Greg Sargent on the "centrist dodge"

Greg Sargent:

A little while back I suggested that many pundits are regular practitioners of what you might call the “centrist dodge.” Paul Krugman defines it for us very nicely:

A Very Serious, chin-stroking pundit argues that what we really need is a political leader willing to concede that while the economy needs short-run stimulus, we also need to address long-term deficits, and that addressing those long-term deficits will require both spending cuts and revenue increases. And then the pundit asserts that both parties are to blame for the absence of such leaders. What he absolutely won’t do is endanger his centrist credentials by admitting that the position he’s just outlined is exactly, exactly, the position of Barack Obama.

Krugman, of course, is talking mainly about his Times colleague Tom Friedman, though plenty of others fit the mold. MORE...