Krugman Slightly Bests Kristol This Week
Mondays sure are exciting in the New York Times op-ed pages these days. Whose column makes a better argument for the destruction of the NYT in toto : Bill Kristol's or Paul Krugman's? While last week's prize went to Krugman, Kristol retakes his rightful throne this week as the worst columnist on the planet, Earth.
Krugman rips Obama for his misleading health care mailer last week, as everyone on the Internet has been predicting he would do, forever. Not that the health care mandate is a small deal, and not that he's "wrong," but... a little opportunistic, Paul?:
If you combine the economic analysis with these political realities, here's what I think it says: If Mrs. Clinton gets the Democratic nomination, there is some chance -- nobody knows how big -- that we'll get universal health care in the next administration. If Mr. Obama gets the nomination, it just won't happen.
Well, there is a "Congress" that has the power to tweak the various aspects of "bills." Still, point ceded, Obama will never pass a law about anything except rainbows and magical zebras, MUCH LESS HEALTH CARE HA.
Still, Kristol wins the worst column prize for being a typical shitmonger carrying the burden of the world on his back (despite the world having a very different burden that Kristol chooses to bomb):
The American conservative movement has been remarkably successful. We shouldn't take that success for granted. It's not easy being a conservative movement in a modern liberal democracy. It's not easy to rally a comfortable and commercial people to assume the responsibilities of a great power. It's not easy to defend excellence in an egalitarian age. It's not easy to encourage self-reliance in the era of the welfare state. It's not easy to make the case for the traditional virtues in the face of the seductions of liberation, or to speak of duties in a world of rights and of honor in a nation pursuing pleasure.
Indeed, while liberals are cruising down various water slides at amusement parks, conservatives are reminding us of our duty to cut brown people with "excellence" razors.