what playing the race card looks like, watch the Willie Horton ad. What do we have here? MLK/LBJ — but that was totally innocent. Jesse Jackson — a stupid way to spin a big loss, but hardly part of a coordinated campaign. Cocaine — stupid and crass, but only race-based if you want to see it that way. Pretty thin gruel.

Folks, you’ve been played like a fiddle by people in the media who just plain hate the Clintons. They tried to take Hillary down over her clothes, her voice, her tears. When none of that worked, they invented a race war.

There are some perfectly good arguments against Hillary — Iraq, the presence of people like Mark Penn, the big-money Dems in her circle. But this really is Al-Gore-says-he-invented-the-Internet stuff. And it’s deeply depressing to see so many progressives fall for it.

Krugman misses the point and has apparently been slammed for it. In his original piece, he rants and raves about Obama supporters collectively, but cites negligible evidence to support his generalized and ambiguous accusations. Moreover,, in his blog post, he falls back to 1988 when Bush 41 ran the racist Willie Horton ad, which was very successful. And why was it successful? At least in part because there was no real outrage expressed. Think about it. That was 20 years ago! People are not going to accept those kinds of tactics today as evidenced by the current protests Krugman criticizes.

I said the argument on the LBJ-MLK matter was debatable and subject to interpretation, but nevertheless, at minimum it demonstrates Hillary engaging her mouth absent her cerebrum. But to take that one step further, Hillary, I don’t believe, is that stupid. She is very calculating and academically trained as a lawyer to carefully choose her words. One would have a hard time arguing that Hillary’s public statements are not well thought before making them, if not scripted in advance.

Negative remarks and ads are considerably more successful when ignored, and I see little evidence that Krugman’s assertion — and that’s all it is, an assertion — that his theory for negative attacks will be met with 20-year-old responses, much less acceptance.

With respect to the balance issue, or as Krugman puts it, “angry people who tell me that I’m ignoring all the terrible race-baiting the Clintons have done,” he simply dismisses it. Instead he quotes Clive Crook’s argument on the validity (or absence of) of the Clinton’s alleged racist remarks. Duh! Think he missed the point — hypocrisy?

Krugman chose to slam Obama supporters (largely unsubstantiated and ambiguous) but failed to even consider, much less cite, what His Glorious Hillary Clinton Supporters may have been doing. Nope, he just takes a broad swipe at Obama Supporters. Unbalanced and stereotyping at its best. And he failed to mention in his original piece or his response, Bill Clinton’s egregious “Jesse Jackson” remark, amongst others, which he publicly apologized for.

It is patently obvious Krugman does not like Barack Obama and that’s within his rights. It is no different than Frank Rich’s distaste for Hillary Clinton, although if memory serves me correctly, I believe Rich does a far better job at substantiating his criticism. I don’t care if Krugman hates Mike Huckabee; just make a valid argument and don’t declare that all Huckabee supporters are Evil Intended as he did with Obama Supporters.

Speaking of Frank Rich, Greg Sargent posits that Krugman’s use of Obama Supporters is code for Frank Rich et al. at the Times, rather than Obama Supporters in general.

Whatever the case, Krugman’s piece and his response are simply pathetic.