I missed this–would have liked to see David Frum (I think that was him on the panel) try to respond to this–what’d he and the other person on Stephanopoulos’s right say to Krugman?

They never respond. They just sit there like the smug pieces of shit that they are.

I agree they got some great points in. In spite of Stephanopoulos, who is simply the worst Sunday moderator. Insufferable.

Krugman is shrill.

Baucus is a shill.

Given a choice between a Nobel laureate and the leader of the Baucus Caucus, I know which one I’d pick.

Frum really didn’t. He just said liberals messed up when they held out for a better deal when Nixon was set to expand Medicare.

Usual right-wing talking points. Most Americans are already insured, thus the status quo must be the best of all possible worlds.

Krugman may be shrill but he was angry beyond words. He has the cred to speak and no one seems to be listening in the WH.

Comprehending the current created Reality

“How We Support Our False Beliefs”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/re…..135020.htm

But Krugman is undoubtedly motivated exclusively out of gut hatred of, um, Bush, and so therefore has zero credibility, and therefore his ideas have zero credibility, too.

Gosh. Don’t you know the Roolz?

Paul Krugman is shrill. It’s a well known fact that the Nobel Prize is only awarded to the batshit craziest members of the human race.

Better to be shrill than be a shill.

Yeah, and it’s not like Krugman’s been wrong about everything else, which is the Village’s preferred E-Ticket ride.

Geez. I screwed up again !

You must mean the Roolz of unceasing obsequiousness to the wisdom of Sunday MorningTalking Heads. All Hail their wisdom and knowledge …. of absolutely nothing.

Every week I promise myself I’ll leave the TV off but end up turning on This Week and being disgusted beyond belief. Krugman spoke absolute truth when he said opposition to a public plan is nothing except the insurance lobby… Did that statement shift the focus of the discussion? Of course not.

I could use a lot more shrill, frankly, and a lot less centrist “moderation”*.

*Villager code for CYA bullshit

I just wish someone would point out most of the largest companies with the largest numbers of employees CEO’s are Republican, and therefore if they are against the Public Option, they can ignore it, and since they represent so many employees, there would be no possible way for the Public Option to “crowd out” private insurance, (which is basically why they’re against the P.O.).

Now I admit my preference is that ultimately it would crowd it out too, but the fact remains, most CEO’s (and thus the ones making decisions) of large companies are Republican, and they will have in their power the means to ensure private insurers remain, all they need to do is ignore the public option for their corporations.

More of this, please.

Maxine Waters: Obama Needs To Get Tough With “Neanderthals” In The Senate

I believe she is looking at YOU, Max Baucus…

and conrad. conrad definately qualifies as a political neanderthal.

Actually, comparing them to conservadems is a disservice to neanderthals.

Hey FireDogs. Jane Hamsher is live on Ian Masters’ show right now. Go here:

http://kpfk.org/listen-live.html

i stand corrected. neanderthals really contributed a lot more than conservadems have to the advancement of human knowledge and well being.

And single-cell organisms rising out of the primordial ooze, for that matter..

I recommend high-powered bullhorns. And maybe pepper spray, tear gas and fire hoses, while we’re at it. Ya know…just to be sure.

If some Senate Dems support the filibuster we are going to pile on them they better not be making reelection plans.
We will go over their records their mistakes and we will broadcast them you know the job the media used to do.
We will look at their friends and anyone who gives them money.
Also I think its time we talked about getting rid of Congress’s Healthcare plan. They can pay for a private plan the savings then should be applied to the national debt that they are so concerned about.

Since conservative theory holds that all progress is bad, advancement should have ended with single-cell organisms.

Janes doing another OUTSTANDING job!
Thanks for the Link!

Krugman shrill? He seemed rather calm and adult. Or are you being sarcastic?

Whoa, who at ABC got knocked on the head?
They had BOTH Krugman and Reich on the same program?!

Woot!!!

Shrill is what Serious Villagers call anyone who speaks unvarnished truth to the comfortable and powerful.

FunnyWheelieDiva

As always. And by the way, Ian Masters’ show is on every Sunday, 11:00 to 13:00, Pacific. It is, in my opinion, one of the best public affairs shows on the air, Period. I try not to miss it.

Certainly not in the league of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh, of course, but still…

Earlier in the program amidst all the other bullshit he uttered, George Will characterized Obama’s rebuttal of fabricated claims about health care reform as “shrill.”

Hey George: Shrill This.

I think that was sarcasm.Also its bad news when Krugman argues a point. The administration seems to be using him as a gauge: where ever Krugman is, move to the right a step.when you hit john mcain youve found the spot.

