It Intensifies Your Political Philosophy, Man

I'm psychic.

And remarkably good-looking, but the psychic part is more relevant here. On Friday, I responded to Paul Krugman's ecstatic proclamations about Obama's "mandate" and how he'd won that mandate during a referendum on "political philosophies" that "the progressive philosophy won." I said:

In 2004, cultural conservatives misunderstood the significance of Bush's victory--they thought so many people voting (in part) out of fear of terrorism meant that the country was ready to return to 1948, only with better wiretapping technology. It wasn't. And this year, so many people voted (in part) out of fear for their pensions. That doesn't mean the country is salivating for the New New Deal. Voters in 1932 knew that the stakes were much higher; contrary to FDR's speeches, Depression-era voters had to fear not only fear but also starvation.

And then today, Krugman wrote this:

Barack Obama should learn from F.D.R.’s failures as well as from his achievements: the truth is that the New Deal wasn’t as successful in the short run as it was in the long run. And the reason for F.D.R.’s limited short-run success, which almost undid his whole program, was the fact that his economic policies were too cautious.... Obama’s chances of leading a new New Deal depend largely on whether his short-run economic plans are sufficiently bold. Progressives can only hope that he has the necessary audacity.

Krugman, god bless, clearly hasn't slept since Tuesday. Near as I can figure it, since they called the election, he's been using America's maxed-out credit card to scrape transcontinental, Union Pacific rails out of a Montana-sized pile of powdered optimism.

Get some sleep, dude. Barack Obama will still be President-elect when you wake up and come down.