New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has been at war with Sanders supporters, dismissing them as Bernie Bros and claiming all the “serious ” health care advocates are with Hillary Clinton. He’s also been passive aggressive, complaining about nastiness from Sanders supporters while insulting them. Whether his criticisms of the Sanders plan are right I couldn’t say– they might be, but he isn’t acting like someone only driven by policy concerns. He wants to discredit Sanders supporters as name-calling irrational personality cultists and is attempting to do so with name-calling.
Today he outlines two theories of what is wrong with America, claiming that Sanders focuses on the corrupting power of money, while Clinton sees the problem of racism and as before, Krugman sees Clinton’s view as superior. Interesting, but whatever one thinks of this theory (I think it is both bigotry and money which are the problems without granting that Clinton is the better candidate), what is missing here?
Foreign policy. American militarism. American support for thuggish allies. The utter catastrophe of US foreign policy in the Middle East. Sanders has been bad, but Clinton has been much worse, supportive of the Iraq invasion (which in a just world would have much of America’s political class on trial for war crimes), supportive of Israel, mocking Obama in 2008 for saying he wanted to talk to Iran. I assume she supports the Obama policy of helping the Saudis as they commit war crimes in Yemen. And by the way, is there any bigotry involved in our support for Israel when they bomb civilians? Or does that not count?
Has Krugman mentioned any of this? Yeah. Blink and you could miss it.
Clinton’s support for the Iraq invasion? Oopsie. It was a “special” time, as he says in a parentheses. Yeah, a massive terrorist attack, public hysteria, and cynical people with an agenda use this as an excuse to invade a country which had nothing to do with it, killing hundreds of thousands, creating millions of refugees, and creating a situation where jihadism can thrive. And why did Clinton and some other centrist liberal Democrats support this? Maybe some of the corrupting forces of bigotry and money cross party lines.
Not sure if Phil will have time to put it in, but the post above is missing a link to where Krugman mentions in passing Clinton’s support for the Iraq invasion. (This is what motivated my sarcastic remark about blinking and missing it.) Here’s the link–
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/weakened-at-bernies/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body
In his war against Sanders opponents, Donald forgets about Iraq.
Sanders voted Yea to the AUMF (https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2016/01/aggressively-normalize-relations#comment-820930) which was the essential basis for invading Iraq, as Bush had already certified that Iraq was involved in 9/11 as required bythe AUMF. The specific Iraq vote was not the one that counted. At that vote, Sanders had to provide a gesture to pacify his base that had had more than enough of his usual warmongering. He got his revenge by later voting yes to the war budget.
Also, it’s not like Sanders ever saw a war he wasn’t supporting, at least since Kosovo. Check it out. Or any military budget or any “Israel” gift budget he’d oppose or even not vote for. Anyway, I’m not defending Krugman, whose support to the Empress is not anything to brag about either. But she’s not any “worse” than Sanders (who simply caucuses with Herzog and the Zionist Bloc and J-Street, instead of the Likud and AIPAC and Co. like the Empress.) The “liberal” Zionists are way more dangerous.
What are you trying to do? Get us to adopt a Zionist, imperialist warmonger as the little lamb, its fleece white as snow?
Unfortunately if you blink you’ll miss anything Sanders has said on Clinton’s war record. He’s just canceled a planned pre-Iowa foreign policy speech. It’s his job to call her out, he clearly doesn’t want to. But, Simon & Garfunkel!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/01/29/sanders-wont-give-previously-advertised-foreign-policy-speech-before-iowa-caucuses-aide-says/
Presumably Krugman hopes for a position in a Hillary administration.
Thanks, Donald, for this informative and interesting article. For me, the difference between Sanders and Clinton on Israel/Palestine is that Sanders actually criticized Israel for the slaughter in Gaza http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/bernie-sanders-political-revolution-20151118?page=15 , while Clinton said that criticism of Israel was “unfair” and was based on “antisemitism,” http://www.timesofisrael.com/hillary-Clinton-blasts-unfair-world-reaction-over-gaza-cites-anti-semitism-as-factor/ , and Clinton promises that Netanyahu will be one of her first guests in the White House https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2015/11/hillary-promises-netanyahu .
From “The Backstory on Bernie Sanders and Israel-Palestine: Why Is He So Quiet About the Mideast Tragedy?”: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/backstory-bernie-sanders-and-palestine , ”