Krugman took Obama to school. Wow!

[kerrybama08]

If you squeeze everything Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich have written this year, you won't get half the substance in today's column by Krugman.

his piece today mae a strong argument against several of Obama's assertions in San Francisco. These two struck me as very interesting:

1) Claim: Small town jobs were lost and never replaced:
Debunking: Krugman notes that whatever jobs were lost were replaced with better ones, judging by the raising income, adjusted after inflation, during the Clinton years.



And just in case any of you wants to make the point that "it is not about income, but about jobs", remember that there was a net gain of jobs in the Clinton years. Not a loss.

2) Claim: Poor people in the midwest and south cling to guns and religion because of financial hardship.
Debunking: Krugman notes the obvious: The South is a traditionally religious area, period.
Why do poor people from Montana and Maine attend church at a smaller rate than its richer counterpart, Connecticut? How can Obama explain that only poor people from one area and not the other, according to his theory, are led to "cling" to religion, and even guns, because of financial hardship?

At the end of the piece Krugman asks Obama a favor:

let’s hope that once Mr. Obama is no longer running against someone named Clinton, he’ll stop denigrating the very good economic record of the only Democratic administration most Americans remember.

This is arguably Krugman's best piece this year:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/opinion/18krugman.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin