Cities of the plain

By Capt. Fogg

There are people who give free speech a bad name, people who use any freedom the government protects to undermine and destabilize and overthrow that government and exploit the population -- and all for personal (and corporate) gain.

Such are the shadowy entities behind the multi-headed beast pumped into a frenzy by unaccountable and uncountable millions they get for the purpose: entities like SOCYBERTY.COM, whose recent post was sent to me by a breathless Republican eager to impart the secret knowledge that, no, President Obama did not give the order to enter Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan because he is a dithering, indecisive coward and the reins of government have been pried from his trembling, black hands. You see, Leon Panetta had to "override" Obama with the help of Cabinet members and that eye-rolling minstrel show clown is too afraid now to tell the truth. Holdouts like Valerie Jarfett aren't telling us either because of the "investigation back in Chicago," but there was a silent coup and Obama is no longer in control:

What Valerie Jarrett, and the president, did not know is that Leon Panetta had already initiated a program that reported to him –and only him, involving a covert on the ground attack against the compound.

Of course, no news agency, not ABC or NBC or FOX or CNN or BBC or Deutsche Welle or al freakin' Jazeera knows about this, only SOCYBERTY.COM and all the other PAC-funded heads of the same hydra who are cutting and pasting and posting these stories. Google it and you'll see. They have secret sources in the Cabinet, you know, who will commit treason only for them.

Sure, we can see it as the desperate death throes of a humiliated racist party, a wicked witch melting and hissing on the floor, but I can't forgive it and I can't forgive the people who e-mail it around the country like some titillating photo of some stoned starlet getting out of a limousine in a short skirt. I can't forgive, I can't forget, and while old Yahweh was willing to spare Sodom for the sake of ten good citizens, no God worth his scriptures would forgive a country that contained ten such unpunished liars as these.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Libya is not Iraq. Liberal interventionism is not neoconservatism.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

One of our former contributors, Jim Arkedis, has an excellent piece up at Foreign Policy responding to the assertion, notably by Stephen Walt, that neoconservatism and liberal interventionism are essentially the same, and that the intervention in Libya is essentially the same as the invasion of Iraq.

If you've read this blog recently, you'll know that I side with Jim on this -- and that I'm a liberal interventionist who supports the intervention in Libya (albeit with reservations). Indeed, I argued yesterday that the "war" in Libya is decidedly not a neocon war.

I encourage you to read Jim's piece. (Instead of calling them (or us) liberal interventionists or liberal hawks, he uses "progressive internationalists." My sense is that "internationalism" is too broad, but it suggests that war is an option but not the preferred option, as it would seem to be for the neocons, so it's not a bad term to use.) Here's a taste:

Progressive internationalists recognize that U.S. foreign policy is now aholistic enterprise that must first summon all sources of national power todeal with what goes on within states as well as between them -- direct andmultilateral diplomacy, development aid to build infrastructure and civilsociety, trade to promote growth, intelligence collection, and law enforcement,to name a few -- and only then turn to force as the final guarantor of peaceand stability.

Neocons, however, disdain multilateral diplomacy and overestimate theefficacy of military force. Their lopsided preoccupation with "hard power"creates an imposing facade of strength, but in fact saps the economic,political, and moral sources of American influence. By overspending on themilitary and allowing the other levers of American power to atrophy, neoconsmisallocate precious U.S.national resources in two ways -- leaving the UnitedStates with too little of the "smart power" capacitiesdesperately needed in war zones like Afghanistan and an overabundanceof "hard power" capacities it will never use. The trick is to carefullycultivate both, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State HillaryClinton, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen havechampioned since Obama took power.

I think that's right, and I said much the same thing, if less elaborately, yesterday:

Libya isn't a neocon war. It isn't about American hegemony, American unilateral aggression, or American national self-interest (say, in terms of oil). It's a "war," or whatever you want to call it, sanctioned by the U.N. and the Arab League, that is, a war not waged by a U.S.-led "coalition of the willing" alienating even close allies but a war effectively waged by the international community. And it is largely a humanitarian war, a war to protect innocent civilians from being slaughtered and to provide cover to rebels seeking to bring down one of the must ruthless dictators in the world.

