Tell It, Paul!

Paul Krugman is hot in today's column, "Fear Strikes Out." He draws a contrast between the two major parties. On the one hand you have President Obama at the head of the Democratic Party, appealing to all that is sane and good and generous in us and on the other hand the Republicans, personified by Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Chuck Grassley and the Tea Party protesters appealing to all that bent, craven, stingy and hateful.

None of this is new, of course. Reagan was better at the think-positive rhetoric than the current crop of GOP troglodytes--"It's morning in America!"--but Ronnie sowed fear and suspicion with the best of them. Remember welfare queens? And as Krugman points out in this very column, then California governor Reagan declaimed that the institution of Medicare would spell the end of the American way of life. I remember a black classmate of mine named Adrienne at my elementary school in Virginia who on March 30, 1981 ran down the corridor shouting, "Reagan got shot! Reagan got shot! I hope he's dead!" While I did not then and do not now wish death or physical violence on any person including Ronald Reagan or any of the current crop of Republican leaders, I will say that even at the age of eleven, Adrienne knew the score. She could read the code as well as any of Ronnie's placard-bearing constituents and could tell how little Reagan and his followers cared about her and her kind. What's remarkable to me is how little things have changed in this regard in the past thirty years. It's as if the election of a president who is not only--relatively speaking--a progressive, but a black progressive has stirred up a lot of truly foul sludge from the bottom of the barrel.

It's a good thing in the long run. Get the shit out in the open, I say. Get the bastards so spitting mad that they show their true colors. I can only add that it's a good thing we have people like Paul Krugman to shine a spotlight on them when they let their pants down. I just wish more politicians would follow suit. Obama doesn't have to be so damn nice to the Republicans. He ribbed them a little in the State of the Union, but it was a good-natured ribbing, like a joke between friends that don't always see eye to eye. The Republicans are not Obama's friends, and his assumption that at least a few of them could be won over with charm and reason very nearly cost him his great health care achievement.

But for now let's give three cheers that heath insurance reform did make it through. It is a great achievement for Obama, for the 111th Congress and for the nation.

Hip-hip, hooray!

Hip-hip, hooray!

Hip-hip, hooray!