Friday, November 05, 2010

I can't look away

I keep opening the paper and my blackberry and my browser and starting to read election fall-out coverage, and then closing it, just shaking my head, thinking what on earth is my country coming to? It's such a discouraging outlook for even holding the line on reproductive rights, health care access, and improving the economy, let alone doing anything about DADT, immigration reform, or climate change . Inevitably, five minutes later, I am back at it again trying to find some smattering of hope.

Paul Krugman's editorial today is worth looking at, recalling how he said back in the day that the stimulus package simply wasn't big enough, and how Obama blew the political handling of the economic recovery from the get-go. He says:

"I felt a sense of despair during Mr. Obama’s first State of the Union address, in which he declared that “families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The federal government should do the same.” Not only was this bad economics — right now the government must spend, because the private sector can’t or won’t — it was almost a verbatim repeat of what John Boehner, the soon-to-be House speaker, said when attacking the original stimulus. If the president won’t speak up for his own economic philosophy, who will?"

Krugman's observation is that it isn't too late for Obama to take an aggressive and principles stand for economic measures that will actually benefit the economy, coupled with a political strategy to highlight Republican obstructionism's role in the stagnant recovery. But who knows if this will happen.

Like I said, I can't look away.

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