Banter Voices

Worth Pointing Out

By Oliver Willis · April 18,2009

| 2 Views | Media and Entertainment

You might remember that before inauguration I had a hell of a time bitching at people on the left who were ready to whine and moan about Obama’s position and initiatives on certain issues before he was even sworn in. Three months in, I think that was the right call. It seems to often that especially on our side of the aisle, anything less than perfection calls for one to be burned at the stake.

On balance of course I feel that for every 1000 good things the administration does there is one they screw up. For instance the foot dragging over Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is kind of hard to understand. It isn’t the cultural hot-button it was back in 1993, and if anything its simply a national security issue – well qualified military members are getting kicked out solely for their orientation and that’s whacked.

So far we’ve got an administration that values common sense and science over ideology and a perverted view of religion and that’s cause for hope. While personally I would rather congress not be such an impediment to enacting the President’s agenda, the idea is that he and his people get challenged to do the right thing and not just be given a rubber stamp like the GOP congress gave to Bush.

The biggest test on this is likely to be health care, where the Obama team’s apparent moderation needs to be pushed to be more ambitious from the left and not just incremental change for p.r.’s sake that accomplishes the right’s mission of leaving the system broken as it is. If for no other reason than national pride we shouldn’t have a second rate health care system.

Tags: Liberals, President Obama

http://bydanieldoyle.com Daniel Doyle

I think you’re soft pedaling some major issues here. Rahm Emmanuel said on teevee today (I thought you watched a lot of teevee) that persons committing war crimes under the Bush Administration would be immune to prosecution under the Obama administration. Do you simply not care about this? The fact is if Americans let this slide, we are complicit in war crimes and are just as guilty. Furthermore, you don’t say anything about allowing a hedge-fund rich bankster like Summers, or an executive-pay-rich, failed regulator like Geithner to liberate government funds and place them into the caring hands of banks who post profits but deny loans to the Americans who need them.

This fascinates me. You are really pleased with the administration right now. How long, Oliver, will you wait before you start pushing back from the left? Are you so addicted to sparring with the loons on the right that you’re itching for election season to come around, so that your sparring might carry value?
El Cid

I think this is a complicated subject. While I too tire of reading (though sometimes I think to myself the same) certain of the more doom and gloom variety left thinking, I also think Obama actually pays attention to the debates going on about his policies in deciding what to do.

Raising a big debate about what might be done is not simply fear mongering — part of it is proper attention to the citizens’ own role. We’re not here to just sit back and hope a leader, even one many of us like, does the right thing ‘just because’.

That said, I’m one of those crazy fringe leftists who understand that however good Obama is, he’s an elected leader of the U.S., with all the historical baggage and upper-class dominated structure that that involves, so I never expected an election to lead to a paradisical revolution, either.
Parthenon

I don’t mind the Administration taking its time on certain things, as political reality has to be taken into consideration. I also don’t mind the Administration not governing as liberally as I’d like – the President was the candidate closest to my own views who had a chance in hell of winning. And if being a bit more conservative will draw and in and hold the moderates that the Republicans have recently exiled, all the better.
C.S.Strowbridge

J.G.Thayer: “Man, you’re tempting me… I could come up with ten things this administration has screwed up, then challenge you to cite 10,000 things they’ve gotten right…”

Even if the ratio is 10 to 1, it’s still better than Bush.

Hell, it could be 1 to 1 and it would likely be better than Bush.
rat_bastard

I gotta say its probably closer to 999 things right for every 2 things wrong, you are used to a bush presidency and might be grading things that only go a little wrong as successes.
Fred

Many progressives objecting to Obama’s approach to health care seem to me to be intent upon repeating the error of the Clinton years and going for broke then ending up, well, broke – with nada.

The art of Jujitsu politics gives us a better, more rational and much more likely to succeed approach. Increase coverage for everyone and allow people to buy into either publicly managed or private health insurance. Reverse the rules around the public systems not being able to leverage savings by making deals for lower cost drugs, supplies etc. and also continue to run the public system at less than 25% of the overhead costs of the private firms. In addition the public system does not have to allow for a profit factor. All of these will cause the premiums to be substantially lower than any private option available. Run the whole thing based on good medicine, good science and good economic policies (in other words the opposite of what Cheney/Bush would do) so the care provided is also exceptional.

Not every one will want the private version at first – they will believe the wingers and avoid it, but enough people will join and the quality of their care and the savings on their premiums will be obvious, which will erode participation in the private systems more and more, which in turn will make them raise premiums and deny claims even more to continue to make a profit, which then will cause MORE people to abandon them, etc, etc. Businesses and governments will switch to the public option to lower costs.

Additionally, what do you think the economic impact would be of suddenly implementing single payer health care or even announcing a firm date by which it will happen? In the middle of the current crisis that would put an entire major economic sector into a death spiral that would impact other sectors overwhelmingly as well. If that were a pile on to the existing economic problems it would undermine everything being done to stabilize the economy.

On the other hand, expanding health insurance while offering a public version as one choice will erode the private insurers’ market share much more gradually so they can die a natural death. Obama’s current proposals can get us to single payer at a slower pace, without putting us into the full blown depression that could well result from shutting down the enormous private sector heath insurance business overnight.

In the end I think that unemployment rates similar to the great depression with little or nothing for safety nets would be of far greater damage to our health than a slower more thoughtful approach to true universal health care.
VanessaNYC

Oliver,
You’re right. Not all Democrats agree on all things. It’s natural that we have leader that doesn’t share our views on all subjects (I, for one, was upset that Obama voted for wire-tapping). Democrats, generally speaking, are a pretty idealistic bunch so it’s easy for us to feel let down when some of our initiatives fall to the wayside, but it’s important that we don’t lose sight of the big picture. Thank the universe that Obama is in office and doing good things for this country and for the world and that Bush back in Texas where he belongs.
Vanessa
Luv

Some factions of the Progressive movement have an almost obscene sense of self-righteousness. They feel “The Right Thing” must be done immediately and with no thought as to the real-world or political consequences.

They take these stands in order to make themselves feel more “pure” or “righteous to the cause” than thou. It’s annoying as hell.
Jay Tea

On balance of course I feel that for every 1000 good things the administration does there is one they screw up.

Man, you’re tempting me… I could come up with ten things this administration has screwed up, then challenge you to cite 10,000 things they’ve gotten right…

I know it’s just hyperbole, but you really are tempting me here.

J.
Alex

A lot of people voted for Obama because they were sick of Bush’s crony capitalism in favor of the rich, massive deregulation, refusal to prosecute obvious criminals, refusal to bring charges or even a shred of evidence against people it was holding in prison, support for torture, and implicitly supporting a national surveillance system — and McCain seemed like more of the same.

With Obama… uh… 1 out of 6 ain’t bad?

Health care is important. Balancing the long term budget situation is important, as is not having Americans’ retirement plan be “move somewhere warm enough that we’ll be comfortable dying in the street from starvation.” Still, the list at the beginning were important things, not minor policy issues it would be nice to get to some day. This isn’t even dithering — every time it’s had a chance, the Obama administration has definitely supported some of the most immoral, unconscionable, and outright reckless policies of the Bush administration, and in refusing to prosecute anyone involved it has given tacit approval to anyone who would commit such acts in the future.

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Worth Pointing Out

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