New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has proclaimed in a Rolling Stone article that Barack Obama is one of the most successful presidents in American history. So it’s not surprising that liberal National Public Radio came calling for an interview that aired on Monday night’s All Things Considered.
Anchor Robert Siegel began by asking about popularity: “ Considering that a majority of Americans tell pollsters that they disapprove of President Obama's performance, by what measure is he succeeding?” Krugman reasonably explained that presidents should try to be something besides popular, should achieve something.
Krugman’s overarching socialist narrative was that Obamacare is a Earth-shaking landmark, regardless of its popularity. Siegel unleashed an absolutely classic example of the liberal NPR weltanschaunng. A “major benefit” should be automatically, ideologically “welcomed” by the American people:
KRUGMAN: But just health reform alone makes Barack Obama the biggest thing that's happened since Lyndon Johnson, at least if you're a liberal.
SIEGEL: But Obamacare -- health reform -- the biggest social benefit in decades, as you said, is actually more unpopular than the president is. Shouldn't a major benefit be welcomed by the public that it's been created to serve?
KRUGMAN: Two things there. The first is, a significant fraction of the people who say they don't support it actually don't support it 'cause they wanted something even more. They wanted Medicare for all. If you ask people, should be repealed, a majority says no.
Siegel also questioned Krugman from the left when it came to prosecuting Wall Street:
SIEGEL: You write about financial regulation. Since the great financial crisis, no big Wall Street types have gone to prison. The regulatory response to what happened is tiny compared to what FDR created after the Great Depression and the crash of the markets. Couldn't there've been a little bit more dynamic response to things?
KRUGMAN: I would've liked to see some prosecutions. I would've liked to see tougher regulations. But this reform gets bad-mouthed much more than it deserves. It's not as tiny as people say.
But the main point was Krugman insisting that Obama was far greater than Ronald Reagan, because Reagan never repealed the welfare state, and besides, winning the Cold War doesn’t really mean much next to constructing American socialism:
SIEGEL: There's a word that's used about Ronald Reagan - and I think Bill Clinton aspired to this designation - being a transformative president. Do you think Barack Obama is a transformative president? Is the country significantly different because of his leadership, do you think, over whatever it will be - eight years?
KRUGMAN: Yeah. In fact, I would say that Obama is much more of a transformative president than either Clinton or Reagan. Clinton, although he emerged from his time very popular, in the end - well, he didn't get health care reform. He did not leave lasting institutional changes in American society.
And Reagan, although, you know, he's practically deified on the right, we still had Social Security, we still had Medicare. We still had the essential structure of U.S. government that FDR and LBJ left behind. Reagan did not manage to change that, whereas Obama has left us as a country, which more or less, has the universal guarantee of health insurance. So no, it's an odd thing. No one will believe it, but if you're asking about really having transformed America, Obama is the leader among those three presidents.
Siegel concluded by asking why Obamacare isn’t more popular, and Obama’s failure to persuade the public. Sadly, NPR didn’t get out a mirror and consider the liberal media itself failing to persuade the public, despite trying throughout this presidency to promote Obamacare to the people “served” by this “benefit,” dragged out of their paychecks:
SIEGEL: Just one other point about the unpopularity of the Affordable Care Act. You've offered an explanation of that, but given Barack Obama's gift for oratory and what an effective campaigner he has been, shouldn't there be some dimension of leadership that would effectively make the argument to people that this is indeed a very good bill? That is, can we attribute to him some inability to articulate what's so good about his major achievement?
KRUGMAN: No question.
