"Unqualified" by Paul Krugman at the NYTimes

[applegrove]

Unqualified

by Paul Krugman at the NYTimes

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/10/unqualified/

"SNIP.............................................


Yet there are some skills that do apply to both campaigning and governing — above all, an ability to face up to reality. And this, we’re now learning, was a skill that the Romney campaign utterly lacked. At least if postmortems are to be believed, they drank their own Kool-Aid, “unskewing” the polls and thus failing to understand what anyone reading Sam Wang, Drew Linzer, or Nate Silver knew.

Now, it’s one thing to do this and misjudge the prospects of rival American candidates. But suppose Romney had somehow ended up winning, and made the same kind of misjudgement of, say, Iran or al Qaeda — or of the economic outlook. Living in a bubble of conservative denial can lose much more than an election if it becomes a style of governing.

And look, we’ve already seen that play. Remember the Bush administration’s state of denial over the failing occupation of Iraq? (We were supposed to be welcomed as liberators, and the Bushies were the last to realize that it wasn’t happening). Remember how Bush’s aides ended up making a DVD of Katrina coverage to get his attention and convince him that Brownie wasn’t actually doing a heckuva job?

So this time the campaign was indeed an indicator of fitness to govern. Romney wasn’t ready, and neither was his party.



.............................................SNIP"

[cui bono]

1. It's really great that there are so many articles about the Republican denial and bubble

being written now. Hopefully it will make a difference and change some people's minds.

[applegrove]

2. Nobody says it as well as Krugman. He hits it out of the ballpark all the time.

[Cha]

3. That's exactly right what Krugman's pointing out about romney running his campaign

like he would govern. In denial and incompetently and he'd get up there and LIE his head off to the American People. We are so Lucky we and the Planet Dodged that Plutocratic Bullet!

I did not know this..

Remember how Bush’s aides ended up making a DVD of Katrina coverage to get his attention and convince him that Brownie wasn’t actually doing a heckuva job?

Thanks applegrove! Are, people in Canada that you've talked to.. happy Obama won?

[applegrove]

6. Everybody I know or talked too wanted Obama to win. Everyone

was saying during the election "what is with those republicans, they are crazy". There is a huge sigh of relief up here too.

[Cha]

8. Brilliant!

[Democat]

4. Isn't that the story of the Bush presidency - living in their own reality?

Remember WMD and when the people of the Middle East were going to love America forever if America took out Saddam? Trickle down economics is another part of that reality.

[union_maid]

5. Absolutely!

This election simply shows that a significant portion of the Republican party have not made the move into the reality based community.

[reusrename]

7. After reading the comments to Krugman, some seem unsure whether Romney was unqualified.

Organizing a canned goods drive for the Red Cross in response to hurricane Sandy is disqualifying.

No doubt about it.

Being from FL, I can assure you that the one thing folks do not need in the immediate aftermath is more cans of soup. Ice, tarps, (and in the case of Sandy, warm dry blankets), are an immediate need. Anyone who wants to rule the free world should have a firmer grasp of reality than these guys did.

It's scary!

[jsmirman]

9. Most inadequate candidate for President in my lifetime

worse than W, which is just incredible.

The number of times this guy tried to bully people with "check the transcript" and was wrong was unnerving.

His lying and then his aggressive defense of those lies was terrifying.

I found his concession speech to be one of the most inadequate, unpresidential, unprepared pieces of piffle imaginable.

I believe the paucity of content in his concession speech said it all about this empty suit of a candidate.

McCain at least had something to say when it was all over. Not that he's covered himself in garlands since, but on that night he was at least able to do a big boy job of conceding.

Spoiled little rich brat Mitt couldn't do the same.