NY Times Paul Krugman "Freezing Out Hope"

[Botany]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/opinion/03krugman.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

After the Democratic “shellacking” in the midterm elections, everyone wondered how President Obama
would respond. Would he show what he was made of? Would he stand firm for the values he believes in,
even in the face of political adversity?

On Monday, we got the answer: he announced a pay freeze for federal workers. This was an announcement
that had it all. It was transparently cynical; it was trivial in scale, but misguided in direction; and by making
the announcement, Mr. Obama effectively conceded the policy argument to the very people who are seeking
— successfully, it seems — to destroy him.

snip

Meanwhile, there’s a real deficit issue on the table: whether tax cuts for the wealthy will, as Republicans demand,
be extended. Just as a reminder, over the next 75 years the cost of making those tax cuts permanent would be
roughly equal to the entire expected financial shortfall of Social Security. Mr. Obama’s pay ploy might, just might,
have been justified if he had used the announcement of a freeze as an occasion to take a strong stand against
Republican demands — to declare that at a time when deficits are an important issue, tax breaks for the wealthiest
aren’t acceptable.

But he didn’t. Instead, he apparently intended the pay freeze announcement as a peace gesture to Republicans the day
before a bipartisan summit. At that meeting, Mr. Obama, who has faced two years of complete scorched-earth opposition,
declared that he had failed to reach out sufficiently to his implacable enemies. He did not, as far as anyone knows, wear
a sign on his back saying “Kick me,” although he might as well have.