...reading this sentence in his latest piece:
Fervent supporters of Barack Obama like to say that putting him in the White House would transform America. With all due respect to the candidate, that gets it backward. Mr. Obama is an impressive speaker who has run a brilliant campaign — but if he wins in November, it will be because our country has already been transformed.
Incredibly effing lazy. I realize the whole "set up an extreme argument, put in the mouth of some vague, nameless group, and then knock that argument down" is a standard tactic among columnists. But it's still weak. Who are these "fervent supporters"? People in chat-rooms? WTF? Come on man, quit with the strawmanship and get serious.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
I quit reading Krugman months ago when he said all the hatred in this campaign came from cultish Obama supporters.
Someone should show him NoQuarterUSA or Hillaryis44.
Dumbass.
Honestly, I found that his opening lines were more than mere rhetorical flourish. They were setting up his central premise: that the nomination of Obama is an effect of progress in the U.S., rather than a hoped-for cause of such, should he win the Presidency.
While I have a qualified disagreement with this point of view (i.e., why can't Obama be both cause and effect? Yes, I have that much expectation for the candidate), I feel it's a tad unfair to dismiss it out-of-hand for its (admittedly somewhat hackneyed) opening sentences.
And I'm afraid the "fervent supporters of Barack Obama" is not a total straw man. Have you read Andrew Sullivan's posts for the last three months?
I'm steady trying to figure out what Krugman's problem with Obama is.
In any case, I did read the whole piece and I think Krugman is over-reaching a lot (and just plain wrong) when he says that pc-ness has driven "overt and strongly implied racism from out of our national discourse." We're still not anywhere near being able to bring to light--in full measure--the reality of race as it exists today. The reality that's currently (and consistently) obscured by in politico/msm coded language--the kind of language that fuels what's been deemed here and other places as "white paranoia," among other things.
Krugman is also wrong to say that "[r]acial polarization USED to be a dominating force in our politics." He need to look no further than Hillary's "kitchen sink" strategy to see that even the most "enlightened" or "liberal" of candidates see it as a viable way to run a race, but God forbid I ask Krugman to be critical of anyone other than Sen. Obama and conservatives, so another stark example is the immigration debate, where the crude racism of Juan Crow is aired in prime time (both in the media and in politics) and receives high ratings from viewers and voters alike.
That said, I don't think you need to know who the "fervent supporters" are to say that there are probably a significant number of folks out there who think that Obama's getting into the White House will mean change--transformation--is to come. Krugman is NOT wrong in saying that the fact that Obama is currently the Dem nominee from president and may become president of the US is an indication that change between, say, 1965 and now, has already occurred.
But you are right that it is a lazy point, and given Krugman's clearly anti-Obama stance even in the face of his clinching the nomination, I have a feeling that he's got a treasure chest of strawmen left to shoot up. And now, it'll seem even more justified as some "holding the presumptive feet to the fire, truth to power" bs.
Paul Krugman is nicely canceled out by Andrew Sullivan. Put those two in a box and call it a draw.
"'We will stand up in this election to bring about the change that won't just win an election, but will transform America,' [Obama] said wrapping up the speech of nearly 30 minutes."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/343185_obama12.html
I'm steady trying to figure out what Krugman's problem with Obama is.
The one he mentions is the Healthcare mandate thing.
The one he doesn't is that he probably believes choosing Obama is not the way to go to meaningfully take power back. Either Obama looses because of his race and lack of populism or doesn't consolidate because of his lack of populism, of his name-checking of "good conservatism" or his opposition to health care mandates.
Thanks for calling Krugman out on the straw man. He did that a lot while shamelessly shilling for Hillary. If we judge either Obama or Hillary by their more unhinged and unthinking supporters, then neither deserves to be dogcatcher in a town without dogs. The thing that bothered me even more in today's column was this sentence: "Mr. Obama, who has been dismissive of the boomers’ “psychodrama,” might want to give the generation that brought about this change, fought for civil rights and protested the Vietnam War a bit more credit." What?!?!?! This makes me wonder if the reason Krugman never seemed to get Obama is that he never actually ever listened to one of his speeches. Maybe it's just because I'm an incredibly perceptive person, but I thought Obama was evoking the civil rights movement - quite subtly to be sure - in his speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church. A lot of folks don't know it, but Ebenezer was Martin Luther King's church - the guy the holiday is named after. Big civil rights dude from the 60's. Very close followers of the news (a category that apparently does not include Krugman) may have also noted that Obama has been compared to Robert F Kennedy, another big anti-war, pro-civil rights guy in the 60's, even by the senior Senator from Massachusetts, who coincidentally has the same surname. (Is that Twilight Zone or what? I mean, what are the odds?)
>I'm steady trying to figure out what Krugman's problem with Obama is
The healthcare mandate issue is one thing. The other consistent point Krugman has made over the past year is that he's seen or heard Obama give credit to Republicans over certain issues (i.e., the fact that he's willing to consider whether or not sacred cows like Social Security and other entitlement programs warrant change), and most pointedly, that he gave credit to Reagan for having been an effective communicator.
I'm as big a believer as anyone that this country may never recover from the Reagan era, but you have to admit, the old [redacted] got a lot of people to guzzle the Kool Aid.
I kinda feel like it makes too vague of a point to be offensive. It's so not incisive and meandering I'm not exactly sure what I am supposed to come away with. If as another commenter suggested, those first few lines were rhetorical flourish, what the hell else did he say?
I must have read a different article. It didn't seem anti anything. I'm the biggest Obama supporter I know(both by deed and by finances) but we have to be able to read criticism about him without seeing red or being dismissive.
I thought Krugman's piece was accurate. Also, as I've said to many of my friend's, Hillary's tactics were just desparate hardball politics (being in debt 11 mill, will do that to a campaign). But more to the point. Her late stage tactics didn't get her a win, which I think is Krugman's point, that the politics of racial division doesn't have quite as much currency as it used to.