Are Republicans 'sabotaging' the economy?

Are Republicans trying to undermine the economic recovery in order to thwart President Obama's reelection in 2012? Yes, if you ask certain liberal commentators. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, for example, sees political "self-interest, pure and simple," behind GOP criticisms of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy. Think Progress blogger Matthew Yglesias is warning the White House to be on watch for "deliberate economic sabotage" from the opposition. Is this a credible charge, or just partisan sniping?

This sure looks like sabotage: Not only have Republicans tried to block every Democratic plan to revive the economy, says Steve Benen in Washington Monthly, they're even rejecting ideas they used to support. "We've gone from Republicans rooting for failure to Republicans trying to guarantee failure."

"None dare call it sabotage"

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Democrats are just playing the victim: The state of the economy works against the Democrats, says Bruce McQuain in Questions and Observations, but that has more to do with the "abysmally bad law" they've passed than with anything Republicans did. Now, this "contrived and fanciful" attempt to paint the GOP as "unpatriotic and evil" is political spin meant to transfer the blame ahead of 2012.

"The Left's new narrative?"

Liberals won't make this charge stick: I don't think the GOP is consciously trying to sabotage the economy, says Kevin Drum in Mother Jones. I think that a "bad economy is in [the GOP's] self interest, so they've convinced themselves that every possible policy to improve things is a bad idea." In any event, the liberal noise machine is too "restrained" to make the sabotage charge stick. If the "conservative noise machine" had a similar line, it would go from Fox News to Congress in hours.

"The liberal noise machine"