Greenwald: Vote Obama – If You Want a Centrist Republican for US President

[ProSense]

63. Want

"Krugman also pointed out that even the policy Democratic loyalists point to as proof of the president's progressive bona fides – his healthcare plan, which mandates the purchase of policies from the private health insurance industry – was designed by the Heritage Foundation, one of the nation's most right-wing thinktanks, and was advocated by conservative ideologues for many years (it also happens to be the same plan Romney implemented when he was governor of Massachusetts and which Newt Gingrich once promoted, underscoring the difficulty for the GOP in drawing real contrasts with Obama).

...some more Krugman quotes:

All the facts we have suggest that health reform was the biggest move toward fiscal responsibility in a long, long time."

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/bending-the-curve/

Guys, this is a major program to aid lower- and lower-middle-income families. How is that not a big progressive victory?

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/26/numerical-notes-on-health-care-reform/

Health reform doesn’t work without a mandate...

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/23/naked-blackmail/

<...>

Unfortunately, Mr. Paul has maintained his consistency by ignoring reality, clinging to his ideology even as the facts have demonstrated that ideology’s wrongness. And, even more unfortunately, Paulist ideology now dominates a Republican Party that used to know better.

I’m not talking here about Mr. Paul’s antiwar views or his less well-known views on civil and reproductive rights, which would horrify liberals who think of him as a good guy. I’m talking, instead, about his views on economics.

Mr. Paul identifies himself as a believer in “Austrian” economics — a doctrine that it goes without saying rejects John Maynard Keynes but is almost equally vehement in rejecting the ideas of Milton Friedman. For Austrians see “fiat money,” money that is just printed without being backed by gold, as the root of all economic evil, which means that they fiercely oppose the kind of monetary expansion Friedman claimed could have prevented the Great Depression — and which was actually carried out by Ben Bernanke this time around.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/opinion/gop-monetary-madness.html

Krugman nailed it, and he obviously doesn't see eye to eye with Greenwald when it comes to the lunatic Paul.