Obama Faces His Anzio

The New York Times ^ | November 5, 2009 | PAUL KRUGMAN

[Patrsup]

Remember those Republican boasts that they would turn health care into President Obama’s Waterloo? Well, exit polls suggest that to the extent that health care was an issue in Tuesday’s elections, it worked in Democrats’ favor. But while health care won’t be Mr. Obama’s Waterloo, economic policy is starting to look like his Anzio.

[Patrsup]

Except he doesn't have someone to come get him out. I don't like the analogy much but so be it!

[TheDailyChange]

COMMUNITY ORGANIZING ADMINISTRATION IS A MISERABLE FAILURE AND AMERICANS WILL STAND UP AND DELIVER A TRUE AMERICAN - PRESIDENT IN 2012

[chae]

I wonder what color the sky is in Krugman’s world.

[spinestein]

[Well, exit polls suggest that to the extent that health care was an issue in Tuesday’s elections, it worked in Democrats’ favor.]

Okay, then.

[agere_contra]

Anzio? Stalingrad more like. Or - to go with the theme of Waterloo - Napoleon’s Retreat from Moscow

We are talking a major debacle here, and one that happened to a totalitarian monster. Let’s keep our analogies on target!

[MNlurker]

It may have been a derisive tour for many in life, but we have officially found the guy with sh!t for brains...

[MNlurker]

tour=term

[KosmicKitty]

Krugman lives in Bizarro World.

If he says its raining, it must be a beautiful sunny day.

[equalitybeforethelaw]

I am reminded of Clinton here, his attempt to socialize medicine had hit a brick wall and he pivoted and put it behind him. I grant Clinton with highly developed self survival skills, I wonder whether Bammy has the intelligence to do the same or will go down with the ship? So far my opinion of bammy is that he is unable to be flexible. This is not surprising since he has spent his entire career (I guess thats what you call it) preaching to choir. I doubt seriously that he has the acumen to see the picture and chart a new course. He will deligate that to his advisors - scary.

[IrishMike]

Mitt Romney with Harry Smith

“And by the way, this Hamlet performance that we’re seeing out of the White House is very, very disconcerting,” Romney told anchor Harry Smith. “The president has known about this issue for a long time. He received the report from General [Stanley] McChrystal what, four months ago” (actually, two months ago) “and has not been able to make a decision. This is very, very unfortunate for the people there and for our troops.”

Smith asked if getting the decision right allowed for contemplation.

“Well, of course you should get it right,” Romney said, “and the president has been president for nine months. Afghanistan was a centerpiece of his campaign. He’s been speaking about it as president. He’s had the McChrystal report for four months and during the same time period by the way, he’s had enough time to do 30 campaign trips around the country. Look, with men and women dying in U.S. uniform, the president ought to be focusing on getting them home, getting them home safely and stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan, rather than trying to reelect his friends.”

[Old Sarge]

Napoleon’s Retreat from Moscow

I like that - especially since they love Moscow so much...

[schu]

If the Democrats lose badly in the midterms, the talking heads will say that Mr. Obama tried to do too much, this is a center-right nation, and so on. But the truth is that Mr. Obama put his agenda at risk by doing too little.

These east coast liberals like Krugman are SO out of touch with America. It is both laughable and annoying.

Bam didn't spend enough
Bam didn't change enough
Bam didn't give enough money to the banks
Bam didn't ram HealthCare down our throats
Bam didn't pass CapNTax and hence create all those green jobs
Bam didn't regulate enough

The reason the economy slid harder and further than expected is because Bam scared the devil out of small business!!! All this talk of spending, regulation, borrowing, nationalizing and as a result an unavoidable increase in taxes caused employers to cut jobs and hunker down.

Mr Krugman, please talk to some real people, stop with this nonsense.

schu

[Verginius Rufus]

It's a safe rule-of-thumb to assume that the exact opposite of what Krugman says is true. I had to look at the rest of the piece to understand his Anzio analogy--I didn't know if he meant from the German perspective or the Allied perspective.

I've been told that was the mistake made by the Syrians and Egyptians in the opening phase of the October 1973 War (a.k.a. Yom Kippur War), following the advice given them by their Soviet military advisors (being too cautious).

[Blueflag]

At Anzio, IIRC, the commander of the amphibious assault, Lucas, ended up being too passive in pressing the attack, and had not applied enough armour to press the attack.

In other words, he picked a ‘middle option’ — kinda like Zero on Afghanistan.

In the end, thousands died needlessly.

Lucas was replaced.

[spinestein]

[. . . the elections weren’t a referendum on Mr. Obama. Most voters focused on local issues — and those who did focus on national issues tended, if anything, to go Democratic.]

alrighty, then.

[President Obama came into office with a strong mandate and proclaimed the need to take bold action on the economy. His actual actions, however, were cautious rather than bold.]

I see.

[Conventional wisdom in Washington seems to have congealed around the view that budget deficits preclude any further fiscal stimulus — a view that’s all wrong on the economics, but that doesn’t seem to matter.]

yea, sure.

[The fateful decision, early this year, to go for economic half-measures may haunt Democrats for years to come.]

I’d like to get myself some of the crack this guy is smoking.

[Vendome]

Nope. He is married and shackled to passing some form of Eugenicare(That’s eugenics and care)