[Bill] Kristol may be cheering it on, but it isn't his war, and in fact it is a war that is decidedly the antithesis of what he generally purports to support. It's up to him to support it or not, of course, but the success of this war, and he does think "we will" win, would only mean a further defeat for neocon ideology, the refutation of all that he stands for.

It is essential, I think, that we not let all military intervention be understood in neocon terms and that those of us who support intervention, usually as a last resort in extreme cases, defend the principles that guide us from the attacks of those who would lump all intervention, and all war, together. 

Instead of being driven by the reckless pursuit of global American hegemony, after all, nor even by a purely realist sense of national self-interest, we are motivated by internationalism and humanitarianism. And, to me, there's something fundamentally noble about that.

John Kerry really wants to be secretary of state

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As Joan Vennochi writes in the Globe:

The Bay State's senior senator is running an unofficial campaign to become the next secretary of state. For once, he looks artful, as well as ambitious.

His recent opinion piece in the New York Times said what President Obama couldn't or wouldn't: Mubarak must go.

Kerry's conclusion was elegant, but unequivocal: "President Hosni Mubarak must accept that the stability of his country hinges on his willingness to step aside gracefully to make way for a new political structure."

Of course, one has a certain freedom as a senator that one does not have as secretary of state -- or even as president -- and so Kerry can be direct in a way that Obama and Clinton cannot. Still, his strong position on the situation in Egypt is admirable, and while picking Hillary to be secretary of state made sense for Obama after the tough primary battle they waged, a "team of rivals" to unite the Democratic Party, it makes sense to turn to Kerry next, whenever Hillary leaves her post, perhaps after the 2012 election should Obama win.

I have defended Obama's handling of the situation, from the American perspective, but I agree to a certain extent with Vennochi that his administration generally "looked unprepared and off-balance when Egyptians took to the streets of Cairo." I don't necessarily fault Obama for this, as the situation and its likely outcome was unclear and he needed to walk a fine line with Mubarak, if only not to alienate him (and endanger U.S. interests) in the event he remained in power, but I do wish Obama would respond with greater moral clarity for once instead of equivocating (and, in this case it would seem, dismissing the pro-democracy movement and supporting, even if just as a "transition," yet more tyranny).

I'm not sure Kerry would bring such moral clarity to Foggy Bottom, and, even if he did, he wouldn't really be in a position to articulate it as formal U.S. policy unless authorized to do so, but he would be a smart, refreshing addition to Obama's team.

Glenn Greenwald and the "climate of fear"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Much of the political world has been talking about the Arizona shooting the past few days, but there remains a larger and more troubling development, namely, the U.S. government's manufacturing of a "climate of fear" that allows it to advance its interests both at home and abroad.

I highly recommend this essential post from Glenn Greenwald. Key passage:

So much of what the U.S. Government has done over the last decade has been devoted to creating and strengthening this climate of fear. Attacking Iraq under the terrorizing banner of "shock and awe"; disappearing people to secret prisons; abducting them and shipping them to what Newsweek's Jonathan Alter (when advocating this) euphemistically called "our less squeamish allies"; throwing them in cages for years without charges, dressed in orange jumpsuits and shackles; creating a worldwide torture regime; spying on Americans without warrants and asserting the power to arrest them on U.S. soil without charges: all of this had one overarching objective. It was designed to create a climate of repression and intimidation by signaling to the world -- and its own citizens -- that the U.S. was unconstrained by law, by conventions, by morality, or by anything else:  the government would do whatever it wanted to anyone it wanted, and those thinking about opposing the U.S. in any way, through means legitimate or illegitimate, should (and would) thus think twice, at least.

That a large percentage of those brutalized by this system turned out to be innocent -- knowingly innocent --  is a feature, not a bug:  that one can end up being subjected to these lawless horrors despite doing nothing wrong only intensifies the fear and makes it more effective. The power being asserted is not merely unlimited and tyrannical, but arbitrary. And now, the Obama administration's citizen-aimed, due-process-free assassination program, its orgies of drone attacks, its defense of radically broad interpretations of "material support" criminal statutes, and its disturbing targeting of American anti-war activists with subpoenas and armed police raids are all part of the same tactic. Those contemplating meaningful opposition to American action are meant to be frightened. The anguished, helpless cries of 18-year-old American Gulet Mohamed, after a week of being disappeared and brutalized by America's close ally, serves an important purpose.

