Krugbot was right

It turns out some in the White House aren't receptive to the idea that not only were their tactics to get the stimulus worthy of criticism, but that all their hard work went into something that, economically speaking, wasn't as useful as it could have been. Perhaps, deep down, they regret not listening to the massive brainpower of one Paul "Make the stimulus bigger for the love of Christ" Krugman and are just bitterly clinging to the fact that it got passed as some sort of affirmation of the rightness of their plan. Like Rahm Emanuel is doing!

“They have never worked the legislative process,” Emanuel said of critics like the Times columnist Paul Krugman, who argued that Obama’s concessions to Senate Republicans—in particular, the tax cuts, which will do little to stimulate the economy—produced a package that wasn’t large enough to respond to the magnitude of the recession. “How many bills has he passed?”
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Now, my view is that Krugman as an economist is not wrong. But in the art of the possible, of the deal, he is wrong. He couldn’t get his legislation.”

The stimulus bill was essentially held hostage to the whims of Collins, Snowe, and Specter, but if Al Franken, the apparent winner of the disputed Minnesota Senate race, had been seated in Washington, and if Ted Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, had been regularly available to vote, the White House would have needed only one Republican to pass the measure. “No disrespect to Paul Krugman,” Emanuel went on, “but has he figured out how to seat the Minnesota senator?” (Franken’s victory is the subject of an ongoing court challenge by his opponent, Norm Coleman, which the national Republican Party has been happy to help finance.) “Write a fucking column on how to seat the son of a bitch. I would be fascinated with that column. O.K.?” Emanuel stood up theatrically and gestured toward his seat with open palms. “Anytime they want, they can have it,” he said of those who are critical of his legislative strategies. “I give them my chair.”

Ah yes, the old "sure he was 100% right, but I'm going to act like a dick and bitch about things that wouldn't have made a difference in the outcome as if they're relevant to the discussion" gambit. Always successful. Always classy.

Fucking Krugman, with his economically astute observations, where does he get off trying to suggest a way to make sure a trillion dollars isn't misspent? The Nobel winning motherfucker can't even seat Al Franken, which while technically more the domain of say.....Harry Reid, is still a massive strike against Krugman. Don't even try and remember that Al Franken wouldn't have made 60 votes and they still would have needed to convince Republicans to join up, nor the fact that it was a couple Dem Senators that went off to play 'centrist', just keep yelling as if having a bad strategy and not getting what the country needed are the fault of a guy who suggested that maybe ceding ground at the start of the process and not even attempting to get the right bill passed weren't the smartest ideas.

For his part, Krugman resisted the urge to fire a gun over Rahm's head and yell "Princeton represent, motherfuckers!"

Eh. The question is why Obama didn't ask for what the economy needed, then bargain from there. My view is that Collins et al would have demanded $100 billion in cuts from whatever they started from; and that's not the case he answers.

Which is econo-speak for "You shit the bed by letting morons dictate the process with random numbers and desires to look like they were doing something. Don't hate a playa for pointing it out!" Here's a suggestion, next time something with the economy goes bad and Krugman starts yelling "Fire!!!" and "Abort!!!!", listen to him in the first place instead of bitching about him after you've decided to go for some half measure.