Unfortunately, the progressive movement is replete with pinheads that think running for president is some kind of academic exercise.

1 -- I think that, ironically enough, Obama's statement was precisely an academic exercise. If you read the whole quote, he was talking about how power goes to those who can take the unfocused attitudes of the population at the moment and turn them into messages that might focus those attitudes into political opinion. If he praised Reagan, it was as the head of a group of skilled propagancists, not as a president, not as a policy maker. There was no suggestion that the change in direction that Reagan brought was a good thing. I don't see how that could be any clearer.

If Obama was pandering, it was not the to editors' political leanings, but to their wish that he know how politics is done. It was a way of illustrating how one might reach out and tap unformed feelings and turn them to political loyalties. To me, it's gratifying to witness a Dem politician who might actually understand how to build winning coalitions, not by adopting the opposition positions, but by showing how liberal/left solutions work better than rightwing ones in attaining the larger goals. I'm a progressive or whatever is to the left of progressive, but I intensely favor small government, minimal bureaucracy, and maximum individual liberty in personal affairs. If Dems feel the same way, it's long past time for them to get smart enough to show how a bloated military and security state, sweetheart contracts with the corporate industrial complex, privatization, creeping theocracy, and uncontrolled "globalism" are the enemy, not the protectors of those values.

Instead, we get the spectacle of Dems seeming to promote big government, inefficiency, intrusiveness, and bureaucratic authoritarianism. Being forced by the current ridiculous tempest among the liberal/left at least has the benefit of seeing what frightened conservatives so many of us have become, and what Change really has to mean if we are to finally create a governing majority without depending on freakishly charismatic candidates or GOP haplessness. If Obama understands that we should be celebrating, not bitching.

2 -- Krugman was apparently out to lunch on this, but calling him silly names is grossly uncalled for. He's been one of the few mainstream voices to seriously challenge the ReaganBush economic Big Lie while Dem pols largely confine themselves to gotcha trivia. Krugman deserves our respect and thanks, not kneejerk attacks when he gets something wrong.

3 -- I disagree that Dems could not tear down the wall of bullshit around Reagan's legacy. They'd have to do it by showing that he began the redistribution from the poor and middle to the rich that, under the Bushes, has led to our national bankruptcy and a historic rich/poor gap. That his bullying foreign policy marked the start of a huge bureaucratic buildup. That his attacks on personal liberties have led to the repressive society we have today. True, we won't win by trying to write Reagan's legacy. But we will win by tying what he started to the inevitable disaster Bush and the Republican Party have visited upon our country.

If Obama understands that, maybe he is the one we need. Just because the Clintons made a horrific mess out of a Third Way doesn't mean we couldn't use one.

FDR's response to progressive demands: "I agree. Now go out and make me do it."