I have largely been an observer from the sidelines in this war of words that seems to be raging in the lefty bloglands.  But I have to agree with you that it is very frustrating to see how incapable many of us on the left are of seeing the larger picture here and making sure we understand the context in which things are being said and done.

With John Edward's candle essentially flickering out, we are quickly looking down the road at a two person race here, Hillary and Obama.

Would the people hammering Obama prefer Hillary?  If there are any progressives who really think that Hillary Clinton would pursue anything but a continuation of the corporate driven, centrist model which is poison to all things progressive, then they are truly delusional.

Keep up shit like this with Obama, folks, and Hillary and her corporate buddies is what you will get.  And don't come crying later saying you were hoodwinked.  The signs are all there for everyone to see.  Just look.

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity"

It's not your vote he needs. He needs the 'straight' community, he needs the business community, he needs the white (non-labor) vote, he needs to expand his appeal.

Uh, if he wants to get the nomination, he needs more Democrats to vote for him than vote for Hillary Clinton.  So yes he needs the votes of progressives. Once he gets to the GE (IF he gets there) he can expand the playing field.

That being said, I too have been disappointed in the ongoing conversation about Reagan and his legacy.  What a freakin' distraction.  Like we really need to re-hash all of this.  

But it's Obama's fault in the end. No matter why he said what he said, he said it in a way that opened up a conversation about Ronald Reagan. And Ronnie would have been laughing his ass of at Obama because Ronnie knew that anytime a candidate gives an interview and the public ends up talking about the opposition (even if the opposition is symbolized by a dead president) the opposition wins that political moment.  Ronnie, if he had wanted to be helpful, would have told Obama "Listen Buckaroo, make sure that when you give your interviews the topic following the interview is ... you. "

Krugman is stupid on this.  Much of the blogosphere is stupid on this.  But the fault lies with Obama and his attempt to do two things at once and fail. What do you gain if you achieve all the conservative endorsements in the world and yet you fail to attract the liberals you need to achieve the nomination?

Help me raise money for Jay Nixon, the next Democratic governor of Missouri

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.

Bush is "the first President to admit to an impeachable offense." --Former Nixon counsel John Dean

1. Obama is trying to expand the Democratic franchise.  I think that this is simply brilliant.

2. Some of his attempts have been clumsy and poorly done.  While i understand the whole Reagan thing, it's just too sophisticated and prone to misunderstanding.  I think, in the long run, this will be viewed as a big mistake. I really agree with Obama on this, too.  I FIRMLY reject all of Reagan's policies, while believeing, unfortunately, that Reagan did convince many that he had good ideas.

3. From 1976-1992, the Republicans WERE the Party of New Ideas.  Most were also Stupid Ideas, but new they were.  If you do not understand that the Republicans were contributing the new ideas and rewriting the political rule book during this period, you are an idiot.

4. Obama needs to carefully vett his ideas and public utterances to an oppo researcher, who will check them for anti-Obama spin potential.  He is getting in the soup because he is not thinking enough ahead of time about how Clinton and his wife will distort, lie, and flat out confuse the issue.

I FIRMLY believe that we will win if we expand the group of those who vote for the Democrat.  Reagan won in 1980 by INVENTING the Reagan Democrat - the socially conscious voter willing to vote his social agenda and damage his own economic agenda.  Can you imagine the Hillary Republican?  There is no such thing?  Can you imagine the Obama Republican?  I certainly can.  I think that there are Obama Republicans out there.

Today I have seen a few criticisms of Obama by our over-analyzing "Liberal Pinheads" about his AMAZING MLK day speech yesterday where he dared criticize the black community for their sometimes homophobic, anti-semitic and anti-immigrant behavior. It was criticism long overdue and for anyone who SAW the speech in its entirety and didn't just read that snipped-out paragraph that we all have seen, they would know that the audience applauded loudly at the criticism, acknowledging his courage for bringing it up.

