Stuck in the Muddle

Before and during the last Presidential Election I said over and over that Obama was NOT the progressive so many folks WANTED him to be -- it was look at the record, listen to what he actually says.

Today on his blog, Dr. Paul Krugman says it again.

Once again we both nominated and elected the WRONG PERSON. Unfortunately, we got what we both asked for, and (it seems) deserved.

This from Prof. Krugman -- please follow link to original
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Stuck in the Muddle

You won’t be surprised to hear that I am very much in sympathy with Drew Westen’s lament about Obama’s unwillingness or inability to change the narrative. I went back to look at my own reactions to the inaugural speech; I’m sorry to say that my misgivings at the time have proved all too justified.

The one thing I might say is that we shouldn’t really wonder what happened to Obama — he is who he always was. If you paid attention to what he actually said during the primary and the election, he was always a very conventional centrist. Progressives who flocked to his campaign basically deluded themselves, mistaking style for substance. I got huge flack for saying that at the time, but it was true, and events have borne it out.

Just to forestall the usual (or to try, anyway): no, we don’t know that Hillary would have been any better. And John Edwards turned out to be a worse person than one could have imagined. So I’m not trying to rerun the primary. I’m just pointing out that a lot of people were remarkably blind to the warning signs.

I had hoped that Obama would rise to the occasion, but he keeps not doing it. And no, I have no idea what progressives do in the near term.
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Drew Westons lament is on the op-ed pages of the New York Times today. Check it out.