I imagine we would be more likely to buy into the promise of post-partisanism if Billy Mays was still around to serve as pitch man. He’s not here so we will have to believe President Obama and dig out this old ditty from the dust bin of campaign rhetoric. “I am in this race because I don't want to see us spend the next year re-fighting the Washington battles of the 1990s. I don't want to pit Blue America against Red America, I want to lead a United States of America. I don't want this election to be about the past, because if it's about the future, we all win. If this election is about whether or not to end this war, or pass universal health care, or make more college affordable, it won't just be a Democratic victory; it will be an American victory.” (http://www.barackobama.com/2007/11/03/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_30.php, ) Thanks to Paul Krugman from the New York Times for resurrecting this quote from one of Barack Obama’s campaign speeches.
Last year, all the chattering, talking heads on CNN, MSNBC and FOX were unanimous in their skepticism. With the Democrats back in the White House, we are sure to get nothing but “an unending procession of wild charges and fake scandals, dutifully given credence by major media organizations that somehow can’t bring themselves to declare the accusations unequivocally false.” You didn’t need to participate in oral sex in the hallway of the Oval Office to see that one coming.
The President’s Inauguration appeared to be a testament to a changing tide. That tide has eroded the shores and the shifting sands have resulted in a tenuous bedrock from which to build a changed nation upon. President Obama is now facing opposition more virolent that that President Bill Clinton had to deal with; the Tea Party, Town Hall rabid right that denies the legitimacy of his presidency (think the Birther movement and the deep seated racial prejudice that still exists). It is becoming tiresome that the media eagerly seizes on every wild rumor manufactured by the right-wing media industrial complex and presents it as news. Management directive, I suppose. Besides the Huffington Post, what media outlet isn’t owned by one of those huge corporations that used to make toasters, drill for oil, or send satellite signal directives beamed at those with aluminum foil on their heads.
Even beyond the imagination of the right-wing pundits there are claims that health care reform will create “death panels” that will shuffle grandma and her cronies off to an early grave. If you believe what you hear on CNN, it’s a complete fabrication, of course. If you believe what you hear on Rush Limbaugh’s show, it was President Obama’s original plan for cutting the cost of health care by getting rid of the elderly – Soylent Green for the Ditto Heads! The provision requiring that Medicare pay for voluntary end-of-life counseling was introduced by Senator Johnny Isakson, a well respected Republican from Georgia, who says that it’s “nuts” to claim that it has anything to do with euthanasia. No universal health care and death becomes our next great growth indsutry. We Americans are innovative; deregulation, credit default swaps and now a shortcut to the light at the end of the tunnel. You betcha! I would imagine the Funeral Directors lobby is wringing their greedy cold, stiff hands waiting for their piece of TARP. More options for them; “Would you like the lovely red or gold velvet with a down pillow for your final rest?”.
So not long ago, some of the most enthusiastic peddlers of the euthanasia smear, including Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, and Sarah Palin herself, were all for “advance directives” for medical care in the event that you are incapacitated or comatose. That’s exactly what was being proposed but has been dropped from the bill because of all the hysteria.
This line of thinking has moved beyond the fringe and into the mainstream. Senior GOP members including so-called moderates, have embraced the B.S. from the fringe. Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, is one of these supposed moderates. After all he voted “No” on a majority of the civil rights issues proposed in the past few years pretty much in lock-step with neocon Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho (I don't believe he was only there to wash his hands in that bathroom). If you don't support your fellow man on their basic rights how can you be a moderate? If you have studied the English language, a good synonym for moderate is judicious - as in wise and thoughtful, with a reasonable antonym being idiotic - Ditto!. I’m not sure where his centrist reputation comes from — he did, after all, compare critics of the Bush tax cuts to Hitler. I guess he is considered more moderate because he was not caught soliciting in the men’s room of his local airport. But in any case, his role in the health care debate has been despicable. It is shame that the recent passing of a senator was that of the one from Massachusetts and not this one from Iowa.
Sen. Grassley claimed that his colleague Senator Ted Kennedy’s brain tumor wouldn’t have been treated properly in other countries because they prefer to “spend money on people who can contribute more to the economy.” There was a report of him telling an audience that “you have every right to fear,” and that we “should not have a government-run plan to decide when to pull the plug on grandma.” The Health Minister of the U.K. responded that anyone with Ted Kennedy’s condition would receive preferential treatment due to the severe nature of the disease without regard to his standing in the community.
What of President Obama’s dream of moving beyond divisive politics? The truth is that the factors that made politics so ugly in the Clinton years — the paranoia of a significant minority of Americans and the cynical willingness of leading Republicans to cater to that paranoia — are as strong as ever. In fact, the situation may be even worse than it was in the 1990s because the collapse of the Bush administration has left the G.O.P. with no real leaders other than Rush Limbaugh and his sidekick, Igor - I mean Glenn Beck (Hump, What hump?).
The question now is how President Obama will deal with the death of his post-partisan dream. So far, at least, the Obama administration’s response to the outpouring of hate on the right has had a deer-in-the-headlights quality. It’s as if officials still can’t wrap their minds around the fact that things like this can happen to people who aren’t named Clinton, as if they keep expecting the nonsense to just go away.
What, then, should President Obama do? It would certainly help if he gave clearer and more concise explanations of his health care plan. To be fair, he’s gotten much better at that over the past month. Still too much techno-crap and double speak. I guess he is a politician, but I expected more from experiencing the eloquence of his earlier speeches. I believe I read somewhere that he has been advised to “dumb down” his rhetoric. I take offense to that suggestion as not all of us are standing in line awaiting our turn to drink the “special” Kool-Aid.
What’s still missing, however, is a sense of passion and outrage — passion for the goal of ensuring that every American gets the health care they need, outrage at the lies and fear-mongering that are being used to block that goal. So can President Obama, who can be so eloquent when delivering a message that uplifts us all, rise to the challenge of unreasoning, unappeasable opposition? From candidate Obama’s call for public service, I suggest those of us in the majority form a “death panel” to plan for the ultimate demise of the conservative right wing to be finally laid to rest. We are beginning to smell the stench of the rotting corpse. They died a long time ago and just forgot to lie down.
