Posted on 12/20/2010 12:38:06 PM PST by Sub-Driver
Paul Krugman Says GOP 'Zombies' Are Going to Eat Obama's Brain By Tim Graham Created 12/20/2010 - 3:10pm
By Tim Graham | December 20, 2010 | 15:10 Tim Graham's picture
Let's hope the editorial page editors at the New York Times aren't too fond of the "No Labels" movement to soften the tone of our national debates. Because columnist Paul Krugman is comparing his conservative opponents to...brain-eating zombies. The column's title is "When Zombies Win." It concludes:
Yes, politics is the art of the possible. We all understand the need to deal with one’s political enemies. But it’s one thing to make deals to advance your goals; it’s another to open the door to zombie ideas. When you do that, the zombies end up eating your brain — and quite possibly your economy too.
This is just the latest metaphor that allows Krugman to pound the table once again that the near-trillion-dollar "stimulus" was ridiculously tiny and that there are no "big government policies" under Obama:
The answer from the right is that the economic failures of the Obama administration show that big-government policies don’t work. But the response should be, what big-government policies?
For the fact is that the Obama stimulus — which itself was almost 40 percent tax cuts — was far too cautious to turn the economy around. And that’s not 20-20 hindsight: many economists, myself included, warned from the beginning that the plan was grossly inadequate.
Krugman lifted the zombie metaphor from an Australian author:
To borrow the title of a recent book by the Australian economist John Quiggin on doctrines that the crisis should have killed but didn’t, we’re still — perhaps more than ever — ruled by “zombie economics.” Why?
Part of the answer, surely, is that people who should have been trying to slay zombie ideas have tried to compromise with them instead. And this is especially, though not only, true of the president.
People tend to forget that Ronald Reagan often gave ground on policy substance — most notably, he ended up enacting multiple tax increases. But he never wavered on ideas, never backed down from the position that his ideology was right and his opponents were wrong.
President Obama, by contrast, has consistently tried to reach across the aisle by lending cover to right-wing myths. He has praised Reagan for restoring American dynamism (when was the last time you heard a Republican praising F.D.R.?), adopted G.O.P. rhetoric about the need for the government to tighten its belt even in the face of recession, offered symbolic freezes on spending and federal wages.
None of this stopped the right from denouncing him as a socialist. But it helped empower bad ideas, in ways that can do quite immediate harm.
For once, I feel sorry for zombies. Starvation is a bad way to go.
would someone please pass the Fava beans!
Alternate realities....
Every GOP convention for a while now. What I'd like to know is when is the last time a Republican in position of power praised Calvin Coolidge.
There are very few people in the world that can actually make Keith Olbermann look smart.
Hey that's my line. Bob Hope
In the movie "Ghost Breakers" (1940)
Richard Carlson: . . . a zombie has no will of his own. You see them some times, walking around blindly with dead eyes, following orders, not knowing what they do, not caring.
Bob Hope: You mean, like Democrats?
Poor Paul. GOP in power..DAMN. Rats in power, DAMN. Dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t. Just Damn.
I sure hope they loaded up on hors d’oeuvres, because the main course is likely to be quite small.
Paul Krugman Says GOP ‘Zombies’ Are Going to Eat Obama’s Brain
Wouldn’t Obama need to have a brain for that to occur?
If it’s true, they’ll die again from hungry very soon. Not much to share there.
see #13
Error, error!
Zombies need functional brains to eat.
Ergo, the Dung-Beetle-in-Chief is safe from we dastardly conservative zombies.
Denouncing him as a Socialist? Is there something wrong with being a Socialist? If so, what?
Paul Krugman AND oBAMA have BRAINs???....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.