On the Contrary

We got a wakeup call from of all people, conservative columnist David Brooks.  In his column yesterday in the New York Times, Vince Lombardi Politics, Mr. Brooks made the point that maybe winning isn’t everything, and compromising on legislation to get a win or to achieve what is politically possible may, in fact, pass legislation that is at best ineffective.   That would seem to be the modus operandi of the Obama Administration and the Democrats these days and it is so sad that even the conservatives see the obvious.

Take health care.  On Meet the Press Sunday, Senior White House Advisor David Axelrod, when pressed on whether the Obama administration would get health care reform passed with a government option, Mr. Axelrod kept repeating that we would get health care reform passed.  In other words they were willing to compromise away a government option if that is what it took to get a health care reform package through Congress.  As I have written before, what’s the point?  Without a robust government option there is no reform.  The fear of many of us is that if you compromise away real reform now in order to get a bill under your belt, you may also waste a crisis to force real change.  One might ask when are we ever going to draw a line in the sand and say no more back sliding?  When will we be willing to wait in order to get what is really need instead of the quick fix to say we won?

Take energy and climate change.  Because the Republicans are brain dead and deny both our energy problem (addiction to oil) and climate change, there will be little support from these morons, so quit trying.  But then there are the Democrats from coal states with the same myopia.  In order to bring them along, the bill got watered down to the point where it is a very timid approach to our problems.  Even with all amendments to make the plan almost ineffective, most pundits were urging passage in the Senate because at least it is a beginning ( See Tom Friedman’s column,  Just Do It).  The fear is that the Senate will water it down even further.  Again what is the point if in order to appease all the little self-serving people in the Congress, we finally pass a bill that is at best neutral?  Are we once again compromising away our future?

I listened to a discussion of the impact of finally seating Al Franken in the Senate, bringing the 60th vote for the Democrats.  Because the Democrats are anything but in lock step like the Republicans have been and are, there is little chance this would guarantee anything.  But what I found most interesting is that they felt there would be a power shift away from the moderate Republicans (Snow and Collins) to “moderate” Democrats like Ben Nelson.  What I found interesting was calling Nelson and his ilk moderate.  The nation has moved center left and Nelson and other conservative Democrats are center right and yet the Press still refers to them as moderate Democrats.  The Republicans have become the far right with no viable solutions for our future, the conservative Democrats have become moderate Republicans, and the mainstream Democrats are the center today and nobody gets it.  Worse we keep watering down our agenda to keep these “moderate” Democrats happy and what we are really doing is legislating a moderate Republican agenda while the nation cries out for a Progressive way forward.

I think it is time to quit compromising or looking for bipartisan support.  All one has to do is read the polls to know the nation is far ahead of our Congress.  That is when we expect our President to lead, and instead what we are getting is compromise to nowhere.  The future is no longer clouded and if President Obama continues to give up the ship in order to get a legislative win, then he will lose both the American public’s support, and he will have lost one of the greatest opportunities given to a President.  If he fails to start challenging the system, then he will be seen as just one more political hack that sounded good and did nothing.  He himself has said that we are at a turning point.  So just when does he rise to the crisis and start leading?