Paul Krugman’s column today is a masterpiece in Krugmanism. According to Krugman, all of Obama’s mistakes are attributal to the fact he didn’t do more of what he did.

The Obama administration’s troubles are the result not of excessive ambition, but of policy and political misjudgments. The stimulus was too small; policy toward the banks wasn’t tough enough; and Mr. Obama didn’t do what Ronald Reagan, who also faced a poor economy early in his administration, did — namely, shelter himself from criticism with a narrative that placed the blame on previous administrations.

And, later:

Why was the stimulus underpowered? A number of economists (myself included) called for a stimulus substantially bigger than the one the administration ended up proposing. According to The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza, however, in December 2008 Mr. Obama’s top economic and political advisers concluded that a bigger stimulus was neither economically necessary nor politically feasible.
Their political judgment may or may not have been correct; their economic judgment obviously wasn’t. Whatever led to this misjudgment, however, it wasn’t failure to focus on the issue: in late 2008 and early 2009 the Obama team was focused on little else. The administration wasn’t distracted; it was just wrong.

And finally:

[Obama] could have pointed out, repeatedly, that the continuing troubles of America’s economy are the result of a financial crisis that developed under the Bush administration, and was at least in part the result of the Bush administration’s refusal to regulate the banks.
But he didn’t. Maybe he still dreams of bridging the partisan divide; maybe he fears the ire of pundits who consider blaming your predecessor for current problems uncouth — if you’re a Democrat. (It’s O.K. if you’re a Republican.) Whatever the reason, Mr. Obama has allowed the public to forget, with remarkable speed, that the economy’s troubles didn’t start on his watch.

Putting aside Krugman’s assertion that the stimulus failed because Obama didn’t take Krugman’s advice, I have to wonder what planet Krugman is on when he suggests that Obama hasn’t been blaming Bush, repeatedly. I’m hard pressed to think of many interviews, speeches, addresses, or stump appeals (as in New Jersey and Virginia last fall when he said constantly) when he hasn’t blamed his problems on the previous administration. “We didn’t create this mess” has been one of, if not the, central themes of his communications shop since he was elected.

Krugman’s perfectly within his rights to say Obama didn’t do this enough, but the suggestion that Obama didn’t spend much of the last year trying to do precisely that is nuts.