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Omigod! The NYT criticizes Obama from the left.
Where exactly does that put Obama on the political spectrum. Not where I long to be on a cold dark night. In the midst of their editorial today criticizing Obama's stimulus package and particularly the new tax cut he is opportunistically embracing (at the cost of ...well...optimal stimulus), the Times addresses how this repulsive move by Obama reinforces Republican framing and rhetoric, with long term negative effects to our political discourse:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/opinion/11sun1.html?_r=1
"It also perpetuates the corrosive debate in which taxes are portrayed as basically evil and tax cuts as unmitigated good. That is not a debate that Mr. Obama should engage.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/opinion/11sun1.html?_r=1
"It also perpetuates the corrosive debate in which taxes are portrayed as basically evil and tax cuts as unmitigated good. That is not a debate that Mr. Obama should engage.
When the economy recovers, the nation will face a far more difficult task than deciding how to spend its way out of a slump. As a nation, we will have to right the country's severe long-term budget imbalance. That will require reforming health care and cutting spending, and -- yes -- tax increases.
Mr. Obama will need to lead that fight too. Planting the idea that tax cuts are not an overarching solution to serious problems is a good place to start."
Just how disappointing is the Obama transition so far? I certainly expected to be quickly disenchanted. I am speechless that at the very start, Obama has moved to the right of NYT.
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Is there any such thing as being further left than the NYT?
January 11, 2009 10:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very little indeed. We occupy a very thin sliver of the political spectrum (left of the Times) and may get nudged into oblivion if the Times keeps doing our work; for my own part, I think I'd rather go gently into the night than be on the same political side as the Times. Which is of course entirely contrary to this post. Still their editorial actually has a good point that Obama with his pandering to Republicans reinforces the pernicious ideology that has created much of the mess.
January 11, 2009 11:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well I cannot say I did not see this coming. But voices must and will be heard from all quarters.
That is ok by me. What do I know?
January 11, 2009 10:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
.I'm not really surprised. Dreams From My Father seemed to be the work of a pretty main stream guy. As was his 2004 keynote speech.
At the moment my expectation is he'll fill the "Rockefeller Republican" gap left when the GOP disappeared into Reaganland. Or I suppose the DLC slot occupied by Clinton,Bill and Carter, Jimmy which was/is pretty much indistinguisable from that RR position.
I can live with that. I would have preferred he fill the Howard Dean "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" (still not that far left) but that was probably never in the cards. Dean's notable absence from Obama's cabinet is surely a signal altho I nurse the unlikely hope that he'll be brought in as Secretary of Defense in after Gates completes the Iraq withdrawal so Dean can do the long overdue job of reducing the DOD by
50%.
That way it will still exceed the military budget of the next two countries combined but no longer that of all the rest of the world.
Not enough,but like the Joke at the end of Philadelphia
"What are 40 lawyers chained together at the bottom of the ocean?"
"A good start"
Yeah , it's ironic that we have to look to the Times to push Obama to the left.
Could be worse. I think Hillary-whom I like- would have been even more "centrist". Thank the Lord for small favors.
January 12, 2009 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hmm. David Brooks and William Kristol lurk in the Op-Ed pages. The Times' Judith Miller helped sell the Iraq War in its pre-debacle stage and acted as press agent for Ahmed Chalabi, international swindler and neoconservative regent-apparent. Don't forget sitting on the domestic surveillance story for a year after the 2004 re-election of George Bush. The New York Times is a shabby, faded shell of self-abasement, a scabbed courtesan gibbering with presumption that onetime glory hasn't evaporated thoroughly.
The Times criticizes Obama? That's a feather in his cap!
January 12, 2009 10:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sadly I think you miss the point. You haven't even scratched how odious the Times is and how much responsibility they have for the mess we are in. The sad irony is their criticism of Obama is on target and right. That is what you should address. And what does that say about Obama. If you think it somehow validates him, I am just bewildered.
January 12, 2009 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Criticizing the business tax cut because it's a violation of some arbitrarily defined principle is, at this point, one weak strawman argument for the Times to make. Better is Paul Krugman's position that the plan pragmatically is a bad idea, long term. But, then again... Sometimes tax cuts work. And, no: Given its record, I don't trust the Times on any position it makes. Credibility is like virginity - you lose it once, and it's gone forever. The Grey Lady periodically issues these lame, non-committal partisan whines - evidently to maintain its Walter Duranty Medal for Dogmatic Durabilty. New Deal... riiiight!
January 12, 2009 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink