Politics / President Obama
January 29th, 2010The Unyielding President and the State of our Disunion
Written by: Stephen Erickson, Columnist
In the wake of the massacre in Massachusetts, Barack Obama had essentially two choices when it came to the way he approached his State of the Union speech, and the policies that would follow from it. He could accept the verdict from the Bay State, the great former stronghold of Democrats, and change course, or he could continue to sail into the tsunami. Obama chose the tsunami.
In his speech President Obama declared, “But when I ran for President I promised I wouldn’t just do what was popular –I would do what was necessary.” Two kinds of people stand against the tide of popular will. The first is the courageous person of principle who follows his or her conscience against an errant majority. The second is the zealot who will use unscrupulous means to achieve a self-righteous vision. Which one is Barack Obama?
“We have to recognize,” said Obama,” that we face more than a deficit of dollars. We face a deficit of trust.” Indeed, the President’s got that right. “To close that credibility gap,” he continued, “we have to take action on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue — to end the outsized influence of lobbyists; to do our work openly; to give our people the government they deserve.”
Unfortunately the “credibility gap” widened during Obama’s speech. Rather than expressing any regret for cutting a special deal with the pharmaceutical industry (see Robert Reich’s honest assessment here) or special deals for unions, Obama pretended to be against backroom bargains with special interests. Instead he boasted that — hold the presses — “for the first time in history” his administration posts White House visitors online. He added that the White House didn’t hire any lobbyists either. But while lobbyist middlemen may have cooled their heels in the lobby, representatives of corporations like Goldman Sachs walked through the revolving door (see Is Goldman Sachs the New Haliburton ).
As for the Massachusetts special election, the President referenced it indirectly:
Washington may think that saying anything about the other side, no matter how false, no matter how malicious, is just part of the game. But it’s precisely such politics that has stopped either party from helping the American people. Worse yet, it’s sowing further division among our citizens, further distrust in our government.
So, no, I will not give up on trying to change the tone of politics. I know it’s an election year. And after last week, it’s clear that campaign fever has come even earlier than usual. But we still need to govern.
It is worth noting that Massachusetts Senator-elect Scott Brown never ran a negative advertisement during his campaign. Brown also favors term limits and clean election laws. By contrast, the President’s candidate in the contest, Martha Coakley, tried to pound the daylights out of Brown in a vicious barrage of negative advertising in the days just before voters went to the polls.
Polling data show that Brown’s opposition to the Democratic healthcare bills was the single most important issue leading to his surprising victory. While some Democrats in Congress seem to have received the message from Massachusetts, the President pressed on with his healthcare jihad.
So as temperatures cool, I want everyone to take another look at the plan we’ve proposed. There’s a reason why many doctors, nurses and health care experts who know our system best consider this approach a vast improvement over the status quo. But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know. Let me know. Let me know. I am eager to see it.
Here is the President at his most disingenuous. When he uttered these words, steam must have come pouring out Democratic Senator Ron Wyden’s ears. Wyden had produced a bipartisan market- and consumer-based healthcare bill that came closer to achieving the President’s stated objectives than any other piece of legislation. But it was shunned by a White House that apparently insists on state-centered solutions. For more on Wyden’s bill, see our thank you to Senator Wyden and this piece by Lanny Davis.
President Obama likes to pretend that no one has offered any reforms except for the ones he supports. It’s always his bills versus “the status quo.” He accuses the Republicans of “just saying no to everything.” In fact the Republicans have several healthcare bills of their own, including one written by a Senator / doctor, Tom Colburn, that also aims at universal coverage. Here is a summary of Colburn’s bill. Republican bills sensibly include tort (lawsuit) reform, but Democrats invariably refuse to anger trial lawyers, a constituency that fills their campaign coffers.
President Obama, in a gimmicky effort to address popular rage over the nation’s alarming debt, proposed a discretionary spending freeze after significantly raising discretionary spending for two years. Meanwhile, the great bulbous mass of federal spending, in entitlements and defense, will continue to grow. Americans yearn for entitlement reform in order to protect their children from the oncoming train wreck that is the national debt, but the Administration and the Democrat Congress are proposing to exacerbate the problem by paying for their new healthcare bill by robbing Medicare. This confiscation process they cynically describe as unspecified “cost savings.”
In his State of the Union address President Obama was more reassuring on foreign policy. He powerfully reaffirmed American values. He promised to hold Iran accountable for its drive to build nuclear weapons. He reported that there were many more strikes against Al Qaeda in 2009 than there were in 2008.
Obama is an idealist come of age in the Chicago style of politics, which may serve him well internationally. Against the enemies of the United States, an unyielding ruthlessness in service of ideals is often appropriate. In foreign policy, a silky-smooth presentation that unflinchingly serves self-interests is commendable. This approach, however, does not befit the politics of a democracy, in which the journey is as important as the destination.
