KRUGMAN NAILS IT - "Orwellian Centrism"

[kpete]

December 12, 2010, 7:52 am
Orwellian Centrism

I don’t usually bother looking at the Washington Post. But I’m inside the Beltway right now, so I spared a peek — and for my sins ended up reading Dana Milbank, who praises Obama for punching the hippies.

So far, so usual. But then I read this:

This is a hopeful sign that Obama has learned the lessons of the health-care debate, when he acceded too easily to the wishes of Hill Democrats, allowing them to slow the legislation and engage in a protracted debate on the public option. Months of delay gave Republicans time to make their case against “socialism” and prevented action on more pressing issues, such as job creation. Democrats paid for that with 63 seats.

Um, that’s not what happened — and I followed the health care process closely. The debate over the public option wasn’t what slowed the legislation. What did it was the many months Obama waited while Max Baucus tried to get bipartisan support, only to see the Republicans keep moving the goalposts; only when the White House finally concluded that Republican “moderates” weren’t negotiating in good faith did the thing finally get moving.

So look at how the Village constructs its mythology. The real story, of pretend moderates stalling action by pretending to be persuadable, has been rewritten as a story of how those DF hippies got in the way, until the centrists saved the day.

The worst of it is that I suspect Obama’s memory has gone down the same hole.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/orwellian-centrism/?src=twt&twt=NytimesKrugman

[nashville_brook]

1. Anyone outside the beltway knows that's not what happened...what we're seeing here is the

Hubris of empire. They're isolated and decadent. Our story is starting to read like a Greek tragedy.

[dreamnightwind]

16. sadly not true

The influence of the beltway, which is really just a conduit for corporate interest, is huge. It's thrown at the masses 24/7 until most of them accept the beltway narrative as fact.

We've all seen this again and again. A small percentage of people, over-represented here on DU (thankfully), are either disconnected from the noise machine or have the required analytical skills to see through the "conventional wisdom". Not enough of us though, the beltway narrative usually prevails, at least in this country.

It would be great if we could counter this particular myth, that says the House's too-far-left policies caused them to lose control to the Republicans. That's a heavy lift but well worth the effort, otherwise the wrong lessons are once again learned and we continue our pathetic spiral into oligarchy.

[polichick]

2. Glad Krugman spoke out - I could've vomited when I saw Milbank's bullshit piece! k&r

[CTyankee]

21. Milbank is a smart ass, rich Yalie whose only interest is putting out this kind of garbage.

He's the worst of that brand, and that's saying a LOT...

[adamuu]

3. constructing a narrative

revising history

[kenny blankenship]

4. rec- but actually Baucus wasn't trying to get bipartisan support.

that was never going to happen and it was no secret. Baucus (and Obama) used "trying to get bipartisan support" as a pretext for tearing the guts out of their own healthcare "reform". It had to go from what Obama campaigned on to what the insurance/hospital/pharmaceutical complex wanted, and that took a lot of time, and an excuse to buy that time. We're negotiating! We have the other party bargaining with us in good faith -be patient! That's a bit of Orwellian centrism that is to my mind more Orwellian than Dana Milbank's Minitrue commissioned rewrite of history.

[Barack_America]

6. Good point. nt

[Vinnie From Indy]

8. This is exactly what happened and it went exactly as planned

The simple truth is that Obama had no intention of EVER seeing a bill with a public option on his desk. The deal was that he would give campaign speeches in favor of the PO and then sign a bill without one included. The Baucus thing was simply a convenient way to stall the vote until the PO could be removed from consideration. Also, Joe Lieberman was part of the plan. His role was to play the villian at the end of the day.

It worked, but there are many of us that understood then that this President is infinitely more about serving the interests of those that run this country rather than trying to serve the average American citizen.

[demmiblue]

5. K&R

:kick:

[ProSense]

7. Krugman is rewriting history

he also blamed centrists.

[Vattel]

9. Odd post.

I take it that you agree with him that it was primarily wasting time trying to negotiate with repug pretend moderates that held it up and not discussions of the public option. So you think he should have also mentioned that certain centrist Dems dragged their feet? Was that really relevant to making his case against dana milibank? To not mention that is rewriting history?