But of course if you are an over-educated white Liberal Pinhead and lazily only read the paragraph in question, you might jump on your keyboard and proclaim that Obama is making a grave political error by daring insult blacks before the South Carolina Primary!

We have a rare opportunity in history right now to change the direction of politics for the better. If we fail at that and wind up continuing the Bush/Clinton Dynasty, it will be our own fault. It's ours to lose and if we white-liberal-pinheads (myself included) keep jumping to conclusions and sounding the alarm bells without doing our homework, we are going to deserve what we get.

A few months ago I mentioned that the progressive bloggers were criticizing Senator Clinton because she was trying to run a general election strategy.  All I ever heard was:
"Just who does she think she is?"  
"She's trying to run on invevitability"
"She doesn't pay attention to the progressives"

I told you guys that was her strategy so that she wouldn't have to tack right after the primaries.  
Made no difference.  She's evil.  la la la

Now Senator Obama comes along and basically does the same thing and he is OH SO SMART!  It doesn't matter what he says about us progressives.  He's a genius! He's just saying all this Reagan crap so that he gets people besides the progressives on board.  WOW!  And are we dumb to question his:

STRATEGY TO GET THE NOMINATION

There really is not much difference between any of the top three candidates on how they have voted and what there vision is for our country.  Any one of them will be a vast improvement over what we have now.

Obama is a trained lawyer, and has to be a thinker. One of the advantages of legal training is that it trains you to see the other side's point of view...and the same applies to football, or politics.

When Barack Obama says,

"Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not, and a way that Bill Clinton did not," he said, describing Reagan as appealing to a sentiment that, "We want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."

 This is not praise, this is analysis, and I think it is spot-on.  Now, I yield to no one in dislike for, and contempt of RR. I lived through both his term as Governor and President, and he totally screwed up California before he moved on the screw up the Nation and the World, but I have to acknowledge what he did succeed in doing, which was to hijack the New Deal and put anabashed greed in it's place. He was the Gordon Gecko of politics.

He didn't just change the politics, he changed the ideology, the framing, the zeitgeist, attitudes toward government which had been decades in building.  We are still trying to work past his dark vision back into  the light. I think Obama sees this, has some understanding of how it happened, and sees how it can be turned around.  I hope all the candidates do, but their initial reaction is a huge missing of the point.

The people who voted for Reagan are not necessarily evil, just misled by a bad leader.  There are positive aspects to the Reagan message, such as the clarity and optimism noted by Obama. In the hands of a good leader, positive, progressive things can be accomplished using some of the same tools Reagan used and abused. And Obama Republicans ?  Why not ?

Greatferm

Every  anti-Obama article from Krugman , to me, is just Krugman endorsing Hillary , he is such a whimp, why doesn't he just come OUT and say it in plain English. It is clear to me and my partner that is what he is doing. Even in articles like this where he is REALLY reaching for dinkleberries in a forest!

Maybe you can answer this question for me. Why did Obama bring up Reagan in the first place? This wasn't the first time he did it, either.

Booman, I absolutely agree with you!

Also from Krugman's column:

It's not just a matter of what happens in the next election. Mr. Clinton won his elections, but--as Mr. Obama correctly pointed out--he didn't change America's trajectory the way that Reagan did.

Well, I'd say that the great failure of the Clinton Administration--more important even than its failure to achieve health care reform, though the two failures were closely related--was the fact that it didn't change the narrative, a fact demonstrated by the way Republicans are still claiming to be the next Ronald Reagan. (Emphasis mine)

And I'm not so sure Billary ever wanted to change the narrative. What would it profit them?

While some progressives are picking and parsing everything Obama says--which is fine--they don't seem to be doing the same over the Clintons. Which is not fine. Who, if we're going to use her specious argument of "experience" gave us welfare deform--and remember how he was "ending welfare as we know it"? How DID we know welfare, Bill? We knew it by the use of the "welfare queens" narrative. And just where did that narrative come from? And that's only one example.