Make sure to read the whole thing. You'll notice that Greenwald is not engaging in demagoguery and is not using violent rhetoric to whip his readers up into a mouth-frothing frenzy. He is simply doing what the media are not, which is reporting on what is actually going on in the world, including what the government is doing, and encouraging people to educate themselves and to demand that their democratically-elected government not engage in undemocratic and illiberal practices that violate America's purported principles and ideals:

There has been much talk over the last several days, in the wake of the Arizona shooting, about attempts by some citizens to instill physical fear in elected officials. That's a worthwhile and necessary topic, but the fear that government officials are attempting to instill in law-abiding, dissenting citizens is far more substantial and sustained, and deserves much more attention than it has received.

Indeed.

Let's start a conspiracy theory!

By Edward Copeland 

The first two times Wikileaks unloaded their document dumps, there seemed to be a clear motivation: Uncovering untold facts about what the U.S. did or still is doing during both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. There seemed to be an overriding public service in the publishing of the classified documents, not that it seemed as if many paid any attention. The part that bothered me about that was how piss-poor our nation's cybersecurity must be if, as they expect us to believe, a single Army intelligence officer was able to download hundreds of thousands of documents, if not millions, and pass them on to Wikileaks.

The case with the latest Wikileaks document dump though is murky. What purpose can be served by telling world leaders what our various diplomats and leaders in the State Department say about other world leaders behind their backs. What is this high school? Given what is being revealed in the lustiest batch of leaks, it is difficult to discern a political agenda other than to ruin our relations with various nations and leaders around the world, and not just the Obama Administration since some of the leaks date back to actions taken in previous administrations, with particular mention of actions taken by both Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice.

The part of the story that immediately makes me smell a rat is that they are again attributing this leak to Bradley Manning, the same 23-year-old Army intelligence analyst who was based in Iraq but who has been held in a prison cell in Quantico, Va., for the past few weeks. Was he able to find time to download what could have amounted to millions of documented without getting caught? Even if he did do the Iraq and Afghanistan ones, what possible interest would he have had in snooping into the State Department to find out what we were saying about world leaders and other things? Could this be another case as when they tried to say that Abu Ghraib was because of a couple of low-ranking "bad apples" and they didn't go higher up?

Now here comes my conspiracy theory. Who hates everybody, in this administration, most of the Bush administration and especially foreign leaders? Someone who would have had access to a lot of this older information and I'm sure could find his way in to find stuff since he left office.

Dick Cheney, that's who. Sure, I have no proof. I'm making pure speculation, but there has to be one for this latest document dump. Otherwise, the true story is that Wikileaks has no sense of what really matters and doesn't care about repercussions. The other leaks were important. These are mostly trivial and, more importantly, could prove hurtful to U.S. foreign policy for who knows how long just as Obama and his team were making strides to repair the damage that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the gang left.

Exhaustion

By Mustang Bobby.

Following up on Creature's post below....

President Obama held a town hall meeting earlier this week where he took unscripted questions from the audience. Some the questions were rather pointed, and he also heard from a woman named Velma Hart who told the president that she was exhausted.

Exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the man for change I voted for, and deeply disappointed with where we are right now. I’ve been told that I voted for a man who said he was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class. I’m one of those people and I’m waiting, sir, I’m waiting. I don’t feel it yet.

She's not alone, and if the polls are to be believed, it's showing up as the "enthusiasm gap" between the Democrats and the Republicans in the run-up to the mid-terms. And as Digby says, it's not really new.

Those of you who went through the 90s will recognize this phenomenon. It's when the right's ferocious attacks are so vicious and relentless that they eventually wear down average, common sense people with normal lives to lead --- and even scare them a little.

In Clinton's case it was defending him from the non-stop personal attacks that was so wearying. It took a brave soul with a taste for political combat to keep fighting in the face of that onslaught. It was called Clinton Fatigue, the sense that even people who were sympathetic to the president's political plight and understood that his enemies were rabid and insane, just wanted it to end. Many analysts think it was the reason why Gore had such a hard time even though the economy was roaring --- normally the country would have not wanted to rock that boat. It was the prospect of four or eight more years of wingnuts shrieking and howling that made at least few people say "whatever... give it to them ... anything to shut them up."

