Krugman v. Obama, continued

Paul Krugman complains:

By my count, 3 of my last 10 columns have criticized Barack Obama.

7 of Frank Rich’s 10 last columns, and 6 of Maureen Dowd’s last 10 columns, have criticized Hillary Clinton.

But, of course, that’s different: Hillary is eeevil, and deserves it.

Hrmmm. First, by my count, seven (or perhaps even eight) of Paul Krugman's last 10 columns have criticized Barack Obama, including three of the last three. Before those there was this column, on the lessons of 1992. Then there was his piece about the Reagan myth, in which he noted that

Maybe Mr. Obama was, as his supporters insist, simply praising Reagan’s political skills. (I think he was trying to curry favor with a conservative editorial board, which did in fact endorse him.) But where in his remarks was the clear declaration that Reaganomics failed?

On January 14, in a column about the candidates' fiscal stimulus plans Krugman wrote:

on Sunday Mr. Obama came out with a real stimulus plan. As was the case with his health care plan, which fell short of universal coverage, his stimulus proposal is similar to those of the other Democratic candidates, but tilted to the right.

For example, the Obama plan appears to contain none of the alternative energy initiatives that are in both the Edwards and Clinton proposals, and emphasizes across-the-board tax cuts over both aid to the hardest-hit families and help for state and local governments. I know that Mr. Obama’s supporters hate to hear this, but he really is less progressive than his rivals on matters of domestic policy.

The Clinton and Edwards alternative energy initiatives were welcome, but, I think, largely unrelated to the need for an immediate fiscal stimulus. And, of course, Obama's own climate change and energy plan is quite good on this score to begin with.

At any rate, moving backwards in time, in "From Hype to Fear" Krugman obliquely criticized Obama for his mild approach to campaigning. And, finally, in his column about China, Krugman offered this odd aside about Obama supporters' unrealistic faith in his charm:

The Democrats in general make far more sense. But among at least some of Barack Obama’s supporters there seems to be a belief that if their candidate is elected, the world’s problems will melt away in the face of his multicultural charisma.

Memo: It won’t work on the Chinese.

This one's a bit of an outlier. I'm not exactly sure if it counts. It's not exactly a critique of Obama, but it's also hard to imagine that Krugman would've dragged Obama into this column at all if he wasn't on a bit of a campaign against him.

So I don't think PK's right on the numbers. But, perhaps more importantly, why on earth would Paul Krugman want to be compared to Rich and Dowd as if they were his peers? Rich and Dowd have a lot of readers, sure, but all decent, thinking people understand that Krugman is at least cut above those two. And it's easy to see why: even though this much Obama criticism is too much, it's out there now, and for what it's worth, it's much, much more substantive than almost anything Rich or Dowd ever write. But it's still a little excessive, and that's why we're seeing a mini-backlash against Krugman. That he's neither Frank Rich nor Maureen Dowd is precisely the point.