06-November-2009
David Zoppo
1519 Deerberry Lane
Wake Forest, NC 27587
President Obama,
I remember when you were elected. I was studying in Cape Town, South Africa for the semester. We didn’t get much American news at the place where I was staying. In fact, I hardly watched much TV at all; I received most of the election news online, through CNN or the New York Times. But that night, a South African news station was carrying coverage via MSNBC; five or six of us gathered in my room around the TV—due to the time difference, it was around two in the morning when polls on the east coast closed—to watch the returns come in.
Of course, we all knew you were going to win. Even from seven thousand miles away, it was obvious: the American public was ready for a change. Hell, the world was ready for a change. Whenever I told people I was American, the first thing they asked me was, “What do you think of Obama?” I think it was a test of sorts, to see if I was one of the Good Americans. And they all loved you, of course, as a fellow African. “Obama, he is my brother!”
But I digress. The Point I am trying to make is this: the moment in American history at which you were elected was a very unique time. Everyone had endured eight years of Repugnant governance at the hands of the Bush Administration: Iraq, Afghanistan, unilateralism, recessions, job losses, Katrina, extraordinary rendition, wiretapping, intelligent design, torture, WMDs, faith-based initiatives, the housing bubble, illegal firing of federal prosecutors, military commissions, Valerie Plame, offshore drilling, ignoring climate change, Guantanamo, the Patriot Act, the collapse of the global economy, the most egregious and detestable assaults on the foundations of the American democracy the country has ever seen! Well, everyone was just sick of it.
The American people were so sick in fact—so utterly disillusioned with the policies of the Bush Administration—that they elected a black man (well, half black) to the Presidency. And here’s the kicker—they elected him over a woman. [Footnote 1]
Whoops. Don’t stop reading. Don’t get angry. I’m not being Racist or anything like that. I’m just recognizing the fact that, even in the context of America’s tumultuous racial history, race really wasn’t an issue for voters in this election because former President Bush did such an abominable job in office. People just wanted the Republicans out of there. And also, they were attracted to the substance of your message and the strength of your character. Combined with their embarrassment and rejection of the failures of the Bush Administration was their readiness for a President who would provide strong, competent leadership in reforming Washington and getting the nation back on track. And so you were elected.
Your election was a revocation of the Bush Mandate, an affirmation of progressivism in America, and—more than anything—a desire for strong, firm leadership in doing what would be needed in order to turn this country around. You sold us on change; we want change.
And in some respects, it has been achieved. The closing of Guantanamo, expanding SCHIP, the stimulus, putting nearly two million acres of wilderness under protection, initiatives for updates to the energy grid, opening a constructive dialogue with the Muslim world, the increasing of funding to national parks, and just the general trend of government becoming more accountable, transparent and responsive has been a good start.
But there is one issue—one very important issue—on which you are faltering; this is of course the issue of healthcare. To sum up my forthcoming arguments, Mr. President: by not utilizing the political resources at your disposal to push through this reform with dispatch, you are endangering the possibility of any meaningful reform being implementing and, consequently, putting in to jeopardy realization the progress we have all worked so hard to achieve. You are acting like a pansy, and in doing so, you are putting the rest of us at risk.
Mr. President, in this most critical policy area, you have demonstrated weak leadership and followed a poor political strategy. Instead of using your political capital and the great majority you have in either house of Congress to pass substantive reform with a public option (which, let’s be honest, is a crucial component to reforming the system and keeping costs down), you insist upon pandering to the right, trying to obtain some sort of bipartisan consensus [Footnote 2] on an issue in which no such consensus will ever emerge. Truly, you must be delusional to think that one will. You are ignoring the political reality of the situation (that no matter what is in the bill, the Republicans are not going to support it) and, through your foolish commitment to “bipartisanship,” you are compromising on both your principles and any meaningful reformation of the healthcare system.
If there is one thing you must understand about America, it is that at every moment of liberal ascendency in its history, there is an irrational backlash of conservatism that seeks to stifle reform and maintain the status quo. This resistance is rooted in the idea that the proposed change is somehow an assault on what is traditionally and genuinely “American.” The people who compose this opposition represent a stagnant portion of society who develop a persecution complex whenever the state tries to empower, enfranchise or extend benefits to the public through government regulation. Really, that’s what the conservative resistance is all about; it has nothing to do with healthcare, and everything to do with preserving their twisted notion of individual liberty and lassiez faire. For these conservatives, your health care reform represents an assault on these values, an attempt to socialize the country and undermine our very democracy.
Of course, these claims are as outrageous as they are untenable, and truly, they emanate from an incredibly small portion of the American citizenry. You can thank our hapless and disgraceful media for magnifying their voice, and putting on TV lunatics whose perspectives and arguments are so far-fetched, so utterly inconceivable that any journalist with half a brain would know they are nothing short of ignorant and sensationalist. But no. To avoid being labeled as “biased” or “partisan,” the media gives attention to any madman with a bullhorn, a provocative piece of poster board and the time to go shouting through the streets about “socialism” and “tyranny,” without any rational or informed basis for his arguments. In their pursuit of “balanced news”—which is really just an industry catchphrase for sensationalized entertainment—they completely ignore any intelligent, reasoned discourse on the health care issue.
What I’m trying to say is that the magnitude of the ultra-conservative perspective has been overblown. The vast majority of Americans want substantive health care reform, they want a pubic option, they want change. But you, Mr. President, are too busy with your ear to the ground listening the rumblings of these loonies to make a legitimate push for real reform. You are so preoccupied with the fervor of Conservative Rage that the media has manufactured that you are ready to neglect any real reform of the health care system. You are intent on passing a health care package under the specter of “bipartisanship” to the point that you’ll compromise on substance just to get one Republican vote, call the bill a “consensus,” and claim political victory.
