 |
| Not one of my favorite pundits |
Krauthammer begins his column by sneering at Obama’s “landslide 2.8 point victory margin.” In fact, with votes still being tabulated, Obama is currently leading by 3.6% and rising — a reasonably healthy lead in comparison with, say, the 2.4 percent victory for George W. Bush in 2004, which Krauthammer at the time called “a large majority, or a significant majority.”Chait goes on to take apart Krauthammer's piece point by point, but I think he understates the part that really took my breath away. Krauthammer finishes his op-ed, most of which is dedicated to criticism of Obama for his refusal to engage in real deficit reduction through cutting entitlements, with this:
What should Republicans do? Stop giving stuff away. If Obama remains intransigent, let him be the one to take us over the cliff. And then let the new House, which is sworn in weeks before the president, immediately introduce and pass a full across-the-board restoration of the George W. Bush tax cuts.Whhhaaaaaaa????? The main body of the piece makes a pretty reasonale-sounding case that Obama and Democrats don't care about the federal deficit and are leading us toward a "European-like collapse under the burden of unsustainable debt". Then he concludes with a demand that Republicans restore all the Bush tax cuts, which will make the deficit and debt worse!
Paul Krugman has been making the point lately that it's understandable that the average American doesn't understand the details of the "fiscal cliff". But it's inexcusable that news organizations and professional politicians don't understand that going over the fiscal cliff is bad not because it will increase the deficit, but because it will shrink the deficit too fast and cause a recession. So here we have Charles Krauthammer, noted professional pundit for many years, showing that he doesn't understand this pretty simple point.
Or perhaps he does understand after all and is just a cynical pundit intentionally misleading his followers. Nah, probably just a moron.
Charles Krauthammers breathtaking Idiocy?
ReplyDeleteOh,,I forgot,,he doesn't like Socialism,,says it makes everyone equal,,,equally miserable.
Charles Krauthammer, winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary, began writing a weekly column for The Washington Post in January 1985.
Krauthammer also won the 1984 National Magazine Award for essays
Krauthammer was born in New York City and raised in Montreal. He was educated at McGill University, majoring in political science and economics, Oxford University (Commonwealth Scholar in Politics) and Harvard (M.D. in 1975). He practiced medicine for three years as a resident and then chief resident in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital.
In 1978, he quit medical practice, came to Washington to direct planning in psychiatric research for the Carter administration, and began contributing articles to the New Republic. During the presidential campaign of 1980, he served as a speech writer to Vice President Walter Mondale. He joined the New Republic as a writer and editor in 1980. He also writes essays for Time and the Weekly Standard. In 1997, the Washingtonian magazine named him among the top 50 most influential journalists in the national press corps.