Paul Krugman: Standing Up for Liberal Principles

Doug Sosnik, a Democratic political strategist, wrote an interesting piece in Politico recently on how "the left" is taking over the Democratic Party. Of course, what he calls "left" would be centrist, maybe even right of center, in most other Western democracies, and I think it's still true that today's progressive icons - say, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren - are to the right of where old-line liberals like Teddy Kennedy were.

But Mr. Sosnik is right that there has been a pretty big change in the way Democrats approach things. Here's how I'd put it: They have lost their post-Reagan cringe.