Willem Buiter and Anne Sibert are really tough on Barack Obama today, calling his Patriot Employer Act "reactionary, populist, xenophobic and just plain silly". Andrew Leonard doesn't even attempt to defend Obama on the merits, instead painting this Act as a politically-motivated attempt to win Ohio and therefore the presidency.

Economists pride themselves on understanding how the world is. But doesn't that imply that their calculus include political reality? ...
Barack Obama is playing to win. This may dismay some economists. Maybe they should try winning an election in the American midwest in 2008.

In fact, though, Obama's proposal, while hardly at the top of any sensible economist's wish-list, is not nearly as harmful as Buiter and Sibert make it out to be.