Kristol, Cohen and Krugman

That idiot Kristol asks “So Where’s Murphy?”  He excreted something in which he says in this election, Senator John McCain could use the help of his former campaign strategist Mike Murphy. The question is, will he get it?  Mr. Cohen writes about “Obama’s Message to Europe,” and says when Senator Barack Obama meets with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany at the end of the month, he needs to remember the lessons of Berlin.  At least with Obama she’ll be safe from unwanted “massages.”  Mr. Krugman’s column is titled “Behind the Bush Bust.”  He says other politicians besides George W. Bush share the blame for the economic mess we’re in — but most of them are Republicans.  Here’s what Kristol excreted:

From the gun clubs of Northern Virginia to the sports bars of Capitol Hill — wherever D.C.-area Republicans gather — you hear the question:

“Where’s Murphy?”

“Murphy” is Mike Murphy, the 46-year-old G.O.P. strategist who masterminded John McCain’s 2000 primary race against George Bush, helping McCain come close to pulling off an amazing upset. Murphy was then chief strategist for Mitt Romney’s successful Massachusetts governor run in 2002.

Murphy remained close to both men, and as a result sat out the G.O.P. nominating contest this past year, not wishing to work against either of them. It was widely assumed, though, that if either McCain or Romney won the nomination, the winner would bring Murphy on board for the general election. So far it hasn’t happened. I believe it soon will.

I hasten to disclose that Murphy is a friend. I should also disclose that when I called to say I had heard he might well be signing on with McCain, he went Sergeant Schultz on me, saying nothing.

But here’s what I gather from acquaintances and sources in and around the McCain campaign.

McCain is frustrated. He thinks he can beat Obama (politicians are pretty confident in their own abilities). But he isn’t convinced his campaign can beat Obama’s campaign. He knows that his three-month general election head start was largely frittered away. He understands that his campaign has failed to develop an overarching message. Above all, McCain is painfully aware that he is being diminished by his own campaign.

This last point is galling. McCain has been a major figure in American public life for quite a while. And yet his campaign has made him seem somehow smaller. Obama is a first-term senator with no legislative achievements to speak of. His campaign has helped him seem bigger, more presidential.

Even Obama’s adjustments for the general election — his flip-flops — have served in an odd way to enhance his stature. Some of them suggest, after all, that he is at least trying to think seriously about what he would do if he were actually president. So Obama has achieved the important feat, as the campaign has moved on, of seeming an increasingly plausible president. McCain seems a less plausible president today than he did when he clinched the nomination.

So McCain decided it was time for a campaign shake-up. Last week he moved lobbyist Rick Davis aside. He seemed to put Bush-Rove alum Steve Schmidt more or less in charge. But the full plan, as I understand it, was — and is — to have Schmidt, a good operative and tactician, take over day-to-day operations at headquarters, while bringing Murphy on both to travel with McCain and as chief strategist.

But McCain hesitated to carry out both steps of the plan at once, worried about an overload of turmoil. And Murphy’s arrival would mean a fair amount of turmoil. The current McCain campaign is chock full of G.O.P. establishment types, many of whom aren’t great fans of the irreverent Murphy. Murphy’s also made no secret of his low opinion of the Bush-Rove political machine that has produced many of these operatives. And Murphy hasn’t made his possible entry into the campaign smoother by telling a New York Times reporter the other day that “the depressingly self-absorbed McCain campaign machine needs to get out of the way” of its candidate.

Still, Jeb Bush — whose winning Florida gubernatorial campaigns Murphy guided — was with McCain in Mexico City last week. I’m told he argued that the time to bring on Murphy is now. McCain didn’t disagree. And so I expect that in the next couple of weeks we’ll learn that Murphy is coming on board as chief strategist, with Schmidt running operations at the headquarters. This would be a structure very much like the Obama campaign, led by the combination of strategist David Axelrod and campaign manager David Plouffe.

Why Murphy? As observers of the 2000 effort know, he has a deep rapport with McCain — including an ability to tell him when he’s made a mistake. He’s a creative campaign tactician and an imaginative ad maker — but his great skill has always been an ability to find a clear theme for his candidates, as he did for McCain in 2000, who ran then as a conservative reformer and champion of national greatness.

The McCain campaign this year desperately needs a message and a narrative that is both appropriate for the candidate and for the times. Thinking such a complex challenge through, and executing it, is Murphy’s strength. And he’s run victorious statewide campaigns in states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa — where it’s not enough simply to mobilize the Republican base.

With Murphy in charge, McCain will have the campaign team he wants. Then all they’ll have to do is come from behind to win against a superior organization, more money, a gifted candidate and a Democratic-tilting electorate. Oh well: no challenge, no glory.

Take a moment to clear that out of your brain…  Feeling better?  Here’s Mr. Cohen:

Senator Barack Obama is expected here on July 24 to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel. The Democratic presidential candidate is scheduled to make a speech at the Brandenburg Gate that aides describe as the major address of a European tour also taking him to London and Paris. Here’s what he should say:

I am honored to be in this great city as a guest of your distinguished chancellor, a true friend of the United States. No place evokes the strength of the transatlantic alliance like Berlin. As candidate for the presidency, I feel humbled to be in this city where visionary American and German leaders fought pivotal battles for freedom. Those battles are won, but the transatlantic bonds that ushered Berlin and Europe to unity and prosperity endure. These ties remain critical to our fast-changing world.

The Brandenburg Gate, now open and delivered from a no-man’s land, proclaims what the resolve of Europe and North America can accomplish. Together we are strong. Divided we falter. That has not changed.

But much else has. An alliance like NATO cannot be static. It involves give-and-take. It demands respect from both sides of the Atlantic. It benefits from curiosity. We have spent too much time talking past each other. If elected president I promise you this: I would reach out and listen to our allies!

I mentioned our resolve in winning the cold war. But from strength we also negotiated. In the 1980s we installed missiles to counter new Soviet SS-20s. Yet when opportunity arose, we talked to our enemy. Too often of late, we have compromised our diplomatic arsenal by isolating hostile nations like Syria or Iran. To engage is not to appease, nor to concede, nor even to recognize. If elected I would be as restless in the quest for new diplomatic avenues as I would be unwavering in defense of our freedoms.

Today, globalization has made isolationism impossible. The United States will not turn inward. But my country has no calling to run the world: unilateralism in our interconnected age is self-defeating.

More than 80 percent of Americans think our nation is going in the wrong direction. They want change! I know you do, too, because so many of our problems are shared. Every significant challenge today crosses borders: terrorism, nuclear proliferation, energy security, global warming and poverty. Believable change demands credible, creative engagement on all these fronts. My friends, I am committed to it! Yes we can!

The summons to rethink our world is insistent. Oil at $140, and the immense transfer of wealth that accompanies that, demand that we move beyond the age of fossil fuel. Melting ice caps insist we dream of new development models. The rise of great powers like India and China require us to modernize 20th-century institutions ill suited to this one. The border-crossing networks and communities that technology spawns call for a new diplomacy. These are generational challenges, but that is no excuse for postponing them. Our children would never forgive us for just muddling through.

Berlin teaches what far-sighted strategy can achieve. It also teaches shared sacrifice. Our alliance depends also on your resolve. I’m sure I can learn from Europe on universal health care or environment policy. But you too must reach beyond your comfort levels. Criticism is easy, sacrifice less so.

A German minister once said freedom is defended today in the Hindu Kush. He was right! I know that hero is a word you avoid in Germany, but your soldiers who have given their lives in that struggle against fanaticism in Afghanistan are heroes. We must see this fight through together for the cost of failure is unacceptable. We must also end the war in Iraq without abandoning a traumatized society to a still worse fate. Europeans and Americans, whatever their past differences, have a common interest in a stable, free, democratic Iraq.

An American historian, Richard Hofstadter, once wrote that, “It has been our fate as a nation not to have ideologies but to be one.” That calling has been an inspiration — to generations of Americans and the world. But it has depended on respect of the values and essential freedoms that defined America. We cannot compromise our core liberties at home and be an example to anyone. We cannot rise to our new global challenges when we abandon our own ideals. Only in truth to them will we prevail.

Once again this city is instructive. The example of the West, its glittering lights and no less luminous possibilities, undermined the totalitarian East. The West’s hope defeated the East’s fear. As president, I would replace fear with hope, division with unity, in the spirit of the ideals of America’s founding and of our great alliance.

My friends, from the Beltway to Berlin, yes we can!

Si, se puede.  Here’s Mr. Krugman:

By huge margins, Americans think the economy is in lousy shape — and they blame President Bush. This fact, more than anything else, makes it hard to see how the Democrats can lose this election.

But is the public right to be so disgusted with Mr. Bush’s economic leadership? Not exactly. We really do have a lousy economy, a fact of which Mr. Bush seems spectacularly unaware. But that’s not the same thing as saying that the bad economy is Mr. Bush’s fault.

On the other hand, there’s a certain rough justice in the public’s attitude. Other politicians besides Mr. Bush share the blame for the mess we’re in — but most of them are Republicans.

First things first: pay no attention to apologists who try to defend the Bush economic record. Since 2001, economic conditions have alternated between so-so and outright bad: a recession, followed by one of the weakest expansions since World War II, and then by a renewed job slump that isn’t officially a recession yet, but certainly feels like one.

Over all, Mr. Bush will be lucky to leave office with a net gain of five million jobs, far short of the number needed to keep up with population growth. For comparison, Bill Clinton presided over an economy that added 22 million jobs.

And what does Mr. Bush have to say about this dismal record? “I think when people take a look back at this moment in our economic history, they’ll recognize tax cuts work.” Clueless to the end.

Yet even liberal economists have a hard time arguing that Mr. Bush’s cluelessness actually caused the poor economic performance on his watch. Tax cuts didn’t work, but they didn’t create the Bush bust. So what did?

At the top of my list of causes for the lousy economy are three factors: the housing bubble and its aftermath, rising health care costs and soaring raw materials prices. I’ve written a lot about housing, so today let’s talk about the others.

Most public discussion of health care focuses on the problems of the uninsured and underinsured. But insurance premiums are also a major business expense: auto makers famously spend more on health care than they do on steel.

One of the underemphasized keys to the Clinton boom, I’d argue, was the way the cost disease of health care went into remission between 1993 and 2000. For a while, the spread of managed care put a lid on premiums, encouraging companies to expand their work forces.

But premiums surged again after 2000, imposing huge new burdens on business. It’s a good bet that this played an important role in weak job creation.

What about raw materials prices? During the Clinton years basic commodities stayed cheap by historical standards. Since then, however, food and energy prices have exploded, directly lopping about 5 percent off the typical American family’s real income, and raising business costs throughout the economy.

Much of this pain could have been avoided.

If Bill Clinton’s attempt to reform health care had succeeded, the U.S. economy would be in much better shape today. But the attempt failed — and let’s remember why. Yes, the Clinton administration botched the politics. But it was Republicans in Congress who blocked reform, as Newt Gingrich pursued a strategy of “coagulation” designed to “clot everyone away” from Mr. Clinton.

As for high food and fuel prices, they’re mainly the result of growing demand from China and other emerging economies. But oil prices wouldn’t be as high as they are, and the United States would have been much less vulnerable to the current price spike, if we had taken steps in the past to limit our oil consumption.

Mr. Bush certainly deserves some blame here, and not just for his destructive embrace of ethanol as the answer to our energy problems. After 9/11 he could easily have called for higher gas taxes and fuel efficiency standards as a national security measure, but the thought never seems to have crossed his mind.

Still, in energy as in health care the biggest missed opportunities came 15 or more years ago, when Mr. Gingrich and other conservative Republicans in Congress, aided by Democrats with ties to energy-intensive industries, blocked conservation measures.

So here’s the bottom line: Mr. Bush deserves some blame for the poor performance of the economy on his watch, but much of the blame lies with other, earlier political figures, who squandered chances for reform. As it happens, however, most though not all of the politicians responsible for our current economic difficulties were Republicans.

And bear in mind that John McCain has gone to great lengths to affirm his support for Republican economic orthodoxy. So he’ll have no reason to complain if, as seems likely, the economy costs him the election.