Paul Krugman of the New York Times takes some of luster off of the McCain and Giuliani campaigns. Times Select link:
Senator John McCain, whose reputation for straight talk is quickly getting bent out of shape, appears to share the Bush administration’s habit of rewriting history to preserve an appearance of infallibility.
Last month Senator McCain asserted that he knew full well what we were getting into by invading Iraq: “When I voted to support this war,” Mr. McCain said on MSNBC, “I knew it was probably going to be long and hard and tough, and those that voted for it and thought that somehow it was going to be some kind of an easy task, then I’m sorry they were mistaken.”
But back in September 2002, he told Larry King, “I believe that the operation will be relatively short,” and “I believe that the success will be fairly easy.”
And as for Rudy Giuliani, there are so many examples of his inability to accept criticism that it’s hard to choose.
Here’s an incident from 1997. When New York magazine placed ads on city buses declaring that the publication was “possibly the only good thing in New York Rudy hasn’t taken credit for,” the then-mayor ordered the ads removed — and when a judge ordered the ads placed back on, he appealed the decision all the way up to the United States Supreme Court.
Now imagine how Mr. Giuliani would react on being told, say, that his choice to head Homeland Security is actually a crook. Oh, wait.
Now if these words were being written by Gail Collins then it would be clear that the Times is coming out against Conventional Wisdom on McCain in a big way. This is not that. But while this sort of commentary is all over both liberal and conservative blogs, the Times is the paper of record and the op-ed page is a mighty pulpit.
Krugman’s column on whole is about the need for humility and introspective analysis in our presidential candidates. He cites John Edwards as the model of this, while Hillary Clinton, McCain and Giuliani are much closer to the Bush/Cheney model of infallibility. It’s taken from a primarily Democratic perspective, explaining why the Democratic base wants presidential candidates to apologize for their vote to authorize war in Iraq.
I wonder if there is a parallel need within the Republican base to have a nominee who breaks the Bush/Cheney philosophy of executive infallibility and shows a propensity for serious self-analysis, not just on the war in Iraq but on all policy issues?
Technorati Tags: John McCain, Paul Krugman, Rudy Giuliani
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