I believe that at the end of that clip, Krugman says: “Well, but the argument against the public option is sheer nonsense. It’s nothing but the insurance lobby.”

Oh, my…
The Unspeakable Hath Been Spoken.

So clearly, Krugman’s being far too ’shrill’ /s

Oh good.

My fervent wish is always that someone in the studio will inadvertently switch on a giant fan that blows off George Will’s toupee. Childish, I know but I continue to hope.

you know, I think george will might just remember the last time krugman smacked him (and good).

Childish, maybe, but I’d go full-boat pay-per-view to see it. Hell…I’ll bring the popcorn.

There really wasn’t an outstanding Krugman/Will gotcha moment today. Unfortunate, since that possibility was the only reason I tuned in.

Gotta love George Stephanapoulos’s premise: ‘You can’t get it, so why bother?’

This despite Grassley telling Iowa voters about ‘death panels’.

No mention of how many of these Senators could even diagram of what the public option would look like, or whether any of these people (apart from Krugman and Reich) even knows what they’re actually talking about.

I second that.

What is George Will’s area of expertise he seems to be equally wrong about everything except inside GOP gossip the economy, global warming why does he and the rest of them get to talk as if experts?
A college earth science major could take him apart on global warming. On the economy his past record support for the Bush tax cut during a time of war as being good for the economy speaks for itself FAILURE.

The person to watch is Liarman!

I think you should not be able to vote on bills unless you can explain the arguments for and against the real arguments that is, that and your arguments should be taped

In the M$M, being wrong is a feature, not a bug.
FunnyWheelieDiva

I think the only valid area of expertise for Will might be the Chicago Cubs.

But that is open to interpretation.

I think the only valid area of expertise for Will might be the Chicago Cubs. the Tidy Bowl Man.

But that is open to interpretation

That’s better…

I loved it towards the end of the show, Will was spouting off numbers and Krugman just said, “Your numbers are wrong.” Period. HA!

Yeah its an attempt at mind control they push a message to bad that after 8 years of being wrong they are losing their audience. The slow learners still have not twigged on to that fact.

Mike Royko had a great bit about how George was trying to steal his style. I think all GOPers must try to pretend to be common men like Joe the Plumber.
We of course are elite because we talk about ideas and have facts. Its funny how when we bring up facts they dismiss them or say its not politically possible.
Its not politically possible of course because they have been lying about the facts the whole time.

Thank you so much for that link. I had to listen all the way through, and it just ended.

I hope my faulty memory works well enough for me to remember next Sunday (I thought I read in a subsequent post of yours that this program is on Sunday’s from 1:00-4:00??).

Anyways, just wanted to thank you.

I have problems with both Reich and Krugman because they have a tendency to buy into Administration policies and prononcements. But Krugman is correct about the politics surrounding the public option. The question is why an economist would be the one who had to point out the dishonesty involved here? You don’t have to be one to know what is going on here. Same thing with Reich. This should be within even Stephanopoulos’ skill set, but clearly isn’t.

saw the link you posted to your diary the other day:

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/6783

nice!

Better shrill than shill

I like how the chyron says ‘Obamacare.’ That’s not some cute nickname everyone uses, it’s an epithet used by Deathers and other reform opponents.

Watching Frum try to go up against Krugman on Krugman’s home court (or any court) would be like watching me play tennis against Peter Federer. Frum shouldn’t be allowed to get within shouting distance of Krugman.

Paul Krugman has been a favorite on “must read” list for some years now.

Just seems to be on the right side of most anything year in year out.

A very good reason to keep visiting the NYTimes website — it was a upset when the Times put up the ‘Times Select’ wall — a very happy day it was when that awkward construct was taken down by the Times.

Paul Krugman now seen often on American TV on several news show venues.

Krugman stating the sky is blue obvious truth the for profit insurers are trying to deform any reform of current American healthcare regimes where the for profit premise is reduced,restrained or restricted.

Plainly aided and being given wide berthings and steady moorings for pay to play by the Obama WH.

The Obama WH would have done well to have brought Paul Krugman in — sadly the Obama WH seems more interested in going with hacks, place holders and ward heelers — the results speak for themselves with how Rule of Law,torture and the torturers and Wall St./Big Banking were/are processed by this Obama WH — and surely this so called American healthcare “reform” is being governed by money politics — pay to play — and craven conduct –just what one would expect from hacks,gaming insiders and ward heelers.

