Follow on TwitterWhen Compromise Means Undermining The Logical Solutions To Our Most Serious Problems
Photo by Pete Souza
When Barack Obama told the New York Times he was “like a Rorschach test,” after having just defeated Hillary Clinton in the Primaries, you have to wonder if he wasn’t already laying down a narrative he could lean on in defense of all the promises he intended to break.
Make no mistake about it, Progressives were NOT blinded by their infatuation with him. They were NOT merely projecting their own ideas of ‘change’ onto him, as he, his advisers and some in the MSM would have you believe.
Obama was not a candidate who spieled off a list of vague promises, leaving himself a vacuous space he could eventually wiggle away from. On the contrary, Obama was very specific about his platform. He eloquently explained to his supporters in precise details WHY his specific solutions were the most sound and the most logical for remedying the problems this country faced.
Unlike most politicians, Obama is blessed with a professorial ability to identify the cause of a complex problem and to articulately guide his listeners towards the most logical solution.
As it happened, his supporters equated his uncanny ability to brilliantly describe and defend each of his policy choices as evidence of his deep and profound commitment to them.
This is why Obama’s long list of betrayals have stung so many and in a way that differs from the all-too-familiar betrayals of the typical ‘talking points’ brand of politician. Obama was different. He made the intellectual case for the solutions he proposed.
An obvious example would be Obama’s promise that a public option would remain a vital component to any health care reform bill that he would sign. He explained it was the only way of injecting competition into a corrupt industry where none existed; that it was necessary for keeping the ‘for profit’ insurance industry honest, and would serve as a last resort for those who became unemployed, or who couldn’t, for whatever reason, afford the ‘for profit’ industry rates.
He had also described why a health care mandate — something his opponent, Hillary Clinton, favored — was idiotic. He stated “If a mandate was the solution, we could try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody buy a house. The reason they don’t have a house is they don’t have the money.”
As President, he championed the mandate, promised away the crucial public option in secret meetings with the hospital industry, and flipped on a good many of his other significant health care reform promises. And now — shocking! — Democrats worry about the political blowback in 2014 by middle-class families who will discover not only that they don’t qualify for subsidies, but that they will face financial penalties for not purchasing coverage, even if there are no policies they can afford.
Candidate Obama owes his alter ego, President Obama, one gigantic “Told You So!“
For this reason, there is a keen sense amongst many on the Left that President Obama has cunningly betrayed not just mere promises, but the public interest itself. That he sinisterly chose to enrich those same corrupt industries he spoke of so often, and to the detriment of millions of Americans.
Obama shifted very abruptly, once elected, from his commitment to ‘Change’ — as he had defined it — to something entirely different: a commitment to ‘Bipartisanship’. But this necessity for pragmatic compromise has cynically evolved into his chief rationale for pursuing the very opposite policies of the ones he once deemed imperative to solving our nation’s most vexing problems.
Here’s an exercise in simple arithmetic to help highlight the fallacy in Obama’s style of governance:
If Candidate Obama believed 1 + 1 = 2, and now faces Republicans who contend 1 + 1 = 5, should a President who quickly capitulates and decrees 1 + 1 = 4 still be trusted to solve our country’s problems?
Should he be praised for committing himself to something we all know is NOT a solution to the problem: (1 + 1 = 4), merely for the sake of projecting a token display of bipartisanship?
Many progressives believe that Obama’s commitment to compromise is nothing more than a cover to selfishly advance his own political interests. Because, we know from his campaign speeches what he himself believes to be the logical solutions for tackling these gigantic problems. And they are not at all what he has been fighting for since he was elected.
Breaking News: Sen. Reid On Public Option Negotiations: “We have a broad agreement”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gave a news conference tonight indicating that a compromise of sorts has been reached on the public option between the ten Liberal and Conservative Democrats who’ve been meeting for days to hash something out. He and the ten Senators are for now keeping the details of their agreement under wraps. They first will be submitting the proposals to the Congressional Budget Office to be scored (tomorrow morning).
Here’s are Reid’s remarks, as transcribed by the New York Times:
Thanks everyone, for being patient and waiting for us. It goes without saying that this has been kind of a long journey. We have confronted many hurdles and had to take some big steps and a lot of little steps. But tonight we have overcome a real problem that we have had. I think it’s fair to say that the debate at this stage has been portrayed as a very divisive one and many have assumed that people of different perspectives can’t come together. But I think what we were able to work out the last few days, which culminated tonight belays that fact. We have a broad agreement. Now I know that people are going to ask to be given every detail of this.
I have talked 20 minutes ago to Doug Elmendorf. I told the head of the CBO that we were going to send him something tomorrow that he would have to score and the reason I mention that to you, I also went over in some detail about what we were authorized to say about we are going to send him. We know what we are going to send him, we have to write it up in legislative language. And he said the same as when you sent over your merged bill. We have had a rule here for 40 years or however long we have been in existence, if you start talking about the plan and start shipping it around, it will be made public. And we want that not to be the case because we want to know the score before we start giving all the details even to our own members.
So you are not going to get answers to those questions. I asked Senators Schumer and Pryor to work together with a group of moderates and progressives. Everyone thought it’s an impossible job. But these two fine senators have done an outstanding job of leading these two groups of people. Everyone knows who the 10 are, they have worked very hard for days now. This is a consensus that will help ensure the American people win in a couple of different ways. One, insurance companies will certainly have more competition and two, the American people will certainly have more choices. I already know all 60 senators in my caucus don’t agree on every piece of the merger. I know that we have sent over there to CBO, or will send to them tomorrow, not everyone is going to agree to every piece that we have sent over there. But that doesn’t mean that we disagree on what we sent there.
I applaud and congratulate the 10 senators led by Schumer and Pryor. I think it’s important to mention their names, Brown, Carper, Feingold, Carper, Harkin, Landrieu, Lincoln, Nelson, Rockefeller. As I have indicated, we can’t disclose the details of what we have done, but believe me we have got something that is good and I think is very, for us, it moves this bill way down the road.
Let me just say, we have seen all kinds of articles in newspapers that Senator Schumer, Senator Pryor, I have said things, other parts of the tent, as Elmendorf and I talked tonight, all the things you have read in the newspapers, all the things you have read in the newspapers. The public option is gone. It’s not true. Ok. Everyone understand that. So we are not going into detail. But you have heard to this point, you could be surprised what we’ve sent to CBO.
UPDATE
Here’s an official written statement that Reid’s office released later on the compromise:
I asked Senators Schumer and Pryor to work with some of the most moderate and most progressive members of our diverse caucus, and tonight they have come to a consensus.
It is a consensus that includes a public option and will help ensure the American people win in two ways: one, insurance companies will face more competition, and two, the American people will have more choices.
I know not all 10 Senators in the room agree on every single detail of this, nor will all 60 members of my caucus. But I know we all appreciate the hard work that these progressives and moderates have done to move this historic debate forward.
I want to thank Senators Schumer, Pryor, Brown, Carper, Feingold, Harkin, Landrieu, Lincoln, Nelson and Rockefeller for working together for the greater good and never losing sight of our shared goal: making it possible for every American to afford to live a healthy life.
As is long-standing practice, we do not disclose details of any proposal before the Congressional Budget Office has a chance to evaluate it. We will wait for that to happen, but in the meantime, tonight we are confident.”
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