I saw this written elsewhere, but basically, Clinton didn't seek to change the prevailing narrative, but rather, to work within it...perfect it, if you will. Make it better. That's why many people said he was the best Republican president we've ever had.

Why should he get a third bite at the apple?

Can't hear ya, Peach!

The war to deconstruct the Reagan myth isn't for politicians. We are better off, I think, if politicians stay out of the mythology business, Reagan being a case in point.

It's our job to dismantle the lying shibboleth of the Reagan era. Reagan was an awful president, one of the worst in American history: a sociopath with a winning smile. But telling people that is our job, individually and, for those progressives who are writers, collectively.

It would be nice if this was not the case, but bear in mind that America -- thanks largely to the Republicans -- has the worst educational system in the industrialized world. We have a public that thinks stupidity and ignorance are funny and that well-educated people are "eggheads" and "pointy-headed intellectuals", and who turn out in vastly larger numbers to watch American Idol than they do to vote. What's Obama supposed to do, trot out Hale Stewart with his charts and graphs to delivery a five-paragraph essay to a public that gets dizzy when an advertisement exceeds thirty seconds?

Please. Thirty years of conservative sabotage is not undone in an afternoon.

That said, we need to keep chipping away at the gilded edifice of Reagan fascism. Natasha's beautiful body-slam of a rant today -- which practically made my toes tingle -- is entirely appropriate for that purpose. I don't think it ultimately has much bearing on the election, though. It may be necessary for politicians to engage in a symbolic kiss of the Reagan ass -- just so long as their actual policies shove a progressive boot up that same ass.

Would President Obama have such policies? Beats the hell out of me. I do know a Clinton presidency wouldn't, and an Edwards presidency looks highly unlikely right now. Such is the sorry real world.

---Cthulhu for President: Why vote for the lesser evil?

I should mention as a reader of the Reno Gazette Journal, I would not categorize them as either conservative or particularly liberal. They are actually pretty balanced and their editorial board is as well. Reno is a city with its share of both meat-&-potatoes conservatives and organic-crunchy-granola liberals with one major newspaper that has to compete with the San Francisco and Sacramento papers, which are also available at every news stand or by delivery. Just so that's clear.

I agree that he was trying to appeal to the editorial board and he did that well by talking about how this election cycle is one where a real change in direction is possible and compared it to when both Reagan AND Kennedy were elected. Of course the video clip that all of the lazy bloviators (including Krugman) saw seemed to be missing the part about Kennedy and any of the context from which the Reagan comments came. Instead they just over-analyzed the paragraph that was in the clip fed to them by Clinton dirty-tricksters.

Obama did NOT endorse any of Reagan's policies. In fact, as a community organizer in South Chicago, he was most likely fighting to reverse Reagan's tragic policies. He was merely discussing the history of politics and mentioned both Kennedy and Reagan's successes (and Nixon & Clinton's missed opportunities) in changing the direction of the nation, for better or worse.

For the record, here is the relevant portion of RGJ's endorsement of Obama:

One can fairly describe Obama's philosophical optimism and charismatic manner as too idealistic, even a tad dreamy. But he also demonstrates the courage to stand his ground where necessary, willing, for instance, to salute both President John Kennedy and President Ronald Reagan as agents of change in times when the country needed change.

how come when people attack Obama for praising Reagan, they never criticize the many times the two Clintons also praised Reagan?
more importantly, Bill Clinton expanded on more than one of Reagan's programs while he was in office. i expect nothing difference from Hillary.

The sleep of reason begets tyrants. -Goya

A most insightful post! Any hope of getting this posted over at Daily Kos?
I've been so frustrated to see so many in the progressive community doing the work of the right-wing hate-mongers. Why are they trying so hard to destroy the only progressive candidate left on our side? There seems to be a total lack of understanding of how the political works.

The Clinton's have been demagoguing on this heavily.  Today Clymer and Franklin told him to shut up.
CNN reported that Kennedy and Immanuel also told Bill to chill.