Paul Krugman: Just say no to Hillary

It should come as no surprise that a furious backlash against a Hillary coronation is building; after the disastrous reign of the Bush dynasty, there is a deep and abiding unease about simply handing the seat of power to yet another dynasty. The stakes are always high in a Presidential election; this time, the nation needs real leadership to undo the damage done, to make whole the injuries sustained in the most catastrophic "Presidency" in our history. This is not a time for formulaic, safe politics, not when the nation is facing a constitutional crisis brought on by an administration increasingly enveloped in madness and bent on war.

Interestingly, much the same process - rejection of the heir annointed by the party power establishment, baptized in a flood of warm dollars - is taking place on the republican side of the aisle as well; ask John McCain about his troubles. Surprisingly, the republicans are further along in their rejection of the status-quo candidate than we are; on our side, matters are complicated by the comeback attempt of a dynasty fortified by loyal retainers, eager to destroy our republican form of government, the better to advance the interests of their corporate paymasters.

Thankfully, we still have Paul Krugman. Read on.

From The New York Times:

For the last six years we have been ruled by men who are pathologically incapable of owning up to mistakes. And this pathology has had real, disastrous consequences. The situation in Iraq might not be quite so dire - and we might even have succeeded in stabilizing Afghanistan - if Mr. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney had been willing to admit early on that things weren't going well or that their handpicked appointees weren't the right people for the job.

The experience of Bush-style governance, together with revulsion at the way Karl Rove turned refusal to admit error into a political principle, is the main reason those now-famous three words from Mr. Edwards - "I was wrong" - matter so much to the Democratic base.

The base is remarkably forgiving toward Democrats who supported the war. But the base and, I believe, the country want someone in the White House who doesn't sound like another George Bush. That is, they want someone who doesn't suffer from an infallibility complex, who can admit mistakes and learn from them.

And there's another reason the admission by Mr. Edwards that he was wrong is important. If we want to avoid future quagmires, we need a president who is willing to fight the inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom on foreign policy, which still - in spite of all that has happened - equates hawkishness with seriousness about national security, and treats those who got Iraq right as somehow unsound. By admitting his own error, Mr. Edwards makes it more credible that he would listen to a wider range of views.

In truth, it's the second issue, not the first, that worries me about Mrs. Clinton. Although she's smart and sensible, she's very much the candidate of the Beltway establishment - an establishment that has yet to come to terms with its own failure of nerve and judgment over Iraq.

Hillary Clinton: not quite Dick Cheney in a dress. But if we want healing and change (not to mention a Democratic President), she's not the contender to give the nomination to. The country does not need another gilded princeling riding family ties to power, or someone who can't admit to her own mistakes. We are better than that, we deserve better than that, we must have better than that.

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