In Obama's case it's this moribund economy vs the outsized expectations that form the substance of the Democratic base's complaint. And there's good reason for people to be disappointed and worried. But the exhaustion at defending him, at least some of it, comes from the same place as that Clinton Fatigue. The right's non-stop attacks eventually just wear people down, sap them of their enthusiasm, make them question their own judgment, especially in the face of a negative and less than hopeful future. You have to be pretty committed to want to wallow in this toxic mud every day and most people have better things to do with their time.

This is where it gets difficult. It's not easy fighting the relentless and the trivial; it's like being pecked to death by ducks. And don't think for an instant that the attackers don't know this; it's the basis of their strategy. Don't go after the big things like how to rescue the economy or fix healthcare; they've shown that not only do they not have any ideas, even if they did they wouldn't put them out there because that would both raise the argument to the level of a real discussion about things that matter -- which is the last thing that they want -- and take the attention away from the silly and the insane such as the conspiracy theories about birth certificates and Luo tribal anti-colonialism.

The thing to remember is that this fight cannot be about one person. President Obama or Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich are, in the long term, temporary figures and at some point they will leave the scene, so focusing on them diverts our attention from the ideas, and those are the things that matter. That is why the right wingers label the healthcare reform "Obamacare"; they latch it on to a person and attach all the personal baggage that he brings with it rather than focus on the benefits that healthcare reform brings with it. It's an old tactic and it works.

Ms. Hart is right when she says she's exhausted by defending President Obama. But what about the ideas that she believes in that made her vote for him and support him to the point of her exhaustion? Is she ready to give up on them? Is she ready to concede the points of the opposition; that healthcare reform and the stimulus package are socialism and that the president is secretly a Muslim born in Kenya? Forget about Mr. Obama; is she -- are we -- too exhausted to fight for the things we believe in?

I'm not. I've been fighting for what I believe in all my life and I've faced some pretty steep and tough obstacles, and I have some scars to prove it. It can be exhausting. But if it wasn't, it wouldn't be worth fighting for.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Obama fatigue

By Creature

Sure I'm disappointed in the way Obama's first two years have played out, and yes he is to blame for some of that, but it's the crazy coming from the other side that really has me down (and probably is why I'm having a hard time blogging lately). As Digby explains, it's Clinton fatigue all over again. Hell, part of the reason I didn't support Hillary in the primaries was simply because I couldn't live through the crazy of the '90s all over again. Yet here we are, only more so, and I'm exhausted.

Gibbs blasts "professional" left

By Creature

“They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.” -- Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

To the White House the left is as much as an annoyance as the right (which is silly--if not a bit disrespectful). I get the whole pragmatism thing. I get that the Senate is a mess. I'm thrilled that they have gotten things done in the face of a dishonest opposition (really, I am). But do they need to be so dismissive? Do they need to express their frustration out loud?

In the end, I assume this is just hippie-punching politics. Robert Gibbs still holds out hope that the serious people in Washington won't call Obama a socialist-leftist blah, blah, blah, but that ship sailed long ago. Robert Gibbs is punching air at this point and it's unnecessary.

Update: Gibbs walks back, a bit.

Allawi: Still our safest bet in Iraq?

By Peter Henne 

Before I launch into the blogging, I'd like to introduce myself. I've appeared several times on The Reaction as a guest contributor, and was fortunate enough to be asked to contribute more frequently. I am a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University, where my research focuses on the foreign policy of Muslim states and terrorism; I am also a Fellow with the Truman National Security Project. I have contributed to The Moderate Voice and Huffington Post, and my pieces have appeared in Real Clear World, GOOD, The Duck of Minerva, and the Washington Post/Newsweek's "On Faith" feature. I will be writing primarily on US foreign policy, and international issues.

**************************************

Now to today's topic: Iraq.

Despite being an aspiring foreign policy wonk, I at first failed to realize the significance of August 31st, 2010. That is the date the US combat mission in Iraq will end. It is not that I was unaware of this date, or forgot. Instead, it was the near-absence of Iraq from much public discourse, despite continuing tension over the fallout of the spring's parliamentary elections. As I have been arguing since the elections, however, that contest's winner -- Iyad Allawi -- is the safest bet for US efforts to stabilize Iraq, a bet that has only become safer since the elections. The domestic political climate in the United States makes an increased focus on Iraq unlikely, but it could prove valuable for Democrats' political prospects in November.

