The pundit delusion

The Pundit Delusion:

What I expect, instead, if and when the midterms go badly, is that the usual suspects will say that it was because Mr. Obama was too liberal — when his real mistake was doing too little to create jobs.

If? Ha! I called this two years ago.

Brad vs. Larry

Brad DeLong February 18, 2010:

But the surest road to a better America would be to punish the Republican Party for gridlock: destroy it utterly, so that no politician for a thousand years will think that betraying his oath to serve the country to create pointless gridlock is the road to electoral success.

The Barefoot Bum, January 15, 2008:

Nothing less than severe reprisals — and I'm talking explicitly about due-process trials for capital treason and crimes against humanity — against not only many Republican party and elected officials, including George W. Bush and Dick Cheney but also against a considerable number of journalists and publishers (such as Judith Miller), will be sufficient to wrench the United States back from the brink of authoritarian tyranny.

Paul and Larry

Krugman, January 25, 2010:

So one case you can make is that Obama was just fated to have a bad first year. FDR had the good luck not to take office until more or less everything that could go wrong, had; the bank runs had already happened, the big decline in GDP was already nearing its end. Obama, by contrast, came into office early enough to take the blame for the continuing slump.

Me, December 23, 2008:

Roosevelt took office in 1933, more than three years after the trigger of the Great Depression. Obama, on the other hand, will take office only months after the trigger of this depression. Roosevelt thus did not have to take the blame for the half-measures and incompetent management that inevitably follow a true catastrophe. Obama, on the other hand, does not have someone like Hoover to point to and say, "Whatever we do, we know we can't do that."