Paul Krugman and EJ Dionne agree that too much centrism is what ails the United States. What the country needs is fewer moderates and more people ready to stand firm on principle come what may. (Actually Dionne draws a distinction that eludes me between moderation and centrism–they are not just different but opposed–but let that pass.)

Lacking a Nobel prize, I find this theory odd. If only centrists would come over to the left and deplore Republicans more vigorously, all would be well? Right now, I would be willing to help out–but would this do much to reduce the House Republican majority? If centrist commentators only joined Krugman’s anti-Republican crusade, the country would see its mistake and put things right at the next election? It’s flattering, but surely we feeble soggy centrists have nothing to offer that would improve on the quality of the arguments already put forward by writers such as Krugman, Dionne, and many others. Surely they are refuting conservatism as effectively as anybody can.

House Republicans are dictating US fiscal policy not because centrists have given them a pass, but because voters have given them a majority. This is something that progressives tend not to mention, despite propounding the theory that “elections have consequences” for two years after 2008, and using that theory to justify, for instance, passing a health-care reform that the country was not sure it wanted. In Krugman’s view, of course, 2010 only confirms that more than half the country is evil or stupid. But in that case, what would centrists achieve by taking up arms with progressives? It won’t help. If Krugman is right, the idiots out there just don’t get it. We centrists might as well carry on saying what we think.

My column this week deplored the breakdown in Washington. I was having second thoughts, I said, on my previous optimism about the country’s prospects.

On one side you have the unrivalled energy and ambition of the American worker. On the other you have the unrivalled complacency, self-righteousness and bloody-mindedness of Washington. I never thought I would say this, but I am starting to wonder which will prevail.

Speaking of unrivalled complacency, self-righteousness and bloody-mindedness, you might be interested to read Paul Krugman’s response. He actually blames America’s plight on me, and on moderates like me. What can one say?

By the way, I don’t think that the blame for incapacity in Washington lies equally on both sides, certainly not in the debt-ceiling case. I think previous columns of mine (such as this one) have made that clear. But I do find it funny that Krugman is so appalled by the idea that, if positions were reversed, Democrats would be equally intransigent, and feel entitled to do whatever it took to frustrate what they regarded as a radical GOP agenda. I concede that this prediction on my part might be wrong. But one thing I’m quite certain of is that Krugman would be leading those who would say that the Democrats are not just entitled but morally obliged to stop the evil Republicans by any means necessary, and would be deploring and calling out all those who suggested, ugh, compromise, just as he is now.