Obama Has Only Himself to Blame for the Healthcare Reform Debacle

I was watching MSNBC this evening and as I listened to descriptions of the utterly gutted version of health care reform that might get passed - that's assuming anything gets passed - I again had to wonder if Hillary Clinton might not have been a better president than Obama who continues to show no backbone and a delusional desire to work with Republicans on a bipartisan basis. Indeed, watching Obama get repeatedly slammed by members of the GOP who want him to fail, I could not help but think of the parallels of Jimmy Carter trying to deal with the Iranian hostage takers so many years ago. Obama comes across as either an idiot or simply out of his league. I am not the only one sorely disappointed with Obama's performance - America Blog is running a poll and so far 67% of the responders say they are disappointed. Salon has a story that analyzes how Obama got himself - and those of us who supported him - into this quagmire. Here are some highlights:

*

If President Obama expects Congress to pass a healthcare reform bill worth signing, he'd better grasp that "bipartisanship" is a means, not an end. After eight years of cheering themselves hoarse over one catastrophic Bush blunder after another, Republicans will start dealing with reality only when they're afraid not to. Right now, it's their talk-radio/Fox News-hypnotized base that's got GOP congressmen running scared. The White House ought to have learned from unanimous Republican opposition to the economic stimulus.

*

Striking poses cost them nothing. Stimulus money found its way into their districts anyway. Remarkably, Obama failed to get the message. Seemingly preoccupied with the president's image as a transformative figure, the White House keeps trying to negotiate with people who seek his political destruction.

*
On healthcare reform, Obama has mainly his own high-minded fecklessness to blame. To alter the cliché, he hasn't just brought a knife to a gunfight, he's brought a cake knife. The GOP's armed for war; he's showed up with a multilayered birthday cake of a bill hardly anybody understands. While insurance reform's opponents peddle hysterical falsehoods, Obama counters with professorial explanations. Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley's shameful endorsement of "death panels" should have taught Obama the futility of making nice.

*

Even former GOP senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole tried to do the president a favor. "Obama's approval numbers would jump 10 points," he wrote in the Washington Post, "if Americans knew he was fully in charge." He urged the White House to introduce its own bill and fight for its passage. You won't hear this on TV, but Obama's slumping approval numbers reflect that many Democrats now worry he's a gutless wonder.

*

Careful technocratic arguments won't cut it. For more than a generation, the well-organized, extravagantly funded, right-wing noise machine has steadily grown in power while liberals have deemed themselves too sophisticated to fight back. There was actually a recent Columbia Journalism Review article arguing that "mainstream" media can best counter disinformation like "death panels" by simply refusing to report it.

*

I sincerely hope that Obama and some of the Congressional Democrats wake up to reality and get out the brass knuckles needed to fight back against the thugs, theocrats and lairs that now predominate the Republican Party - but I am not holding my breath.