His Friday column, entitled “Sanders Over the Edge,” follows a blog he posted on the Times
web site last Sunday accusing Sanders of being a fifth columnist for
the Republicans. Krugman wrote: “Engaging in innuendo suggesting, without evidence,
that Clinton is corrupt is, at this point, basically campaigning on
behalf of the RNC (Republican National Committee).” [Emphasis added]
Without evidence?! The entire political history of Bill and Hillary
Clinton has been steeped in hypocrisy and corruption. Extending back to
their days in Arkansas, the Clintons perfected the art of combining “I
feel your pain” rhetoric with deal-making with various business
interests to advance their political careers. This included Bill
Clinton’s connections with Frank Perdue of the poultry empire and
Hillary Clinton’s six-year stint on the board of directors of Wal-Mart
during her husband’s term as Arkansas governor.
During their years in the White House, the Clintons shifted the
Democratic Party further to the right, repudiating any program of social
reform or redistribution of wealth from the top to the bottom in favor
of traditional Republican nostrums. Their strategy of “triangulation”
included new draconian prison sentencing laws and the termination of the
sixty-year-old federal welfare program called Aid to Families with
Dependent Children, driving millions of the poorest Americans into
destitution.
At the same time, the Clintons oversaw the final dismantling of any
serious banking regulation, marked by the repeal of the 1930s
Glass-Steagall Act and its separation of commercial and investment
banking.
Since the end of the Clinton presidency, Hillary and Bill have
parlayed their White House tenure into a personal fortune in the
hundreds of millions of dollars. The two have collected over $140
million in the 15 years since the end of the Clinton administration,
while workers were losing their jobs, retirement savings and homes. A
major part of this windfall has come in the form of speaking fees from
big corporations and banks. In the first 15 months after she left her
post as Obama’s secretary of state in 2012, Hillary Clinton took in $5
million in such rewards for services rendered.
In an earlier period, Krugman staked out a position by criticizing
the Clinton administration for its adoption of right-wing positions
previously associated with the Republican Party. In August 2006, to cite
one example, he complained that “in practice Mr. Clinton governed well
to the right of both Eisenhower and Nixon.”
-- Barry Grey, "Paul Krugman smears Bernie Sanders" (WSWS).