By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
In the White House Office of Media Relations—where I once worked—staffers like me used to line up third-party advocates to support Administration policies. "Surrogates," they're called, such as Congressmen, Governors and the like and they are persuaded to to sign op-eds pieces in local newspapers. Longer magazine profiles and think pieces by the president can serve a strategic purpose, but short hits in newspapers on specific bills are "not Presidential." Leave the street-fighting over legislation to the surrogates, it goes, and keep the president above it all. But in a world of Twitters, YouTube and Blackberries, that has all changed.
President Obama signed an op-ed this morning in the Washington Post, and it's a quick hit that would have been better left unwritten. In it, he overpromises results from a bill that hasn't been finalized and is still having amendments added in the Senate as I write this. But he says the stimulus bill will be "swift, bold and wise enough for us to climb out of this crisis." How does he know that? Maybe it will, but none of us really knows yet what is going to happen.
The president promises more than a fix for housing, jobs and banks—he guarantees massive government involvement in many sectors of our economy—from energy to healthcare to schools to access to the internet. He goes on to promise "unprecedented transparency and accountability, so Americans know where their tax dollars are going and how they are being spent." That's a big deal if he can deliver it. We've been waiting for that for years.
The president would have been wise to invite the loyal opposition to join him in supporting the bill, or at least to acknowledge that reasonable minds can disagree on the road to compromise. But instead, he rejects criticism of the stimulus plan and reminds readers that his side won. He seems to blame Republicans for everything causing our country to fall apart:
I reject these theories [criticizing the stimulus], and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We've seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.
Anyone opposing the current stimulus package is engaging in "old ideological battles," "narrow partisanship," "bad habits," and "the same old partisan gridlock that stands in the way of action," he writes. I guess that includes not only the House Republicans, but economic experts Martin Feldstein and Alice Rivlin, the other 250 economists who have publicly stated their reservations.
Most of Washington is engaged in a battle of ideas, for the first time in a long time, about the meaning of capitalism and free markets and government intervention. The future of our economy is at stake, and the president would have been better off not engaging in overblown rhetoric and name-calling on the op-ed page. He came across as partisan and strident about the future, instead of inclusive and thoughtful. Someone else should have signed that op-ed.
Related articles:
Persecution of the Right and the Washington Post Op-Ed page ...
Jun 19, 2009 – Neocon Charles Krauthammer: attacking Obama for indifference to Freedom in Iran ... The Purpose of The Washington Post Op-Ed Page and The ... and "A Tragic Legacy" (June, 2007), which examines the Bush legacy. ...http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/04/AR2009020403174.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Obama's Feb 5, '09 op-ed - his first partisan attack.
Health Care: Americans Want Change While Keeping Status Quo
Washington Post op-ed
The reason Americans have turned against health-care reform, after electing President Obama in part for promising it, is simple: Despite protestations to the contrary, Americans don't like change. You wouldn't know it, of course, if you listen to politicians in high-pander mode, or to talk radio hosts of the right or TV pundits of the left. Or, for that matter, if you listened to the president of the United States. You would think that while we might disagree about what kind of change we want, Americans are in total agreement that the current situation is intolerable in all areas and that change -- big, immediate change -- is essential. Americans do agree about this -- in the abstract. But as soon as it seems that change might actually happen -- as soon as we leave the abstract for the particular -- we panic. We suddenly develop nostalgia for the comforts of the status quo. Sure, we want change -- as long as everything can stay just as it is.
Yes, of course, the opposition party has gotten away with some grotesque misrepresentations. But that will always be true as you move from the abstract to the particular. There will always be a Betsy McCaughey sharpening her pencils and cackling as she underlines promising sub-clauses. And she will always find something. Obama thought he could avoid this by not supplying the document. He thought -- hell, we all thought -- that Hillary Clinton's big mistake in the 1990s was too much detail. Obama said he would leave all that up to Congress. But at some point, you've got to show your hand. All Obama seems to have achieved in the end was a shift in timing -- and not an advantageous one. Instead of being in trouble almost from the beginning, his reform remained popular until it was time for Congress to vote.
The similarities to the last time we tried health-care reform are striking. Bill Clinton had campaigned on a call for change in general and health-care reform in particular. Rising costs and increasing numbers of uninsured made the system seem intolerable. There were deep disagreements about what change was needed, but whether change was needed appeared beyond dispute. Afraid of being tagged the party that prevented change, Republicans were about to give up and compromise. Then GOP apparatchik extraordinaire Bill Kristol blew the whistle. He said, better to be thought of as against all change than to be tarred as in favor of any particular change. It seemed like a lunatic idea at first, but Kristol turned out to be right -- politically. He was wrong about the actual substance of the issue. As a result, in the 14 years since, millions more are uninsured, and here we are trying reform again. I'd like to think that if it goes down this time -- when even the insurance companies are on board, promising to eliminate their odious policies about preexisting conditions -- Republicans will pay for having killed it, if indeed they do kill it. But they didn't pay the last time.
All this is similar to those polls about attitudes toward Congress that show that most people find Congress absolutely loathsome, yet are extremely fond of their own representative. Once again it's the difference between the abstract and the particular. Congress in the abstract is greedy, stupid and corrupt. It will do anything to get reelected. Your own representative, though, is Congress in the particular. And he or she is not so bad, even though he or she actually does get reelected.
Why does this happen? Some people (including me) say the voters are immature. Politicians (and those talk radio fellows again) are always telling them that they are wise and those folks in Washington are fools. Pollsters seek and validate their opinions on subjects they haven't bothered to learn anything about. Politicians drown them in benefits with no thought of how the bills will be paid. No wonder that citizens turn out like spoiled children. But "immature" is a label, not an explanation. It's just a guess, but my own suspicion is that the raucous town hall meetings that blindsided pols and press alike reflect the voters' true feelings -- misinformed, perhaps, but sincere -- and their previous passionate demands for what they now passionately oppose -- in a word, "change" -- were empty ritual. Discontent verging on anger is almost the price of admission to our political culture these days. You're nobody if you're not furious at Congress and/or the media and/or your health care and/or the president. To believe in your country's institutions is virtually unpatriotic.
This is only as long as your discontent can remain abstract, of course. When you are asked to approve of even moderate but genuine change, the status quo starts to look pretty good.