Shortly after the election, I pointed out the potential for Allawi to stabilize Iraq, and later highlighted the dangers posed by US inaction and al-Maliki returning to power. This latest phase in Iraq's struggle began with March's parliamentary elections. Allawi, a secular Shiite and former Prime Minister who was initially placed in power by the United States, won a slim majority over the incumbent Nouri al-Maliki. Allawi won in part through support from secular-minded Iraqis, but also through the votes of many Sunnis -- who were wary of al-Maliki -- and divisions between al-Maliki and some of the religious parties who had been his partners. The vote was too close to call, however, and al-Maliki refused to relinquish power. The ensuing stalemate continues -- despite intervention by Vice President Biden -- resulting in sectarian tensions and degraded government capabilities.

My arguments about the danger al-Maliki poses still hold true. Al-Maliki proved willing to stir up sectarian sentiment when it benefited him politically, then re-framed himself as an Iraqi nationalist when facing opposition among some Shiites. His attempts after the election to hold on to power, which included threatening comments about his role as commander of the military and a move to disqualify some candidates in Allawi's bloc due to reputed Baathist ties, demonstrate he is still likely to place personal advancement over Iraq's stability.

Yet, there is also much going for Allawi besides not being al-Maliki. Allawi proved a responsible and effective leader, albeit one undone by his U.S. ties. Moreover, his Shiite identity and secular tendencies make him legitimate to a majority of Iraqis and less threatening to its Sunni and Kurdish minorities than the more Islamist al-Maliki. Finally, his Sunni-Shia coalition gives him cross-cutting appeal. This provides Sunnis a stake in the system and Allawi a disincentive to draw on sectarian tensions to increase his political standing, as this would alienate many of his supporters.

This has only become clearer in the months since the election. Al-Maliki continued his dangerous posturing, and Iraq's fragile political system is coming under increasing stress. But there are signs al-Maliki is losing ground to Allawi. The Shiite religious bloc al-Maliki was counting on to deliver a majority recently indicated they may negotiate with Allawi. If these two were to merge, this would give Allawi a clear majority and further dampen sectarian tension, as it would unite secular Shiites, religious Shiites, and Sunnis in one governing coalition.

This is where August 31st comes in. U.S. officials are hoping for a stable political system in Iraq to ensure fighting does not erupt as our troops leave. Despite Biden's admirable efforts, there has been little else in terms of U.S. assistance in resolving Iraq's political impasse, and this is unlikely to change anytime soon. Democrats are trying to paint this as a success in terms of removing the United States from the conflict and are unlikely to advocate enhanced involvement in the country. Republicans, meanwhile, have little to offer in terms of positive policy suggestions, counting on opposition and denunciation to carry them to victory in November.

It would be a grave mistake, however, if Democrats let the potential posed by Allawi to pass by. This is partly about Iraq; absent U.S. assistance, it is very likely al-Maliki will manage to hold on to power, which would only exacerbate the rising violence in that country. It is also about November. A decisive victory by Allawi would help stabilize the country, which can allow Obama to withdraw from Iraq without being accused of leaving mid-mission. And by actively supporting Allawi - -the winner in a relatively fair election -- Democrats can signal their commitment to progressive ideals like freedom and democracy (remember?) as well as their sophisticated approach to international issues. Finally, and most importantly, these moves would show continued commitment to the troops who have served their country in Iraq, even as many Americans -- including Republicans -- seem to want to forget this conflict. If the current trend continues, however, Iraq may turn out to be yet another tragic footnote in the history of U.S. involvement in the Middle East.

(Previously posted at The Huffington Post.)

Interim head

By Creature

With the news today that Elizabeth Warren can be named interim head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as The Huffington Post headline screams, there really are no excuses for not naming her. That being said, with Dodd's insider-balloon now busted, I fully expect more excuses.

Quote of the Day

By Creature

"Failing to appoint Elizabeth Warren would be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. It will go down in the history books as a turning point – downwards – for this administration." -- Simon Johnson on the administration's big decision on who will head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

And I couldn't agree more. Appointing Warren will help energize a depressed base. Not appointing Warren, well, see above about the back and the camel and the breaking.

Quote of the Day

By Creature

"My name is Eddie Vale of the AFL-CIO and I'm proud to fight for working families and I don't hide behind anonymous quotes." -- in response to the anonymous White House official who (stupidly) bashed the unions for spending money on Halter.

