Hillary Hate In The Blogs: Krugman Notices

post from TalkLeft on 04 February 2008 05:07:00 PM. © TalkLeft

By Big Tent Democrat

By my count, 3 of my last 10 columns have criticized Barack Obama. 7 of Frank Rich’s 10 last columns, and 6 of Maureen Dowd’s last 10 columns, have criticized Hillary Clinton. But, of course, that’s different: Hillary is eeevil, and deserves it.

But Ezra misses Krugman's point I think, writing:

The sense I get from some of those critiquing him is that they're tired of hearing about this disagreement and think Paul should get over it already. And that's a fair point. But while there are a lot of folks who accurately diagnose the illegitimacy of Dowd and Rich's critiques of Clinton, very few seem to notice or care that these attacks on her personal comportment are repetitive. Continual Hillary-bashing is somehow far less jarring than continual Obama-bashing. Maybe that's a strength of his.

(Emphasis supplied.) I think Krugman's point, one Bob Somerby makes continually, is that it is a weakness of the progressive blogs. Fanboydom is unattractive in supposedly intelligent people.

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Matt Bai Scours The Repug Wreckage

post from The Liberal Doomsayer on 04 February 2008 05:04:00 PM. © The Liberal Doomsayer

In a column in the New York Times Magazine yesterday that was sometimes tiresome for lamenting ?the bitterness and polarity of (baby) boomer politics? as the reason for the sorry state we find ourselves in today (as if confrontation in politics is always baaad), Matt Bai came up with what I thought was the best description I?ve read in awhile of the current state of the Republican Party?

In a way, it is precisely this lingering adherence to Reaganism that makes the Republican candidates so implausible to many of the party?s own voters. Reagan?s ideology, after all, was devised at a time when Republicans hardly governed anything; it was the basis for a movement, not a majority. Over the last two decades, as Republicans have enjoyed far greater electoral success, they have also run up against the limits of modern conservative theory, the practical barriers to enacting a rigid ideological solution. It is little wonder that Mike Huckabee finds himself assailed now for raising taxes, or that Rudy Giuliani has to answer for his mayoral spending, or that Mitt Romney had to change his positions on gay rights and other issues. These Republicans actually had to govern, and what they found is that successful governing doesn?t lend itself to the inflexible theologies of a cause. (Reagan himself experienced the same thing, resorting to tax hikes as governor of California.) We are witnessing, in a sense, the closing act of those middle-aged Republicans who swooned for Goldwater and deified Reagan; they are left now to survey the sprawling wreckage of the conservative governing model, powerless to defend their own concessions to reality or to articulate any notion of how to adapt.

And oh yes, this was yet another homage to the so-called ?superdelegates? who could play a role at the Democratic convention in the event that a winner has not yet been decided by then; Bai cited the 1984 campaign of Gary Hart vs. Walter Mondale as a precedent, claiming that Mondale locked up the superdelegates in California before the convention to secure the nomination, arguing that Hillary Clinton could try to do the same thing. We?ll see.

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http://liberaldoomsayer.blogspot.com/2008/02/matt-bai-scours-repug-wreckage.html

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Digital Pamphleteer

post from Crooks and Liars on 04 February 2008 05:01:41 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Our very own Steve Benen was the subject of a video on being a political blogger. Just the smallest of nits to pick with the filmmaker, why no love for C&L?

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http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/02/04/digital-pamphleteer/

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The booming Bush economy

post from AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth on 04 February 2008 04:56:00 PM. © AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth

Yippee. Record growth and low unemployment. Too bad they were only good times for a few. With consumers responsible for 70% of the US economy, who will be consuming when there's no money left over to consume? Will the Democrats stand up to the lame duck and unpopular president or will they roll over, again? We are in a different economic era but Washington hasn't seemed to catch up and act, though everyone in the working world is painfully aware of the new truth. Barbara Ehrenreich is really spot on.

But hellooo, we've had brisk growth for the past few years, as the president has tirelessly reminded us, only without those promised increases in personal income, at least not for the poor and the middle class. According to a study just released by the Economic Policy Institute, real wages actually fell last year. Growth, some of the economists are conceding in perplexity, has been "decoupled" from widely shared prosperity.

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The Biggest Election Since The Last One

post from Open Left - Front Page on 04 February 2008 04:53:22 PM. © Open Left - Front Page

I keep hearing how this is the biggest election in, like, decades or something. While 2008 is[...]

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Decisive Pennsylvania

post from Open Left - Front Page on 04 February 2008 04:52:53 PM. © Open Left - Front Page

There is a six-week void between the Mississippi primary on March 11th and the Pennsylvania primary[...]

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All The Way Until The End

post from Eschaton on 04 February 2008 04:46:00 PM. © Eschaton

Clinton's people think it might go to the convention.

I'm not sure if this is a "good thing."

Nevertheless... exciting!!

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Rep. Brown-Waite calls Puerto Ricans
‘foreign citizens.’

In a press release last week, Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL) attacked the new economic stimulus bill for sending “hundreds of millions of dollars” to “foreign citizens,” including “residents of Puerto Rico and territories like Guam.” Calling her comments “infuriating and contradictory,” the Puerto Rican House of Representatives demanded “a public apology” today from Brown-Waite for referring to Puerto Ricans as “foreign citizens.” Puerto Ricans were made American citizens in 1917.

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http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/04/rep-brown-waite-calls-puerto-ricans-foreign-c
itizens/

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This Day In Intolerance (2/4/08)

Bloomberg tells us that Earl Butz passed away, the former agriculture secretary who surely uttered one of the most racist quotes of all time in 1976 (I?ll link to it from here and let you decide whether or not you want to read it verbatim).

What a shame he wasn?t a radio talk show host about 30 or so years from that point into the future. If he were, he probably would have ended making a lot of money and achieved syndication throughout the country (h/t The Daily Kos ? Butz probably would have been fired or suspended a time or two, but these people always seem to rise up out of the muck regardless).

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http://liberaldoomsayer.blogspot.com/2008/02/this-day-in-intolerance-2408.html

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The Most Painful Vote I Ever Cast

My four year old son is having his adenoids and tonsils out early tomorrow, leaving me no time to vote in my neighborhood. So I headed to San Francisco City Hall today and underwent my own surgery. On myself. With a dull scalpel, a dirty sponge, and no[...]

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http://www.docudharma.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4263

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