If you did a search for the word “Krugman” on this blog you’d find multiple instances. He obviously knows of what he speaks, and he’s been right almost all the time.
Now he’s won the Nobel Prize in Economics. It is to be hoped that a President Obama would tap him for advice.
I usually agree with Frank Rich, but I must humbly beg to differ with his latest column. He makes the rather obvious observation that McCain’s current campaign tactics are bottomed in racism, though the McCain campaign would never be so tacky as to be explicit about it. Code is sufficient. But this brought me up short:
McCain, who is no racist, turned to this desperate strategy only as Obama started to pull ahead.
This is a common line of argument in this country. I very much doubt that Rich personally knows McCain well, if at all. He is undoubtedly relying on the tattered remnants of McCain’s reputation for integrity. Implicit in the statement is the following argument: a person can act like a racist, or exploit racism, without actually being a racist.
I’m not sure I understand the distinction. McCain has made the conscious (presumably, unless he is actually fully senile) choice to act like a racist. If it walks like a duck, etc., it’s a duck, whether or not, deep in its heart, it insists it’s a goose. Didn’t Jesus say “By their fruits ye shall know them”?
The National Republican Party has built its electoral strategy on racism since 1968. Yet there’s not a one of them that will honestly cop to being a racist, David Duke excepted. The media has generally been wiling to give them each a free pass on this, as Rich has done for McCain.
Yesterday the Town of Groton sponsored the annual Fall Festival at Poquonnock Plains Park, and we Democrats had a booth, pictured below. Lots of folks stopped by and had their pictures taken with Barack. We registered some voters, handed out pins, and gave people yard signs. Actually, so far as Obama signs are concerned, we asked for donations, since we have to pay for them ourselves. And they went like hotcakes. The Republicans had a booth as well, but from what we could see they couldn’t give their signs away.
Some more traditional Fall sights. A field full of pumpkins at Whittles:
And some cows doing their placid cow sort of thing.
Fox News, of all entities, reports today that Sarah Palin contradicted John McCain’s take on the Bush Administration’s decision to take North Korea off the list of state sponsors of terror. Let me hasten to add that I don’t read the Fox site myself; I was steered there by the good folks at Americablog. They noted the disconnect between McCain and Palin, and the fact that the campaign does not appear to be able to push a consistent message.
I was struck by something else when I read the Fox article. Here’s the first sentence of what Palin had to say about the issue:
“Having worked on this strategy for quite some time, I have faith…that they’re making this wise decision.
Given that this is Palin, the above quote leaves us with two possible conclusions. The first, in charity, is that in her own inarticulate way she was just, yet again, inflicting grievous harm on the English language. The second, if we assume she meant what she said, is that she was claiming to have worked on the North Korea issue for quite some time, in which case she is a liar to whom the modifying adjective “shameless” does not do justice.
Sent by a reader. Thanks Liz!
Will Galison and His Orchestra:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJW67YfLWgs[/youtube]
If these are genuine we are in real trouble. I realize some people are poor test takers, but this is pretty bad. Bush is a genius compared to this lady.
By the way, this is a shout out to a long time friend with whom I once had an argument. I maintained that he was smarter than Ronald Reagan, while he maintained he was not. I think he’s changed his mind by now, but I don’t think we would disagree about how he compares with Sarah.
UPDATE: A commenter states that this image has been debunked. Perhaps I should have made my skepticism a little more clear. While I admit that I hoped the scores were genuine, I was certainly reserving judgment.
A Liberal Drinker told me about this fellow, and sent me some links, for which I am very grateful, since it’s getting harder and harder to come up with new artists to feature. I’ll readily admit I never heard of the guy before, but he’s pretty good, and I like the fact that he appears to play an eclectic range of music. I’ve posted two videos below. I wanted to post a video of him and his Alejandro Escovedo (sort of classical) Quintet but embedding is disabled. You can watch it at youtube at this link.
I Wanna Be Your Dog:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmTe3zZ2ZHE[/youtube]
With the Boss: Always A Friend:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8s-chAgIPU[/youtube]
At the request of a Courtney fan, I’m posting this video. By the way, I’ve had some experience with the constituent services that the speaker mentions in the first few minutes of the video. I represent a lot of people seeking social security disability. In about 10% of the cases we win, there are incomprehensible delays in getting the payments started. Joe’s office has been helpful in cutting through the red tape and getting the money flowing.
It’s time for Sean Sullivan to pull out of the race for Congress. His past associations make him completely unfit for the office.
Why do I say this? Well, consider this new attack from the McCain campaign:
The McCain campaign is now broadening their attack on Obama’s past association with William Ayers to include Michelle Obama — even though McCain has repeatedly said spouses should be off limits during the campaign.
The attack? Bernardine Dohrn, Ayers’ wife and fellow former Weatherman, went to work in 1984 for the major Chicago-based national law firm of Sidley & Austin, and three years later, Michelle joined the mega-firm as well.
That’s right. Every political candidate (or in this case the candidate’s wife) can and should be judged by the political views, past or present, of everyone and anyone with whom they now, or ever have, shared an employer.
Why does this mean that Sean Sullivan should bow out of the race? Very simple. He shared a common employer with a known left winger, a person whose Democratic sympathies were well known long before Sullivan went to work for that employer. How do I know? Because that person is me. Sullivan worked in close proximity to me for months and, to the best of my recollection, did not denounce me once. So far as I can tell, he respected me and I respected him. Which just goes to show that he even fooled me, as I never suspected his true political orientation. In retrospect it is clear that his willingness to work in the same office as a person of known left wing sympathies proves that his claim to being a Republican, let alone a patriotic American, is a mere sham. Once in office, should he ever get there, he will drop the facade of Republicanism and show himself for the left wing Democrat that he must be. At the very least he owes the Republicans of this District an explanation for his willingness to work alongside me-sometimes on the very same case. He has avoided question about this shameful period in his life for far too long.
Speaking of Tuesday’s Congressional debate (see previous post): I know that the only way Republicans can win is by insulting the intelligence of the voters. It often works, and given their policies, they have no alternative. But isn’t there a limit? On more than one occasion during Tuesday’s debate, Sullivan lambasted Joe because, despite the fact that Joe favored something during the 2006 election (e.g., ending the war) the problem still persisted. Is there anyone out there really stupid enough to believe that one freshman Congressman can be held responsible for the fact that his entire agenda has not been accomplished in two years? Of course, for those of us who follow these things the charge is particularly infuriating coming from a Republican, since it has been Republican intransigence and obstructionism that has made it nearly impossible for the Democrats to achieve much in this Congress.
Sullivan is not going to Congress, so it’s an academic question. But I would still like someone to ask him at the next debate: If you are elected will you pledge to serve only one term if Congress has not adopted each and every one of your policy positions in the next two years?
