Today's Krugman column

He argues today that the Republicans have always been as they are now under Bush. I disagree. His analysis is a bit like saying that someone who has gone stark raving mad with a 105 fever was always just like this because back in the day he had an infected toenail. Yes, Barry Goldwater did some bad things, and the Reagan Administration did Iran-Contra. But they also worked in a bipartisan and responsible way with the Democrats on tax and budget policy in 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985-86, and 1988. They effectively admitted that the "riverboat gamble" had failed within 6 months of trying it. And, despite the Beirut fiasco, which of course is far from the worst blunder our country has ever perpetrated, they certainly did nothing like Iraq, Blackwater, the sinister plans for Iran, etc., etc.

No one is a saint in politics, not the Republicans at any time and certainly not the Democrats at any time. But our institutions can't survive for much longer with the Republicans that we have now, and it's worth remembering that they were never like this, more than just a little bit perhaps, before 1994.