Paul Krugman: Obama WILL Win -- and Then Media Will Crucify Him

Speaking at an early afternoon panel at Netroots Nation in Austin, Texas, today, Paul Krugman predicted, with seeming confidence, an Obama victory in November -- but added that "within three months of taking office, no, less than three months" the media would be out to get him, as much as they had at the high point of anti-Bill Clinton bashing.

Krugman was responding to a questioner who had stated that the media was "in the pocket" of the "government." Krugman pointed out that this was hardly the case when Clinton was in the White House and would be proven again when Obama took over. "Get ready for it," he warned.

He pointed out that this was not necessarily the case when a Republican came to power. In fact, much of his presentation was based on the lack of "symmetry" in how the media goes after Democrats and Republicans. Look at the most recent example of "outrage" over Nancy Pelosi saying that President Bush had totally failed, he said. Would the media, he asked, have batted an eye if a conservative had said the same of a Democratic president?

Krugman also said that there were relatively few prominent academic liberals such as himself because the liberal think tanks only get a fraction of the money that goes to the conservative ones. "There are more rightwing billionaires," he declared.

Other panelists included Duncan Black of the Eschaton blog and Rick Pearlstein, author of "NIxonland," along with the blogger known as "Digby." They all added insights on the title of the panel, which was "How the Media Learned to Bend Over Backward to Please the Right."
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Greg Mitchell's new book is So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq. He is editor of Editor & Publisher.

Comments

[ohboynotagain]

Listen who really gives a "DAMN" if the surge is working? I mean who really cares? All this BS about the surge is working yeah and so what. Iraq is helping us how? I am smart enough to know that Iraq had nothing to do with what happened here and I work in Manhattan, saw the towers fall while standing in the middle of 5th Ave. So again who really gives a damn if the surge is working. Iraq didnt start this so the F'ing surge can work all it wants to, the soldiers didn't need to be there. They had the righteous and true first mission which was to get bin Laden head and the Republican Commander in whatever he is, pulled them to go kick out a dictator. Nice bit of cammanding right. Oh yeah and the surge is working.

[research]

the Iraq government has stood up and asked us to leave, our job is done. bring em home.

Iraqi deaths are much worse since the surge:
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/8435/44707948gm6.jpg

So exactly how has the surge worked?

[research]

the us troop deaths are not significantly down either.

http://www.johnnyproctor.com/amy/US_death_toll.jpg

[Kassandra]

Obama will win and the FED will pull the plug on the economy. I hope Americans will remember just who it was who did this to US.

[nomobull]

go back to sleep

[mypov123]

Oh we'll remember what Obama did for this country. We also remember Bill Clinton's "welfare reform" and the deregulation of the FCC under his administration. Welfare reform and deregulation have always been on the Republican agenda.

[egal]

Fortunately, the MSM has proven their irrelevance. Most of the younger generations don't trust them, with very good reason. They are flagrantly partial, partisan, and Republican-spin mouthpieces, so unless they start to act like what they were originally conceived to be in reining in government, it doesn't actually matter how much they attack Obama. Nobody who matters and has a lick of sense will be listening.

[S1m0n]

On the other hand, Krugman was pretty certain that Hillary would win the primary.

[SCG]

If this is the case, and I suspect it maybe, the press will be out of sync with a majority of the public. Ironically this is much the same situation that Reagan faced, and he managed well with a smile and a sense of humor. I think Barack can do the same, staying positive and upbeat.

Can't make everyone happy.

[jmundstuk]

We won't let 'em! That's the big difference.

[research]

If most voters can't see through Faux Noise, we are in bad shape.

Tell everyone to watch KO, Daily, Colbert, NOW.

if you like radio talk shows, listen to Air America.

If your on the net, you should already be informed. It's all at your fingertips.

[Durango]

But voters saw through the Clinton Whitewater BS and it didn't seem to make any difference.

The Media continued spewing the Right Wing fantasies about Clinton's corruption. Based on NOTHING.

Nothing except the well documented Arkansas Project and the ravings of Mellon Scaif.

Yet they have let Bush and the Republicans quite literally get away with murder.

( I mean literally. murder. The record will show that Bush authorized the attack on Al Jazeera headquarters in both Kabul and Baghdad. Murder. He also wanted to attack al Jazeera in Dubai but was discouraged.)

That is of course along with torture, illegal wiretapping for political purposes, lying our way into war ,. destruction of the Constitution etc etc, etc.

Somehow the Corporate Media never seemed to get onto any of this.

But they will find numerous "scandals" in the trivial workings of the Obama Administration. All taken out of context of course. With no proof necessary.

The Big Lie works by simply repeating the false information often enough and loud enough.

[research]

The big lie and projection have worked since before Caesar. We are asking a lot for voters to suddenly figure it out after thousands of years of being befuddled, But I can hope.

[research]

Great book on the subject:
"the Republican Noise machine"

Always check out the source.

[nellie]

I'm trying to figure out the point of this article. I agree that the media is going to attack Obama as soon as Obama follows through on some of his anti-lobbyist and anti-corporate philosophies. The internet and progressive radio have been pushing back against the corporate media for a little more than eight years, and it has made a tremendous difference. If we continue to support the growth of independent media, progressive media, internet news analysis and television rising stars like Rachel Maddow, we'll continue to make progress.