Just being picky, but it is Roger Federer that would take you apart in tennis. I don’t know how well Peter Federer plays.

Krugman never seems to present a nonsense point that can be easily refuted with facts. The only way to refute Krugman is simply to dismiss him as politically naive or simply say that he is wrong, but not try to argue the facts. Krugman is one of the very few, if not the only MSM pundit that Bob Somerby usually agrees with or has some very minor difference with.

Sorry folks. Perhaps I’m insensitive to “shrillness.” But what was it that Paul said that justifies the “shrill” label. I honestly didn’t see or hear it.

If the PO were to gain a foothold though, that might make them uncompetitive.

Sometimes the snark/sarcasm tag is understood. No one here is actually saying that Krugman is shrill. But it becomes a means of sorting out how the TradMed will try to marginalize his perspective.

Rather like how they’ve tried to marginalize most everyone who hasn’t swallowed the Beltway Village kool-aid

To Jo Fish, #13:

Never would I characterize Paul Krugman as shrill. Grassley and Kyl and Coburn are shrill. Krugman is smart and determined. If you don’t know the difference, go away.

Go Paul! Tell it like it is! I like hearing truth spoken, whether shrill (which he wasn’t btw) or spoken in dulcet tones.

shrill in this context is an honorific.

gather ’round my children while i give you some linky goodness to the history of the order of the shrill.

From Brad De Long’s The History of the Shrill:

I guess it started, I think, with that extremely strange and not-very-analytical Svengali of the Bush Social Security reform plan, Peter Ferrara, who wrote back in 2001 about “the fierce, shrill, and unreasoned denunciations of allowing workers the freedom to choose a personal-account option for Social Security may impress the gullible… and denounced ..the highly irascible Paul Krugman…

That was, I think, the start of a very peculiar meme: a piling-on of critics of Bush–especially of Paul Krugman–whose sole criticism was that he was “shrill.” The critique was neither that he was a bad economist, nor that his accusations that the Bush administration was lying about a whole bunch of stuff were incorrect (indeed, one of Paul’s most vicious critics, Andrew Sullivan, gloried in the fact that Bush was lying about his tax cut. See http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/….._sull.html). So if you wanted to attack Krugman, but could not attack him because his analytics were right, and could not attack him because his accusations of Bush administration dishonesty were correct, what can you do?

The accusation–the only line of critique–is that Paul “only sees what’s wrong with the other side, in fairly crude terms,” or–in shorthand–is “shrill.”

God alone knows why they thought this line of attack would do anything other than shred their own reputations. God knows why others took up this line of attack. But take off it did, both as a narrowly-focused attempt to degrade the reputation of Paul Krugman, and as a broader attempt to marginalize all who pointed out that the policies of the Bush administration were (a) stupid, and (b) justified by lies, and it took off both among the yahoos of the right and also among the denizens of the center-left.

Why did it take off? I think the reasons were well laid out by Nick Confessore:

“Comparative Advantage” by Nicholas Confessore: On balance, Krugman’s record stands up pretty well. On the topics he writes about most often and most angrily–tax cuts, Social Security, and the budget–his record is nearly perfect. “The reason he’s gotten under the White House’s skin so much,” says Robert Shapiro, a former undersecretary of commerce in the Clinton administration, “is that he’s right. None of it is rocket science.”

and not to be missed is the shrillblog: THE OFFICAL BLOG OF THE ANCIENT AND HERMETIC ORDER OF THE SHRILL

Those who feel that Krugman is shrill or off the mark are hopelessly deranged idiots. They are very likely unable to make sense of his columns in which he is clear as to why the health care system needs changing and needs to include a PO.

There is nothing complicated about understanding the need to instill a mechanism that will drive down the cost of private offered health insurance. You need for there to be competition to private insurance by a PO that you buy into voluntarily because it provides lower cost and excludes no one.

Where is the difficulty in getting that?

Having the two of them on one show together lets them claim they show both sides, while only having one serious elite moderator and guest panel per week made to look stupid.
The longer they can keep their current crew of smiling halfwits, the longer they can put off hiring sane people with actual credibility. It’s a sneaky current-cost containment trick.

The administration’s goal is to kill the public option. Why else would Obama keep repeating the line, ‘if you like your plan you can keep it.’ This claim has been shown to be false: 1)the public option will surely be less expensive than private plans, giving employers incentives to ‘drop’ employees into the public option and 2)employers who change their plans, in any way, for any reason, will find employees automatically enrolled in the public option.

‘Qualified’ public plans offered by the government may or may not be the same as what many Americans now enjoy.