Monday, October 23, 2006
Krugman to Democrats: "Don't make nice"
In today's sequestered column, Paul Krugman has advice to the Democrats in the event that they win control of one or both houses of Congress: "Don't make nice." His thesis is that all attempts to act statesmanlike are in vain "as long as polarization is integral to the G.O.P.'s strategy." Fair enough. Plenty of conservatives went after the Democrats with hammer and tongs in the '90s. Voters are presumably on notice that Democrats will do the same thing.
However, as often happens with Krugman, a perfectly sensible point morphs into craziness by the end of his column. First, he apparently thinks that Karl Rove cooked up the Iraq war for domestic political advantage. Learning whether this theory might be true is apparently one of the benefits that will accrue from extensive Congressional investigation of the Bush administration:
One thing we might learn from investigations is the extent to which the Iraq war itself was motivated by the desire to have another wedge issue.
Never mind that none of the credible anti-Bush books on the Iraq war -- The Assassins' Gate, Fiasco, and so forth -- have even suggested this theory, Paul Krugman wants to determine "the extent" to which it is true.
Then there is this twisted logic:
There are those who believe that the partisan gap can be bridged if the Democrats nominate an attractive presidential candidate who speaks in uplifting generalities. But they must have been living under a rock these past 15 or so years. Whoever the Democrats nominate will feel the full force of the Republican slime machine. And it doesn't matter if conservatives have nice things to say about a Democrat now. Once the campaign gets serious, they'll suddenly question his or her patriotism and discover previously unmentioned but grievous character flaws.
The truth is that we won't get a return to bipartisanship until or unless the G.O.P. decides that polarization doesn't work as a political strategy.
Huh? If as Krugman claims the Republicans have been using "polarization" as a political strategy to a greater degree than the Democrats -- and that is far from clear -- then it manifestly "works." The Republicans have been enormously successful since the Congressional elections of 1994, and control both elected branches of the federal government. The only question is, will it continue to work?
7 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon Oct 23, 01:02:00 PM:
Polarization?
With all of W's "compassionate conservative" silliness we have to put up with, and so many squishy big-spending Republican senators who seem to be much more interested in winning the support of liberals than conservatives... if this is what GOP polarization supposedly looks like, then I'd rather not see any of their bipartisanship.
By 
Lanky_Bastard, at
Mon Oct 23, 01:37:00 PM:
Polarization may be good for elections, but it's bad for governance. Look at how little this government has accomplished. Nobody thinks the Democrats have been a highly effictive minority power (even their proponents). That means the Republicans have failed to be an effective majority power. That awareness is seeping down to the electorate with every Republican initiative that fails. Majority parties are supposed to use election seasons to brag about their accomplishments, and minorities are supposed to attack incumbents and claim they can do better. One of those is going to be stronger than the other this election.
Pay attention to the converse of the Krugman position: If conservatives don't learn how to horse-trade and barter with the minority, they might squander their majority without even getting anything to show for it. After all those years in the desert, they could be left with just tax cuts (likely to be repealed), 2 judges, Medicare prescriptions, the Iraq war, and some pretty susbtantial debt.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Mon Oct 23, 02:16:00 PM:
Even some of the other NY Times writers have complained about Krugman's tendency to play loose with facts. If a man has to distort facts to make his point, he needs to change his argument. For the political left, Krugman is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
By skipsailing, at
Mon Oct 23, 02:49:00 PM:
I really admire the "logic" used by lanky B.
it goes like this: I've been bad and, because I've been bad, you didn't get everything done you could have, therefore you are worse than me.
Absolute stuff and nonsense Lanky. Utter balderdash.
the democrats adopted a strategy of complete denial and have fought everything tooth and nail. We had a theme song LB, from the Marx brothers the first line is "whatever it is I'm against it"
The senate has been particulary egregious with its own set of rules that make it much easier for a well organized minority to stymie a slim majority.
the strategy's goal was to deny the republicans any legislative victories, which of course meant that no progress was made.
If you are saying that the Democrat strategy worked, you might just be right. If you are saying that this strategy was good for our country, I must disagree.
By Lanky_Bastard, at
Mon Oct 23, 05:55:00 PM:
Skipsailing: First, I'm not a Democrat. Second, I haven't been bad. Third, I've never observed the Democrats to be particularly well organized. Fourth, being up ten senators plus the Vice Presidency is an impressive majority, not a slim one. Fifth, I made my views on polarization clear in the very first sentence: "it's bad for governance".
As for stuff, nonsense, and balderdash, most readers of this blog can distinguish between a reasoned argument and a rant.
By , at
Tue Oct 24, 04:43:00 PM:
TigerHawk:
Never mind that none of the credible anti-Bush books on the Iraq war -- The Assassins' Gate, Fiasco, and so forth -- have even suggested this theory [Rove's election strategy], Paul Krugman wants to determine "the extent" to which it is true.
I'm not saying this is a "credible" Iraq book (it's highly speculative) and I haven't read it myself---I've only read the reviews---but it seems that Krugman's colleague Frank Rich's book The Greatest Story Ever Sold floats precisely that theory: that the war was launched to guarantee electoral victory in 2004.
Here's an excerpt of the review in Salon:
>>Now ideology comes in, along with the peculiar alliance of neocons and Cold War hawks that had been waiting for their chance. "Enter Scooter Libby, stage right." As Rich explains, Libby, Cheney and Wolfowitz had wanted to attack Iraq for a long time, not to stop terrorism but for the familiar neocon reasons of remaking the Middle East and the familiar Cold War hawk reasons of trumpeting America's might. "Here, ready and waiting on the shelf in-house, were the grounds for a grand new battle that would be showy, not secret, in its success -- just the political Viagra that Rove needed for an election year."
Of course, there was one little problem. What reason could team Bush come up with for attacking Iraq? "[A]bstract and highly debatable theories on how to assert superpower machismo and alter the political balance in the Middle East would never fly with American voters as a trigger for war or convince them that such a war was relevant to the fight against the enemy of 9/11 ... For Rove and Bush to get what they wanted most, slam-dunk midterm election victories, and for Libby and Cheney to get what they wanted most, a war in Iraq for ideological reasons predating 9/11, their real whys for going to war had to be replaced by more saleable fictional ones. We'd go to war instead because there was a direct connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda and because Saddam was on the verge of attacking America with nuclear weapons."
By Pudentilla, at
Wed Oct 25, 07:01:00 PM:
"The senate has been particulary egregious with its own set of rules that make it much easier for a well organized minority to stymie a slim majority."
In some systems of government - I believe they are called democracies - the preservation of minority rights is a goal. I believe there's a notion that effective preservation of minority rights keeps political minorities engaged in the political process. Some folks suspect this has the effect of creating a stable political culture.
This observation, however, is perhaps tangential to the conversation for two reasons. First, as has been pointed out, to call the Republican positions in either house of Congress "slim" majorities is to commit truthiness. Second, there is little evidence to suggest that we live any longer in either a democracy or a democratic republic.