[Shaddup]

And for that you'll need NET NEUTRALITY which they're already lobbying against.

[Kassandra]

Thank you for that. This is a huge threat to our freedom of speech on the net and no one seems to pay any attention to it.

Another board I was on used to fall asleep whenever I posted something about it. It's a real threat. And now, Chris Dodd, our great champion has introduced and it has passed, an amendment to the friggin' housing bill to enable the Gov to collect all our online info on credit cards transactions.

Better pay attention people! All the news worthy to print doesn't even make it onto the Progressive boards

[renatam]

If by MEDIA, you mean The New Yorker and their ilk, then I wouldn't count on past being prologue. The New Yorker found out this week what BLOWBACK feels like. After Scott McClellan telling Americans HOW he played the media establishment (celebrities, not journalists -- just leveraging Constitutionally freedom protections for the word) to manipulate the American people -- and Internet bloggers who think for ourselves and take citizenship seriously, HRC/Fox "News"/Republicans, etc. should not plan for their usual party of commoditizing conflicts between factions who MUST work on behalf of the American people/taxpayers who support them all -- and this dysfunctional system.

Separating for-profit media from news/journalism -- aka re-regulating media and holding firm on standards we expect from the giveaway of our SPECTRUM -- would be a good start for the Obama Administration. Of course, first, the re-regulation of the financial industries comes first.

Obama will have to undo everything given away for nothing -- at the expense of Americans-- during the Bush/Clinton years. Not one share of stock or home asset -- will be safe, laying as it is on a Ponzi scheme created by speculators who have been in a faustian bargain w/Wall Street and our Treasury Department for decades. That is WHY the head of Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and our Treasury Cabinet Post are basically intertwined. The American people have NO representatives in the Bush/Clinton dynasties. Media deregulation/Clinton-- forged bonds w/Scott McClellan, etc.-- to prevent accountability on ANY level.

[RedDogBear]

You are so naive. Do you really think the publishers of the New Yorker are quivering in their offices afraid of all the rightous indignation they have stirred up? That cover was a calculated move to stir up publicity for the magazine and it worked better than they probably dreamed it would. And "re-regulating media" (first of all when was it ever regulated?). Who do you think Obama is Castro? The right would go insane if he even talked about the kind of "regulation" you are hinting at.

I support Obama but I don't think he is some kind of mesiah. He is a centrist democrat. His positions on the issues are barely different than Senator Clintons. His election will be a big step forward but only that. Mr. Krugman for once is right on in describing how the MSM will kick in their slime machine if he is elected. Obama will need all our support as well as pressure to put this country back on a path that doesn't sell it out entirely to the super rich and large corporations.

[egal]

The point isn't that Obama will do anything to them, but that the public simply doesn't respect them in any manner. They lose money because their dishonesty turns us away from them, and even if they don't care about the political furor, they'll care about the constantly and drastically plummeting ratings that equal falling income.

[NormDPloom]

The MSM is simply not very, if at all, interested in helping the country to understand, or even be aware of, serious issues. Journalism is now mostly "Gotcha" journalism. Every nuanced reply that is not an exact replica of something said before is now a "flip flop". Anything that requires any degree of concentration or discipline to learn about is "too boring".

The "free press" is becoming more and more useless.

[Shaddup]

The Harvard School of Business managers never took a journalism class.

[TheRebel82]

The corporate media is too corrupt. Me thinks President Obama should start repealing the corporations monopoly on media.

[Doofus]

Still, this is NOT a reason not to elect Obama. More to the point,
if Hillary had made it, Paul Krugman would be looking at a cabinet post.

Usually, every President gets a 100-day 'grace' period anyway, so there's
Krugman's three months. The media really isn't doing any kind of a job
if it lays off for any longer than that, for any president.

Problem was for Booosh, and his Repo predecessors, is the MSM seemed
to hold back longer, and that was probably due to Big Media Repo connections.

[ESerafina42]

Excuse me, but Bill Clinton didn't even get that - the R's announced immediately that he would not get a "honeymoon" and they, as well as the media, followed through. The same thing would have happened to Hillary, and it will happen to Obama, too, despite his wanting everyone to cozy up together - which of course means that he will NOT allow any investigation or prosecution of the criminal acts that have been going on for the past eight years.

Incidentally, no one would be more thrilled than I to be proved wrong, but that's what I think will happen.

[Durango]

Yeah I remember the travel office scandal.

Imagine, Hillary using patronage to fill patronage positions. The nerve of that woman.

[gurukalehuru]

It won't take 3 months. They'll be attacking Obama from his inaugural speech forward. The right wing slant of the American media has become embarrassingly transparent, and they are making less and less attempt to conceal it.

[gulopartisan]

The government is in the hands of the media, not vice versa. If Obama wins, we will have broken their grip, not their backs. The backs are next. I'm confident that the MSM will use the Obama administration as a four-year run-up to their next fascist puppet. Will they succeed? Only if we rest on our success. The next step is to decentralize media through the FCC, then to remove international fascists from the heads of media corporations. It will be a long battle, but the alternative is a Third Reich.