Tearing down the President doesn't help. (updated)

ProSense

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Mon Nov-15-10 03:18 PM
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Tearing down the President doesn't help. (updated)

Edited on Mon Nov-15-10 03:28 PM by ProSense

A lot of people are jumping on Krugman's statement about the President:

But the bitter irony goes deeper than that: the main reason Mr. Obama finds himself in this situation is that two years ago he was not, in fact, prepared to deal with the world as he was going to find it. And it seems as if he still isn�t.

Evidently a meme is being created that the President is utterly clueless. I don't know if that is what Krugman meant to imply, but that is how it's being interpreted.

This is the same Krugman who declared health care reform a victory for America's soul.

Still, Krugman can find evidence to support his criticism if not the above comment:

<...>

Right at the beginning of his administration, what Mr. Obama needed to do, above all, was fight for an economic plan commensurate with the scale of the crisis. Instead, he negotiated with himself before he ever got around to negotiating with Congress, proposing a plan that was clearly, grossly inadequate � then allowed that plan to be scaled back even further without protest. And the failure to act forcefully on the economy, more than anything else, accounts for the midterm �shellacking.�

Even given the economy�s troubles, however, the administration�s efforts to limit the political damage were amazingly weak. There were no catchy slogans, no clear statements of principle; the administration�s political messaging was not so much ineffective as invisible. How many voters even noticed the ever-changing campaign themes � does anyone remember the �Summer of Recovery� � that were rolled out as catastrophe loomed?

And things haven�t improved since the election. Consider Mr. Obama�s recent remarks on two fronts.

At the predictably unproductive G-20 summit meeting in South Korea, the president faced demands from China and Germany that the Federal Reserve stop its policy of �quantitative easing� � which is, given Republican obstructionism, one of the few tools available to promote U.S. economic recovery. What Mr. Obama should have said is that nations� running huge trade surpluses � and in China�s case, doing so thanks to currency manipulation on a scale unprecedented in world history � have no business telling the United States that it can�t act to help its own economy.

<...>

But like health care reform, Wall Street reform, withdrawing combat troops from Iraq, and the other policies of this administration, there is evidence that the President is making significant progress in addressing the problems he inherited, many of which have been festering for decades. No one should expect that it was going to be easy, but the President appears to be dealing quite effectively with the world as he found it.

"U.S. achieves biggest one-year deficit reduction in American history"

Trade Deficit in U.S. Shrinks as Exports Climb to Two-Year High

Obama announces trade deals with India worth billions

Big Win for the Obama Administration

Netanyahu agrees to Obama plan of 90 day settlement freeze.

The problem with Krugmam is he doesn't really have to worry about the weight of his words.

It would have been better if Krugman used the piece to hammer the point home about the tax cuts and why the Republicans' claims are preposterous. He also could have, like Robert Reich did, offer solutions or state why they should expire.

Krugman seems intent of focusing on the President and his message. In fact, it seems most of the commentary from the left does this. Where is the left apparatus for helping to get the message out? On the right, every commentary from David Brooks to the WSJ is pushing the Republicans' message.

Krugman doesn't take any of this into consideration as apparent by his comments yesterday that the RW jumped on, leading him to subsequently issue a clarification.

It's as if everyone on the left is oblivious to the media's capacity to distort and block the President's message. Stop talking about how he needs to get the message out and help, especially if you're so vested in the outcome.

This is the current state: RW media hammering their message home and portraying the President as a failure; left claiming not to know what the message is and portraying the President as incompetent

Why is Krugman writing a commentary about the HuffPo piece that was thoroughly rehashed and debunked? The President made a couple of statements since then that completely contradicts the HuffPo claim and reaffirmed his position about not extending the tax cuts.

Also, Krugman's title focused on the statement by Axelrod that was spun in the HuffPo piece as relevant to the lame duck session. He is perpetuating a false notion that House Republicans are a factor. They are not.

This is a huge country and the media has a significant advantage when it comes to controlling the message. President Obama and Democrats won when the left focused on rejecting the right's arguments.

Again, where is the apparatus to help the President get his message out? It cannot be just the President and a couple of spokespeople.

Meanwhile, the WSJ is writing editorials lauding Sarah Palin and John Boehner. They did the same during the Bush administration.

The point is not about criticism. Krugman offers mostly criticism, and often spot on. The problem I have is criticism that plays into RW hands.

Portraying the President as clueless does not help.

President Obama Must Resign! and other bedtime stories to scare the children with

by DemFromCT

I don't have a problem with science fiction and fairy tales, but I hate when people start mixing fantasy with real life. So I am eternally grateful to Fox Democratic pollsters Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell for straightening me out about what's going on in the White House.

If the president goes down the reelection road, we are guaranteed two years of political gridlock at a time when we can ill afford it. But by explicitly saying he will be a one-term president, Obama can deliver on his central campaign promise of 2008, draining the poison from our culture of polarization and ending the resentment and division that have eroded our national identity and common purpose.

Of course! Why haven't I seen it before now. And why stop there? If Obama not only announces he's going to step down, immediately becoming a lame duck President, and maybe even persuades Harry Reid to power share with Mitch McConnell and Jim De Mint (that's the Republican's battle; we Democrats don't sully ourselves with fighting), we can get this country moving again. After all, it's a lack of bipartisanship that made Democratic base voters stay home in 2010.

The glowing reviews for this excellent proposal are coming in as we speak. And not just my own.

Dean Baker:

This proposal is utterly asinine.

David Biespiel:

One and done is DOA.

Theda Skocpol:

Schoen and Caddell are not Democratic pollsters. They work for Republicans and should be treated by the media as such.

Updated to add:

The Obameter: Tracking Obama's Campaign Promises

edited typo