Obama At His Best

Did anyone watch the entire Q&A session that the President had with the GOP Caucus the other day? If you haven't seen it, it is compelling public affairs programming worth spending the time to see.

I am sure that the Republicans rue the decision to let cameras broadcast live the 1 hour and 20 minute give and take session in Baltimore! It was a rare moment of truth as the Republican Caucus squared off with a man who was unafraid to call them out repeatedly for their use of half truths and misinformation regarding many of the issues that the GOP has demonized the Democrats with over the last year. President Obama had a command of the facts and issues that shot holes in most of the arguments used to accuse the Democrats of, among other things, bloating the federal deficit, foisting socialist health care reform on the country, and granting ‘boutique’ tax cuts to selected groups in America.

On its surface, it was actually a civil exchange. However, each Republican who asked a question of the President began the question with an accusation or a false assumption that Obama promptly poked holes through before he responded with a cogent and intelligent response, enumerating the false premises in the question and then answering with clarity and precision.

It was clear that the people in the room could not make headway with political positioning statements. The President indicated repeatedly that those kinds of false assumptions boxed them into positions with their constituents that left them no room for negotiating solutions. Over and over Obama pointed out to them that the way they were asking their questions promoted an atmosphere of rancor designed to further their campaign positioning in the upcoming elections, rather than seeking an atmosphere of negotiation and problem solving arrived at by true compromise. The Republicans were flummoxed!

It was a rare moment indeed and gave me hope that Obama would actually make some progress in finding common ground with the Republicans. What he showed in that session was his determination to engage in real, useful discussion that could possibly lead to real solutions. It was frankly more leadership than I had come to expect from him lately. One only hopes that he will somehow find a way to drag the Republicans into the public eye repeatedly in this way so he can effect some real progress toward change by exposing the GOP’s intractability and penchant for non-productive confrontation.

The news media should re-broadcast the session in its entirety instead of spinning it only as a confrontational moment. Maybe then some of the conservative lemmings in this country would start using their brains and realize that the only way out of our problems is to work toward compromise.

Leadership

I pushed pause on the TIVO and backed up my recording of the network news to hear again what I thought I had just heard….Yep!  There was Chuck Todd standing in front of the White House saying that President Obama was going to speak to a joint session of Congress next week on health care and his advisors were hoping it would help boost his poll ratings!   Good Grief!  Is that what this is all about??  Poll ratings?

We need to stop for a moment and get our bearings.  This whole question of health care reform is not about anything less than a central moral question.  It’s not about money, it’s not about politics, it’s not about polls.  It is simply a moral issue questioning whether we are a country where we take care of each other or not.  Many things we debate have clear policy issues that have several sides one may choose to be on, but with health care, there are no sides. 

Suppose you were in a hospital bed, just having come through a life saving operation while the fellow two floors up from you needs the exact same operation but doesn’t have the money or the insurance to have it.  Isn’t there something wrong there?  Shouldn’t we as a nation of liberty and justice for all find a way to care for each other in the most basic way of all, to deliver a healthy life to our citizens?

And yet here are the conservatives and Republicans with their holier than thou attitude spreading myths and lies to discredit the notion that we all have this  responsibility to each other.  You have heard all the garbage coming from them for the last month. 

Let me ask you something….why would they want to see any reform at all?  It is not in their best interest!  Most are receiving political donations from insurance companies or drug companies.  All of them have no desire to allow a progressive administration to have a success—that would discredit their handling of the country for the last 8 years.  If they can make this President and his administration fail on this signature issue, then their re-election chances improve next year and –glory be!—they will have crippled Obama so their chances in the next presidential election will be soooooo much better!  They have even had the unmitigated gaul to publicly proclaim that fact!

And where is President Obama?  He is behind the magic curtain trying to pull the strings and nudge Congress to come up with the plan.  That is a fool’s errand if I ever saw one.

Correct me if I am wrong here---last November 4th a substantial majority of the country voted for this man to do some things he said he would do: institute Universal Health Care, end the war in Iraq, end the war in Afghanistan, end the abuses and insults to our Constitution and our individual rights, have a transparent government that would wear the shiny patina of ‘change’.

We all were ecstatic that night as we watched the crowd in Grant Park and saw the hope, the relief and the pure joy of expectation in the eyes of the people there.  I know it was a reflection of the same elation I felt sitting in my den.  We were all one in that moment of great possibility.  Where are we now?

We expected Barak Obama to be the leader he said he was.  C’mon, Barry!  Grow a set and take the bull by the horns and LEAD!  Show us that this Health Care thing is a MORAL issue that we all must get behind.  Stop worrying about your polls and make all of us, and especially the jerks in Congress, realize that there is no alternative to doing the right thing.  Lay out what you want to do in specific terms and make us all believe we must do it.  Channel Harry Truman, for God’s sake!

That is the kind of leadership I voted for…..didn’t you?