If the White House does one thing well, it's alienating the people they'll need come November.

A watered-down UN Security Counsel response

By Creature

So, now that Obama has clearly backed Israel's escalating stupidity, will the delusional chants coming from the right that "Obama has abandoned Israel" stop?

Rhetorical question, of course.

An arm of BP?

By Creature

While I'm not sure what more the administration can do with respect to the slow motion oil catastrophe in the Gulf, I am sure that any hint of collusion with BP in the effort to obscure the spills extent and damage is not the way to go. Throw in what appears to be the Coast Guard acting like BP's private police force and I think the administration may well have some answering and distancing to do.

Enthusiasm gap

By Creature

Yes, there's a huge enthusiasm gap on the left for HCR and I'm part if it. While I do want HCR to pass (even if it's the crappy Senate bill), I have no intention to cheer-lead for it. I've made my calls and donated my money when the public option was on the line, but that's it. The president has my support, but my enthusiasm has been deadened. This is the price the administration paid for leaving the left behind to appease conservadems and, sorry, but now it's up to conservadems to push HCR over the line.

Up or down vote for HCR (or else)

By Creature

That's the message coming out of the White House this morning. It's a message that should be repeated ad nauseum by every Democrat that finds themselves in front of a microphone from now until the bill passes. The White House also called a GOP filibuster an "extraordinary step." Very good, as well. I'd also add Democrats should repeat the words "moderate bill" just as often. Messaging, people. Messaging.

Obama's HCR bill to include government oversight of rate increases

By Creature

It's a great idea. It should help sooth critics. However, if they don't quickly get out in front of the criticism, this common-sense, populist proposal will surely be demonized as more government takeover. I hope they have learned their lessons. I hope they are ready.

White House to introduce their own HCR plan

By Creature

And it will be reconciliation ready. Good news. And, while I highly doubt a public option will be in it, I'm pleased to see they could be open to it.

Same old, same old

By Capt. Fogg

Seems "the most liberal Senator in all of American history" is even more of a hide-bound conservative than I imagined, if it's true that he intends to beef up the misbegotten War on Drugs rather than admit that the 73-year-old enterprise has succeeded in doing to drug use, to organized crime, and to public safety what the Volstead Act did when it made private alcohol sales and consumption a crime.

President Barack Obama's new drug czar, former Seattle police chief Gil Kerlikowske, told us just 8 months ago that the idiocy was over, that "we're not at war with people in this country," but action speaks louder than words.

The new budget for fiscal 2011's War on Drugs is increased over this year's, and the emphasis is still on "enforcement," which means more spitting on constitutional rights, more interference with private matters, more clogging up of courts, more disrupted families, more crime, more prisons training more harmless people to be criminals, and more ruining the lives of innocent people. In fact, it's more of George W. Bush and it's more of what has only made things worse and worse. Even so, that 15.5-billion-dollar budget vastly understates the cost to the nation as much as that of our former administration because it ignores the huge cost of incarceration and due process.

From "the War on Drugs is over" to:

In a time of tight budgets and fiscal restraint, these new investments are targeted at reducing Americans' drug use and the substantial costs associated with the health and social consequences of drug abuse,

took us only 8 months, and a return to doing what always fails, a return to pseudo-moralistic prohibitions, fraudulent medical data, and a continuation of being the biggest jailer in the world makes liars out of the idiots shouting "liberal" as much as it makes liars of our administration.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

1994, the coming sequel?

By J. Kingston Pierce

Any Republican’ts who weren’t already popping champagne corks over former underwear model Scott Brown’s success at capturing the late Edward Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat earlier this week now have more reasons to rejoice. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced this morning that Democrats in the lower chamber lack the votes necessary to pass the Senate’s compromise health-care reform legislation, quashing hopes--high only a month ago--that reforms sought for more than century in the United States might finally be adopted.

“I don’t see the votes for it at this time,” Pelosi told reporters. “The members have been very clear.”

Unbelievably, President Obama--who said only last summer that “he was willing to be a one-term president” if that’s what it takes to get health-care reform passed--essentially conceded the battle on Wednesday, saying, “Here’s one thing I know and I just want to make sure that this is off the table. The Senate certainly shouldn’t try to jam anything through until Scott Brown is seated. People in Massachusetts spoke. He’s got to be part of that process.”

