Quote of the Day

Obama will go down in history as the progressive darling who destroyed the legacy of the New Deal.

That's from a post by Paul Krugman on his NY Times blog. It is important to get context for the above:

Social Security on the Table?

Bob Kuttner must have some source for this story, about Obama planning to propose Social Security cuts in the State of the Union. Let’s hope it’s just a trial balloon.

I’ve written about this many, many times on the substance: this is absolutely the wrong place to cut if you’re serious about fiscal issues. It’s where the money isn’t; and in terms of securing Social Security itself, it’s deeply illogical: in order to avoid the possibility of future benefit cuts, we’re cutting future benefits.

But just to repeat what Digby and others have said. this would be a political disaster on two levels. It’s not just that progressive activists would sit on their hands in disgust; Republicans would, inevitably, run ads attacking Democrats for cutting Social Security. You think that’s crazy? They just won the House in part by accusing Democrats of cutting Medicare.

Anyway, let’s hope it’s not for real. Otherwise, Obama will go down in history as the progressive darling who destroyed the legacy of the New Deal.

I believe there is more than enough evidence from Obama "negotiating with himself" to establish that Obama is very likely to go down this path. Sad. This is a tragedy for the US.