1-2 Knockout: Krugman: Sixteen Years (of Intellectual Dishonesty)

Sometime around 5am this morning (sleep is for the weak) I read a week-old post from our favorite economistliberal acolyte, Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman.  Beginning his career as a caterpillar economist (churning out paper after paper by candlelight from the drafty Princetonian economics basement) he apparently cocooned sometime ago and morphed into a beautiful butterfly (aesthetically pleasing, but lacking substance or utility) for the NYT and democratic party.

via 1-2 Knockout: Krugman: Sixteen Years (of Intellectual Dishonesty).

Welcome to the White House, Barack Obama – WSJ.com

That is what an administration owes the country. But it is not all it owes. There is also the matter of governing. Team Obama is about to learn that it’s easier to campaign than to govern.

In fact, they are already learning it. Last February, Congress passed a stimulus bill, adding $152 billion to the deficit. Mr. Obama called it “deficit spending” and criticized the “disdain for pay-as-you-go budgeting” in Washington. Now he forecasts trillion dollar deficits on his watch. Mr. Obama, the candidate, criticized the “careless and incompetent execution” of the Iraq war. But as president-elect, he decided to retain George W. Bush’s defense secretary and put a Bush adviser in charge of the National Security Council.

via Karl Rove: Welcome to the White House, Barack Obama – WSJ.com.

Comment

Mr. Rove makes many good points, that campaigning is about soft promises, but governing is about hard decisions. I hope, and suspect, that President Obama is up for the challenge, but recent events have poked some holes in the supposed infallability of the Obama camp.