But I’ll tell you something: eventually you’re going to compromise to the point that any reform that does get passed will be so watered down, so ineffective that all the work you’ve done will ultimately be a failure. In your dogged pursuit of inclusiveness and aversion to policy decisions based solely on ideology, you will, in the end, pass a bill that achieves none of the goals you set out to achieve.
Now let me explain something, Mr. President: You have the Executive. You have the Congress. You have a majority of public opinion. The Republicans, however, are a woefully disorganized, splintered party, without any clear or substantive policy message, still invoking the outdated specter of Reagan twenty years after he left office and his message lost relevancy. They have a few governorships. They have Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and Michael Steele. [Footnote 3] My point, Mr. President, is that you don’t have to compromise with these folks, because you are in control, and they are not.
But in listening to the news and following the course of this debate since August, you wouldn’t think that’s the case. Instead of forcefully stomping out the outrageous, inaccurate, and utterly unfounded accusations of the Right Wing, you have decided to follow the road of faux-bipartisanship. In doing so, you have legitimized the dubious claims of the Right. The strategy from the outset should have been to direct Congress as to what you expected to be in the bill, and to use your political capital and enormous majority in the Congress to push through meaningful reform; instead, you’ve pandered to the right, wavering on the public option and insisting on compromise where none is possible. And in fact, the only reason that your efforts for reform haven’t fallen on their face completely is because of the absolute incompetence of the Republican Party.
It’s a bit like watching two completely unmatched football teams—say the Colts and the Bucs—play each other in a really close game. The Colts are up by a touchdown, but through their own mistakes and unwillingness to simply put the game out of reach, they are keeping the Bucs within reach of victory.
To extend our analogy, Mr. President, you are Peyton Manning [Footnote 4] and the House and Senate are Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark, respectively. And, with their absurdly large majority, they completely outmatch the inexperienced Buccaneer (Republican) secondary. You’ve got the ball; all you’ve got to do is set them up on the long side of the field, have Wayne run the fade route along the sideline, send Clark underneath, launch the ball down field, and end the game already!
Whoops. Sorry about that. I got lost in my own comparison. In the course of the analogy, that play is supposed to represent the obscure Senate procedure by which you can pass a piece of legislation with fifty-one votes, instead of the traditional sixty required to invoke cloture and move to vote on the bill. I am of course referring to budget reconciliation. Yes, I know it’s a legislative procedure, and the President cannot initiate it; but if you tell Reid to do so, I guarantee he would. In fact, with Lieberman playing the turncoat, it would probably make his life a lot easier.
Lots of pieces of major legislation in the past thirty years has been passed in this manner: Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts, Clinton’s ’93 budget, Bush’s tax cuts. Bush even tried to use budget reconciliation to push a bill through Congress that would allow drilling in ANWR. And do you know what? These bills—passed with a bare majority of votes—held the same weight as a bill passed with 70 or 80 votes; and those Presidents got done—for better or worse—what they wanted to get done. Maybe you weren’t in the Senate long enough to grasp this concept….
My point is this: the American people elected you with the expectation that you would initiate change that would radically reform the status quo, that you would put the people’s interests before the special interests, that you would provide leadership to reform American policy, domestic and foreign, on all levels. I’m not saying we expected it immediately or that it would happen overnight. What I’m saying is we expected you—with 57% of the popular vote and an enormous majority in the House and Senate—to charge out of the election like a bull, implementing the policy goals we all voted for with force and vigor. We expected you to carry out your mandate with a vengeance and finally get this country back on track.
Instead, we are seeing less of a bull and more of a castrated stag. Where are your balls, man? Where is your strength? Where is your sense of leadership? You are leader of the freaking Free World, your party has a supermajority in Congress, the American public is waiting for you to put your foot to the throat of these maniacs—and all you’re focused on is passing a watered-down healthcare reform package that will attract the vote of Olympia Snowe?
Now I’m not saying that bipartisanship, inclusiveness and open-mindedness—that a commitment to practical solutions over ideological ones—is a bad approach to governance. Indeed, it is a very good approach; but it cannot work when your dealing with an opposition whose strategic political goals are completely contrary to your own, and whose rationale for resistance is fundamentally deluded. For Christ’s sake, these people are talking about death panels. If that alone is not indicative enough of their complete divorce from the reality of the situation, I don’t know what is!
Mr. President, you can’t compromise with these people and still pass a bill that contains substantive, effective reform. It simply will not happen. So you need to make a decision right now: are you going to pursue the path you’ve set out on and pass a watered-down, meaningless reform bill? Or are you going to demonstrate some strength and will, and use the resources at your disposal to pass substantive health care reform with a public option?
Let’s get real: this opportunity does not come around very often. If you keep up with your current strategy, come the mid-terms in 2010, it’s not going to be here any longer. And then you’ll have screwed it up for all of us. If Olympia Snowe and the rest of the loons in the Republican Party don’t want the public option, fuck them; we don’t need them. History will show that they were the fools, that they resisted one of the most important reform efforts this country has ever seen, and you (and the rest of us) will be vindicated.
That is, if you finally grow a pair, demonstrate some genuine leadership, and ram this bill through Congress under Budget Reconciliation.
Don’t screw this up.
Yours Respectfully,
David Zoppo
Undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel-Hill
[Footnote 1] For all intensive purposes, the Presidential election of 2008 was decided in the Democratic primary, when you defeated Hillary Clinton. Let’s be honest—I think there was never a question that you’d beat McCain. And if there was, it was settled once Sarah Palin got on the ticket.
[Footnote 2] For the record, getting one Republican vote does not count as bipartisan.
Here you are making a statement as I knew I’de discover you. I’m glad you started a blog, keep writing because I have long days at work to kill.
Very good Dr Shooting Soldiers.