The Baucus Bill Protects a Woman's Right to Choose

I'm not a fan of the Senate Finance Committee's bill that cleared committee earlier today, almost entirely because it lacks a public option. I believe that without a strong public option, the notion of health-care reform will be little more than a myth. But in a turnaround, the Baucus bill today did not restrict any government funding of abortions for women who can't afford them. And that's a good thing. Nearly 36 million women voted for President Obama last November, and I'd venture to say that most of them did so with the assumption that a pro-choice candidate would protect this particular right. I understand that not all Americans, albeit a minority, do not share my view on this particularly sensitive issue and loathe the notion of their tax dollars, no matter how few and no matter how indirectly, will be funding abortions for low income women. But we don't get to cherry-pick which programs and priorities our tax dollars fund. Millions of Americas have strong conviction that we should not fund fighter jets or tanks, but I think it's a good idea that we continue to do so. Abortion is a legal right in this country and a function of the medical system to which women are entitled. If it becomes available only to women who can afford it, we lack the equal protection our government supposedly guarantees. Even when the topic is controversial, it's always good when we continue to defend the rights of those who need it. True health insurance reform needs to ensure that procedures are covered even if a minority disapproves.

The Nobel Peace Prize: Sending the wrong message

I congratulate a truly surprised President Obama for winning the Nobel Peace Prize, but I am concerned that, for him, it's an award given too soon. There is no doubt in my mind that President Obama is precisely the type of person for whom the prize is intended. I would have been certain he'd win this award at some point in his career, just not this early. But while Obama may be a worthy recipient of the prize, the country he leads is not.

If the Nobel Peace Prize was, as the President said, a recognition of America’s efforts, then we most certainly do not deserve it. America deserves an award for facing an unprecedented challenge of global reach and choosing a path of apathy. We deserve an award for resisting innovation to grow our economy and protect our planet. If there were a prize for dividing as a society when we need to unite behind a common purpose, surely America is the top choice.

Peace requires progress. And as Americans and as a country, we have spit in the face of progress, we have placed roadblocks in its path like errant schoolboys vandalizing property – simply because we can. Peace requires thinking big; and America in 2009, despite the brilliant and ambitious rhetoric of President Obama, is almost entirely about thinking small. Part of the problem is that, like a spoiled child, America almost never gets told it’s doing something wrong, at least not by the people who matter. In fact, quite the contrary, we get rewarded with things like the Nobel Peace Prize.

This sends the wrong message. It says we’re doing something right, it says we don’t need to change our ways. The rejection of Chicago for the 2016 Olympics – which was a loss for America – was such a statement. It was a austere world body saying, “America, you’re no longer #1; you’re no longer better than us.” And they were right, but of course we didn’t get the message back home. We used it to further criticize our nation’s leader, instead of criticizing our outmoded ways.

America needs a wake-up call, not a prize for our indifference.

Let's start some rumors

Late last week, the Democratic National Committee aired a web ad claiming the Republican Party wants to kill Medicare. I was encouraged to see this, not because I care about the GOP’s stance on Medicare, but because the Democrats were finally airing an attack (albeit nobody was really listening because it was awkwardly timed and poorly marketed) that was, at best, borderline true.

Does the Republican Party really want to “kill” Medicare? It doesn’t really matter; all that does, is that we’re saying they want to and that sounds really bad. So let’s start spreading the rumor. Rumors are great things in politics, particularly when they’re hard to trace back to a particular source. It would be really great if the Democrats could start some rumors of their own. Yes, essentially what I’m advocating is that we start lying. It’s highly effective and in a war, you need to play by the standards that your opponent is, except better. Rumors are so much better than the facts. It’s not very effective –or fun – to argue that we want to cut costs and reduce overhead and increase preventative care. I’m already asleep. And I don’t have an enemy.

On the other hand, if someone starts a rumor saying the Republicans want to stop immunizing children then people can really start screaming on CNN. How about the Republicans want to ban anesthesia? Or limit the number of prescriptions you can fill? Or euthanize your dog?

Any would work, and I’d imagine with a little time and creativity, the crowd at Air America or the Huffington Post could come up with some real doozies. I’d love to start hearing some of them. I’d love to hear folks with a dose of crazy (because, believe me we’ve got our share of crazy) spewing off on cable news and at town hall meetings about some left-wing rumors. Because we can scare people too. And when you do, you win.

Is that what I think public debate should be about? Not at all.
Is this right? Absolutely not. But I’m sick of losing.

Laying a New Foundation

PHILADELPHIA – President Obama’s televised address to Congress next week is a big deal, and it is my fervent hope that The White House rises to the occasion. These sorts of appearances before a joint session are rare, underscoring the importance of what President Obama will have to say on Wednesday. And this particular address comes not only at a critical point for our country, but at a pivotal moment for the Democratic Party. After a resounding, once-in-a-generation rout of the Republican Party last November, the Democratic Party, true to its form, has managed to mangle its message and give the Republicans a clear, albeit illogical, path from the wilderness back to relevance. The GOP is steering the national debate, and in the process, again preventing health care from reaching millions of Americans.


Additionally, however, is the toll the internal divisions of the Democratic Party are hurting both the president and the Democrats. If health care fails, we can surely blame it on the Republicans, but there truly is nobody to blame except for moderate Democrats – people like Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu and Max Baucus.


