Way back in the early months of the 2008 Democratic nomination battle, the online hive of liberal wonkery was abuzz with controversy.

The health care plans announced by the Clinton and (especially) Obama campaigns had come under fire for being short on specifics and vague about key issues. The controversy was dominating the campaign news cycle, and now liberal pundits were split.

One side (including Paul Krugman and the New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn) saw the sparse details and general vagueness of Obama’s proposals (and, to a lesser extent, Clinton’s) as a serious problem that reflected poorly on the candidates.