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Hillary Hate In The Blogs: Krugman Notices

By Big Tent Democrat

By Big Tent Democrat

Ezra Klein notes Krugman writing:

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.

But Ezra misses Krugman's point I think, writing:

The sense I get from some of those critiquing him is that they're tired of hearing about this disagreement and think Paul should get over it already. And that's a fair point. But while there are a lot of folks who accurately diagnose the illegitimacy of Dowd and Rich's critiques of Clinton, very few seem to notice or care that these attacks on her personal comportment are repetitive. Continual Hillary-bashing is somehow far less jarring than continual Obama-bashing. Maybe that's a strength of his.

(Emphasis supplied.) I think Krugman's point, one Bob Somerby makes continually, is that it is a weakness of the progressive blogs. Fanboydom is unattractive in supposedly intelligent people.

Update [2008-2-4 17:29:30 by Big Tent Democrat]:

Stepping up to the plate to make Krugman's point is Kevin Drum, who announces he will vote for Obama (so will I), which is fine, but the WHY is hilariously hypocritical:

So who am I going to vote for tomorrow? Answer: Barack Obama.

I've got some good reasons and some bad reasons for changing my mind. The good reasons include (a) the ugliness coming out of the Clinton camp over the past couple of weeks, which has turned me off . . . There are also some not-so-good reasons. I'm half embarrassed to admit that this stuff even affects me, but the fact is that the actions of both the candidates' supporters and detractors has had an impact. Watching Andrew Sullivan rant and rave on a daily basis about Hillary, for example, has had the perverse effect of keeping me on her side. I just hated the thought of fever swamp hatred like that influencing my party's nomination. Conversely, today's Paul Krugman column, which was yet another installment in his months-long anti-Obama jihad, had the opposite effect. I don't like Obama's mini-demagoguery of Hillary's healthcare plan either, but for chrissake, it's an election. A bit of hardball is to be expected and I can't for the life of me figure out what Obama has done to drive a sensible guy like Krugman over a cliff.

(Emphasis supplied.) One man's ugliness is another man's hardball I guess. It is not often it is the SAME man though. Good to see Kevin is not letting the "fever swamp hatred" get to him . . .

Full post as published by TalkLeft on February 04, 2008 (boomark / email).