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Go Home How Cynical Is Krauthammer? Answer Inside...

JONATHAN CHAIT DECEMBER 17, 2010

How Cynical Is Krauthammer? Answer Inside...

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

The other day I was pointing out the trickiness of conservatives following Charles Krauthammer and opposing the tax deal because it will improve economic growth in 2012:

[N]either Romney nor Krauthammer quite say that the growth-boosting effects of the deal are a reason to oppose it. Rather they argue that the higher growth isn't worth the budgetary cost, making it surely the first time either one of them has rejected a debnt-financed tax cut on the basis of its effects on the national debt. It will be interesting to watch anti-deal Republicans try to make their case by hinting at electoral ramifications without coming out and saying so directly.

So, how did Krauthammer's subtle case for economic sabotage play with Republicans? Apparently it wasn't subtle enough, reports Glenn Thrush:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — who recently claimed his goal was to deny Obama a second term — reportedly reacted with disgust when he read Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer’s recent suggestion that he oppose the package because it would lower unemployment “and easily be the difference between victory and defeat in 2012.” 

Said one person close to McConnell: “We’re not going to bet against the economy. If it helps Obama, so be it. We’ll do it. Who gives a s--t?”

Wow, when Mitch McConnell is disgusted by your cynical obstructionism...

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8 comments

- Wasn't Mitch stuck with the deal as soon as it became public? He didn't float a balloon so he was too far in by the time anyone on the right could object. So whether he accounted for the blow-back or not, his reaction would be the same. And if there is one thing Krauthammer should know about McConnell? He's intractable.

- michaelg

December 17, 2010 at 4:11pm

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I still don't know how I stuck with tnr back in the 80's when they had Krauthammer, Barnes, and Kondracke on the masthead at the same time. I must have been too distracted by my college love life to notice the hideousness of that subscriber killing market strategy. By the time I came up for air, these three fiends were gone.

- MrCookie1

December 17, 2010 at 4:19pm

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MrCookie: I started reading TNR in the early 1980's. These people were all more tolerable when they were focusing on what many of us would consider the excess of liberalism. Remember, this was before welfare reform, the 1986 tax reforms, and numerous other cases is which a reasonable case could be made that liberal programs had overreached. Those days have long since passed, and we are now addressing the excesses of conservatism. Those guys have now been reduced to tilting at imaginary liberal windmills. Thinking about this further, I cannot believe that I ever found Krauthammer tolerable.

- spd1955

December 17, 2010 at 4:31pm

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I have always wondered how, when people have an autoimmune disease, the body can attack itself. What kind of an evolutionary organism can be designed to attack itself? Ah. They must be right wing antibodies.

- Nusholtz

December 17, 2010 at 6:19pm

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spd1955 Yes, upon reflection, I do believe you're correct; these guys did write - some would argue pollute is a better term - for the magazine during it's "Second Thoughts" epoch, which was a response to the excesses of liberal programs and the attenuated relevance of the Democratic "strategy" of the Carter Mondale years. I remember enjoying Kondracke, tolerating Barnes and loathing Krauthammer, even back then.

- MrCookie1

December 17, 2010 at 7:33pm

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Excellent comment, spd. I actually was a conservative back when I started reading TNR in 1979 and some excesses of liberalism needed criticizing. But as you write, that was long ago, just like my former conservatism.

- liberal reformer

December 17, 2010 at 8:45pm

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Mort Kondracke , was not nearly as conservative back then as he has become at Fox news. I remember being amused by Fred Barnes before he gained fame at the Vice Presidential debate. He used to write good inside the beltway stuff about Congress. I liked Krauthammer's long foreign policy articles even though I didn't always agree. Having those guys balanced out the magazine. Overall, conservatism has gotten just so extreme these days. Just no moderation any longer. Notice how conservative mags as well as newspaper editorial pages from right leaning papers hardly if ever print an opposing view. Conservatism has gone totally dogmatic.

- alanwilkov

December 17, 2010 at 10:26pm

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Yawn. McConnell's got to deliver for his fund...constituency, and Krauthammer's got to develop his brand.

- IggyPop

December 18, 2010 at 5:32pm

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