Krugman Worries about the Next Obama "Compromise"

Paul Krugman has nailed the frustration of the left with Obama's "negotiating" with himself rather than fighting for the rights of the working and middle class. From a post on his NY Times blog:

Steve Benen and Ezra Klein both point out that by negotiating with himself, Obama seems to have ensured that the eventual budget “compromise” will give Republicans more than they ever imagined in the way of harsh cuts.

Maybe this is just political realism. But the way I see it, Obama adopted Republican framing of the budget debate — including the rhetoric about how families are tightening their belts so the government should too — as early as the 2010 State of the Union, back when Democrats had 59 Senate seats and control of the House. If that genuflection to the right was supposed to help Dems in the midterms, well, it didn’t; and it has meant that there is no effective counter-argument to the cut cut cut people.

So, can we now count on Obama, at least, not to preemptively surrender to the right by proposing Social Security cuts — cuts that we know will be a starting point, not an end to the discussion?

No, we can’t.

What I can't understand is that Obama persists in "negotiating" when it has been proven again and again that the Republicans are not serious. Their "negotiations" are elaborate maneuvers to use Obama against himself to box him into a Republican position. Obama is smart so you would expect he would learn from the bad experiences to date. But he has shown no ability to recognize how he has be had and continues to give himself over to the Republicans. Amazing.

The political left needs a leader. Obama has demonstrated unwillingness to lead the left. He is a centrist. During his victory speech in November 2008 he made it clear that he would not lead. He told his followers that he was counting on them to build the political pressure to force change. He wasn't going to lead. He would follow. And as a centrist, he seems very unwilling to follow any popularist push arising from the Wisconsin fight (or any of the other states where there is now a groundswell to counter Republican maneuvers to gut budgets, destroy unions, remove services to the bottom 90% of the population, and hand out yet more tax cuts to the ultra-rich).