Are you kidding, Mr. President? Were a Republican’t in this same position, having lost only one seat in the U.S. Senate, do you really think he would throw in the towel? Admittedly, the fight would probably not be over something as important as health-care overhaul legislation, but I’m confident that even a wrongheaded stumblebum like George W. Bush would not be so considerate of the opposition. There’s absolutely no reason for Democrats to lose their backbones, just because they’ve suddenly lost their 60th vote in the Senate. This should be motivation to step up the fight, not step away from it. The American people elected Obama and his fellow Democrats to Capitol Hill majorities last year, because they believed that Dems could deliver on their promise to enact essential health-care reforms. If the promise is abandoned, then the motivation for keeping Democratic control of Congress disappears with it.

Sure, Obama and the Dems in Congress promise to carry on the struggle. But who’s going to believe them, when they are so willing to snatch failure from the jaws of success?

Ted Kennedy must be spinning in his grave. The moral cause to which he devoted so much time and energy during his almost 50 years in the Senate--winning access to high-quality medical care for all Americans--is suddenly endangered by Democrats who are ready to succumb without taking the last vote they need to fulfill at least part of Kennedy’s dream. All House Democrats have to do is endorse the Senate’s health-care reform legislation, then make improvements through the subsequent budget-reconciliation process. The results would likely fall short of what many progressive members want, but there would at least be a platform to build upon in the future. (The importance of that cannot be discounted. Remember, Social Security and Medicare didn’t pass in the forms we know them today; they also had to be modified over time, just as health-care reform would need to be improved with the passage of years.) To walk away from this opportunity, just as there is victory over the horizon for health-care reform, would be political suicide.

If health-care reform is allowed to fail in this way, making Democrats and the president both look weak--victims of a tyrannical minority on Capitol Hill--voters can’t be expected to believe Dems when they say they’ll keep up the fight. Can you really see lawmakers returning to the subject of health-care reform immediately, when they are also expected to cure the nation’s persistent unemployment and reign in banking abuses?

Prominent Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said earlier today that “moving away from health care would be the worst decision. ‘We can’t talk about it for a year and deliver nothing, that would be a disaster. We should pass it and then we have to go sell it. We have to tell people what is in it.”

She’s absolutely right. Democrats on Capitol Hill as well as in the White House have to deliver on their promises, or their promises mean nothing. And even if they can’t ultimately deliver, for one reason or another, they must at least fight the good fight. They cannot roll over and play dead just because Republican’ts in Massachusetts were more energized to turn out and vote for one of their guys than Bay State Democrats were motivated to endorse Brown’s opponent, state Attorney General Martha Coakley.

Presidential advisor David Axelrod had it right when he said, after the Massachusetts election: “[W]e should finish health care because the caricature of that bill is there and everyone who voted for it will have to live with that. The way to deal with that is to pass the bill and let people see ... the value of it.”

Ezra Klein says it still better in The Washington Post: “Letting this process die is, of course, the worst of all worlds. Democrats have 59 votes in the Senate and almost 260 votes in the House. They brought their [health-care reform] bill to the one-yard line before Scott Brown forced a fumble. Proving yourself unable to govern in that scenario is proving yourself unable to govern. Moreover, it would be staggeringly cruel to the people that this bill is meant to help, and who need this bill’s help. Covering 30 million and protecting countless millions more is not just a talking point. It’s the reason for this whole enterprise. To abandon those people because Brown won in Massachusetts is simply indecent, and would prove the Democratic Party worse than ineffective. It would prove the party unconcerned.”

No wonder Republican’ts are talking again about being able to recapture control of Congress in 2010. If Democrats give up on health-care reform now, they run the decided risk of delivering to the GOP the same sort of successes this November that they enjoyed in 1994. And Obama loses the faith of so many people who backed him in the presidential election of 2008.

The time has come for the Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives to put aside its egos and petty policy differences, and for the president to step up and prove himself capable of taking this fight to the finish line. They all have a larger goal: to deliver on health-care reform now, while they have it within their reach. That’s essential to keeping faith with the American public, retaining anywhere near their lawmaking majority come the midterm elections, and stopping Obama’s remark about being a one-term chief executive from coming true.

(Cross-posted from Limbo.)