I have been a bit outspoken in arguing that the vast expectations building up around the president’s health care reform speech tonight were unreasonable, and unnecessary. Congress is closer to enactment of legislation that it’s been all year, or at any time since 1994, and his job tonight was to “reboot” the debate by rebutting the lies that have been circulating about reform, and restating the basic case for action this year.
The president did that abundantly. But he also did some other important things.
His smackdown of lies about health reform (“That is a lie” was a refreshing high point) was deftly combined with shout outs to individual Republicans who have contributed decent ideas in the past, and with a specific pledge to begin action on the pet rock of conservative health care policy, medical malpractice reform. He also bluntly called out Republicans for their incredible hypocrisy in posing as the saviors of Medicare, even as they embrace proposals to privatize it. This will give Republicans a lot to cope with in the days ahead.
He made the moral case for genuinely universal health care, and explained the whole competitive system more clearly than any politician has done, while refusing to make the “public option” a litmus test, treating it as a “means, not an end,” which is exactly how he needed to frame it.
He got wonky now and then, but not as much as he did in his last effort on this subject, the presidential press conference.
Most importantly, he presented a vision of the big themes of health reform that is consistent with what’s happening in the House, what’s likely to happen in the Senate, and what might ultimately emerge from a conference committee. In other words, it was a keeper.
Many observers will focus on the style rather than the substance of the speech: the president was obviously passionate as well as wonky, and very emotional in his wind-up tribute to the late Senator Kennedy. Even though I didn’t think coming in that he had to move public opinion, he may have actually done that. But if nothing else, he’s set the stage for positive action in Congress, laid down the markers he needed to lay down, and in general, regained some serious momentum for health care reform.
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COMMENTS (1)
Some people collect words as others collect stamps or baseball cards. It is the collecting itself rather than the point of [or behind] the collection that motivates them by and large.
Contrast this to a time when our ancestors invented words not in order to collect them but to stack them up against the words of others in the actual day to day struggle to subsist.
There are far too many poets in the blogosphere today. Wordmeisters mired in the theoretical thickets of endless speculation...doing battle with colleagues pro and con.
Some literally spend days, weeks, months and years perfecting their craft...their collection. A few have managed to perfect it to the point they no longer have to leav ... view full comment
Some people collect words as others collect stamps or baseball cards. It is the collecting itself rather than the point of [or behind] the collection that motivates them by and large.
Contrast this to a time when our ancestors invented words not in order to collect them but to stack them up against the words of others in the actual day to day struggle to subsist.
There are far too many poets in the blogosphere today. Wordmeisters mired in the theoretical thickets of endless speculation...doing battle with colleagues pro and con.
Some literally spend days, weeks, months and years perfecting their craft...their collection. A few have managed to perfect it to the point they no longer have to leave the home or office.
Barack Obama is that rare collector who inspires other collectors to follow his own speculations out the door and into the lives of literally millions and millions of flesh and blood men and women. His words have conequences the likes of which poets often never bear the burdon of.
For pundits he is like Cool Hand Luke. They all do the talkin'....but he does the walkin' too.
george