Over the past six weeks, the right wing has taken control of the public discussion on political issues. The Republicans haven't put forth a single constructive idea on climate change, health insurance, or much of anything else. The strategy of their leaders and cheerleaders is to "just say no." If Obama's team wants to save his Presidency, they have to ignore the zealots and "just do it."
Over the past six weeks, the Obama Administration and Democratic congressmen have been attacked by what passes for leadership in the Republican party, mostly blowhards like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. With Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert still on vacation, there's hardly anyone around who is willing to denounce the idiocy emanating from orchestrated "tea parties", Fox News people, and the ignorant fools on Medicare who rant about the dangers of socialized medicine.
President Obama has brought a pea shooter to a gunfight. He seemingly fails to understand that Limbaugh, Palin, Fox News and their supporters have been out to destroy him and his Presidency since Day One. If Obama, with his huge majorities in Congress and sizeable public support, succeeds, then the Republicans lose. They want nothing more than for Obama and his ideas to fail. While we can justifiably accuse all of them of being anti-American, racist, or worse, we also should remember that you have to stand up to a bully.
Obama keeps talking about finding a workable bi-partisan compromise on key issues, and hasn't yet learned that "compromise" is not in the Republicans' vocabulary. They are going to attack everything that he does and would probably find fault with his dietary choices if Obama made them all public.
That's part of why they were opposed to Obama's speech telling kids to stay in school and get a good education; well-educated people won't drink Rush's Kool-Aid.
Obama isn't even assertive about the value received for the cost of new health care programs. It's not that hard to defend spending a trillion dollars over 10 years. That's less than a dollar a day per person (though the actual payments would be distributed less evenly). Obama should take a lesson from the phone companies and the airlines, which pile extra charges onto their bills. Call it a [mandatory] health care surcharge or fee, and give the American people a real option, one that does not give for-profit insurance companies the right to ration health care. (When I was in a "convenience" store in Boston last night, I watched people spending $9 for a pack of cigarettes. Easy call: $9 for lung cancer or $1 for health insurance. Hmmm.)
Maureen Dowd has it right in her column in today's NY Times:
"President Obama is so wrapped up in his desire to be a different, more conciliatory, beer-summit kind of leader, he ignores some verities.
Sometimes, when you’ve got the mojo, you have to keep your foot on your opponent’s neck. When you’re trying to get a Sisyphean agenda passed, it’s good if people in the way — including rebellious elements in your own party — fear you.
Civil discourse is fine, but when the other side is fighting dirty, you should get angry. Don’t let the bully kick sand in your face. The White House should have impaled death panel malarkey as soon as it came up.
By the time the president got feisty in a speech on Monday, the inmates had taken over cable TV, much like the spooky spirits swarming up over Bald Mountain in 'Fantasia.'"
It's now time for Obama to "cowboy up" or else the next three years are going to be controlled by the wingnuts who attack everything he does just for the sake of attack. I hope that he takes a tough line in tonight's health care speech and delivers on his campaign promises.