Props are due to Tom Bevan over at Real Clear Politics for calling out NY Times columnist and Princeton “economist” Paul Krugman on a recent column he published. Criticizing Barack Obama’s spineless reasonableness, Krugman draws attention to the very representative issue of health care reform to illustrate the clash between the real world and the virtual world of uncompromising progressive blogs and naive utopianism (can you guess which side Krugman falls on?):
O.K., more seriously, it’s actually Mr. Obama who’s being unrealistic here, believing that the insurance and drug industries — which are, in large part, the cause of our health care problems — will be willing to play a constructive role in health reform. The fact is that there’s no way to reduce the gross wastefulness of our health system without also reducing the profits of the industries that generate the waste.
As a result, drug and insurance companies — backed by the conservative movement as a whole — will be implacably opposed to any significant reforms. And what would Mr. Obama do then? “I’ll get on television and say Harry and Louise are lying,” he says. I’m sure the lobbyists are terrified.
As health care goes, so goes the rest of the progressive agenda. Anyone who thinks that the next president can achieve real change without bitter confrontation is living in a fantasy world.
As with most arguments coming from the Left these days, it completely and devastatingly contradicts other arguments being made by the same pundits. As Bevan notes:
How ironic: Krugman wants America’s president to sit at the “big table” and negotiate with our enemies and foreign dictators, but when it comes to having a discussion with American corporations about healthcare he says anything less than “bitter confrontation” is “naive” and “unrealistic.”
Its a quite legitimate counterpoint to Bevan that there’s a big difference between a drug company and al-Qaeda, yet I’m unsure this argument cuts the way Krugman and other Democrats would like. At least Big Health is accountable in some way to America and American citizens, and thus would be more willing to compromise, even if not to the extent of giving up all their profits for the political benefit of a few. But perhaps we could get Obama to concede to let the United Nations do the talking, at least. I’m sure that would persuade the drug companies…
Really though, I’ve been quite surprised at Mr. Krugman’s pandering to the “progressives,” namely the off-their-rocker netroots at MoveOn and DailyKos that even openly-liberal NY Times Magazine writer Matt Bai considers loonier than Bugs Bunny in a dress (by the way, his book – The Argument – is wonderfully insightful, and a review on this blog is forthcoming). Russell Roberts of Cafe Hayek calls out Krugman on the same column, though this fellow economist has a different way of seeing the issue:
Maybe. Or is it Mr. Krugman who is naive? Surely Obama knows that sitting around and being congenial won’t bring about change. But he’s running for President. He says what he thinks voters want to hear. How naive can Krugman be to think that Obama really thinks that change simply requires playing nice with everybody.
Or maybe I’m being naive. I actually think sometimes that Paul Krugman writes what he believes rather than what appeals to his readership in the New York Times. Surely he knows that Obama isn’t being naive but clever. Or does he?
Oh the unfalsifiability of strategic decision-making paradigms…
Tags: 2008, economics, edwards, health care, krugman, New York Times, Obama, politics, president