[w4rma]

10. Purge the Orwellian Wall Street fake-centrists. (nt)

[monkeydog]

22. ummmm

Isn't that the opposite of what he is saying? Milbank is blaming the left, not centrists.

What am I missing here?

Oh, blind loyalty...maybe that's it.

[Bette Noir]

28. Milbank is blaming the Left. Krugman is showing Milbank for the lying

rat-bastard he is. I know, it's hard to keep up when reading just a small excerpt. I highly recommend the whole column.

[monkeydog]

35. I get it

I was referring to prosense, who obviously doesn't.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Problem is that the natives have noticed

and that will not play well sooner or later.

[Poboy]

12. kick

[progressoid]

13. "punching the hippies"

Yep - that's what it feels like.

[Individualist]

36. +1

[laughingliberal]

14. K & R nt

[Enthusiast]

15. Great article! K&R nt

[xchrom]

17. recommend

[Goldstein1984]

18. Thanks - "Spin" is a good word, but I think...

"bullshit" hits the nail more squarely on the head.

Krugman is always refreshing.

[democracy1st]

19. K & R

[BridgeTheGap]

20. The healthcare bill took so long because industry lobbyists were busy writing in the provisions they

wanted. That, and stuffing campaign cash into the pockets of pliable legislators. But, hey, at least some bi-partisanship happened on that front!

[myrna minx]

23. K&R n/t

[NBachers]

24. Just wait until the Orwellian term "Tax Reform" gets into full swing

[BrklynLiberal]

25. George Lakoff ; Disaster Messaging.

http://www.truth-out.org/disaster-messaging61170

Democrats are constantly resorting to disaster messaging. Here's a description of the typical situation:

* The Republicans out-message the Democrats. The Democrats, having no effective response, face disaster: They lose politically, either in electoral support or failure on crucial legislation.

* The Democrats then take polls and do focus groups. The pollsters discover that extremist Republicans control the most common ("mainstream") way of thinking and talking about the given issue.

* The pollsters recommend that Democrats move to the right: adopt conservative Republican language and a less extreme version of conservative policy, along with weakened versions of some Democratic ideas.

* The Democrats believe that, if they follow this advice, they can gain enough independent and Republican support to pass legislation that, at least, will be some improvement on the extreme Republican position.

* Otherwise, the pollsters warn, Democrats will lose popular support - and elections - to the Republicans, because mainstream thought and language resides with the Republicans.

* Believing the pollsters, the Democrats change their policy and their messaging and move to the right.

* The Republicans demand even more and refuse to support the Democrats.

We have seen this on issues like health care, immigration, global warming, finance reform, and so on. We are seeing it again on the Death Gusher in the Gulf. It happens even with a Democratic president and a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress.

<snip>

[Bette Noir]

30. That looks like something every Democratic legislator should see.

[JDPriestly]

31. Excellent post, Brklynliberal. Great quotes from Lakoff.

We need to reread Lakoff as we approach the 2012 primaries and elections.

Where is Howard Dean when we need him?

[BrklynLiberal]

34. Lakoff and Dean have been ignored..much to the regret of most of us....

[Bette Noir]

26. I bookmarked Krugman's blog, after someone pointed me to this piece.

Thanks for giving it the exposure it deserves.

[SpiralHawk]

27. The k

and the r.

[emulatorloo]

29. "pretend moderates stalling action by pretending to be persuadable" That's exactly what happened

with HCR. Thanks for posting

[somone]

32. NEXT: Reforming Social Security to reduce the deficit

[bongbong]

33. End game now beginning

Near the end, events accelerate. It's like an economic black hole now. So what happens next?

If China is playing its "A Game", I assume they'll do something like invade Taiwan or use N.Korea as a proxy to invade S. Korea. China is the adolescent Superpower, and they must use this time to knock down the tottering Last Superpower, America, before it destroys the whole world.

Second possibility: the End Game is close now because the top .1% has really completed its grasp over all levers of world power, and they will be flexing their muscles to show those uppity 99.9% who's really in charge.

[sixmile]

37. kicked

K&R!