But the divisions within the party that have long existed but went on seeming hiatus for the Obama presidential honeymoon, are back in forms beyond the moderate Dems in the Senate. A big reason that the President’s poll numbers have recently plummeted is a significant drop in job approval from liberal voters and young voters, alike. Liberals and young people (often coterminous) are frustrated with the Administration’s eagerness to compromise on health care, irritated by the apparent desire to achieve bipartisanship over progress and tiring of the failure to withdraw more troops from Iraq or pass bills such as a repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”


The President should take a cue from the late Speaker Tip O’Neill and remember to “dance with the one that brung ya.” He needs to articulate a plan for health insurance reform – and later for the rest of the “Change” we were promised – and unite the Democratic supermajority in the Senate and the Democratic House behind it. If he can get certain Republicans like Olympia Snowe on board for some it, great. But if not, so be it; He needs to accomplish something, with or without the Republican Party. And his Democratic base will be much more satisfied and eager to go work for candidates in 2010 if he does it without.


Obama is inclined towards compromise and bipartisanship and breaking down the divisions that have torn us apart in the past. That was central to his campaign in 2008, but it’s simply not realistic and it’s important for him to govern in the world in which we live, not an ideal world. This Republican Party and these Republican voters are not looking to compromise or unite; they are looking to destroy and divide. And they are utterly effective at both of those.


Meanwhile, the Democrats are terrible at marketing. The Republican Party managed to sell effectively sell a horrendous war by making it seem necessary for our survival. They might have, again, destroyed hope of health insurance reform by making it seem like a sure roadblock to our survival. They get everyone on the same page, using understandable (if wrong) concepts such as “death panels.” The Democrats, on the other hand, are barely in the same book and using concepts such as “access and affordability for every American while not restricting the choice and free market growth of any person or company.” It’s time for a winning sales pitch.


President Obama needs to make an unprecedented sales pitch on Wednesday. He needs to sell both the men and women sitting in front of him and the millions watching on television. (And Twittering it, for that matter.) By the time the speech concludes on Wednesday, it needs to be readily apparent that the situation is different than it is today. He needs to give the sort of address that historians look back on as a turning point. Fortunately, that is precisely what President Obama is best at.


This turning point is for not only the health care debate, but as I said earlier, the political atmosphere and the country itself. The President needs to lay a “New Foundation.” For the first several months of his administration, he has used this phrase with some regularity and it has not yet caught on as his trademark, as his “New Deal” or “Great Society.” Decades later, people fondly point to both of those sets of programs even if they cannot name a single element of either the “New Deal” or “Great Society.” They were bold, beneficial and transformative.


We need not simply such a program in the United States at this moment, but such a feeling. The sense that we are truly beginning anew. That the President has watched the bitterness brewing over the past decades displayed at town hall meetings and on cable television over this past summer and he has said, “enough.” That the President has heard too many horror stories about our health care system, seen too many die from lack of coverage and he has said, “enough.” That he has watched as his party’s noble goal has been morphed into a caricature of a death squad, and he has said, “enough.” Enough already.


It is time to lay a New Foundation. And it can begin on Wednesday night.

Harry and Louise and Hate

The "vicious" and devastating attacks on health care reform in 1993 would seem like a dream-come-true today. The enduring symbol of the anti-HillaryCare movement has been the "Harry and Louise" ads of that year, known by people who have never seen the ads but know the names. In 1993, the Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA) paid to produce a commercial criticizing the Clinton plan as too bureaucratic and urging viewers to call their Members of Congress. The HIAA, now called America's Health Insurance Plans, is a legitimate (and extremely well-funded) interest group. They have a necessary role in any debate about health insurance reform. Their attacks in 1993 were, at least, rooted in some semblance of policy. Harry and Louise - who today are airing ads in support of President Obama's plan - are polite and sweet as pecan pie. That's not true of the attackers in 2009.

Today, the attacks on health care are senseless, baseless, and about as "evil" as Sarah Palin believes health care reform to be. In 2009, there are no major health care lobbying groups against reform that are airing TV commercials urging viewers to call their Representative or Senator. There are ultra-right wing groups, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, former half-term governors of Alaska, and Kool-Aid dispenseries that are getting their followers to threaten their Representative or Senator and scream at him during town hall meetings.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've met a number of these opponents of health insurance reform in person. They actually oppose it, but I'm not convinced that nearly any of these avowed health care opponents really knows why. Sure, they think that President Obama wants to socialize our health care system, that he wants to replace your doctor with the postmaster, and that he wants to set up a special Congressional committee to kill your grandmother, but they don't actually oppose the health insurance reform as proposed. They don't know anything about the health insurance reform as proposed. They just want to oppose something, anything. And that's instinctual and hard to overcome. The health care debate of 1993 was before the disaterous Republican Revolution of 1994. It was before the advent of Fox News. It was before the Lewinsky saga and the fear-based administration of George W. Bush. Now it is assumed that if one party proposes something, the other party will vigorously oppose it, no matter what it is. And that really isn't all that terrible. Let a vigorous debate take place in the public arena and may the best proposal win.

But this isn't a debate, it's a shouting match and a contest of fear tactics. The right-wing is spewing lies, hate and a whole lot of crazy. We can't fight crazy with facts; that has never worked. But we cannot let this fail. It's about more than the harm it would do to the Obama administration. He has health insurance and so does everyone who works for him. But nearly 50 million Americans do not, and we cannot let them down. And as more and more Americans declare bankruptcy because of health costs and as more and more businesses close because of an inability to pay for private health insurance, we can't afford to let our recession worsen as we neglect an industry that is 1/6 of the economy.

This fight is too important to let a bunch of crazy people with 6th grade educations bring it down. They might be controlling town hall meetings in community centers, but we control the United States government, so I like our odds. And we won the election - on a platform of health insurance reform.

Miss California is Wrong

Between the potential revoking of the crown of Miss USA California and the ever-more important decision on the behalf of five U.S. states to legalize equal marriage, including, recently, Vermont and Maine, there has been a great deal of chatter on the internet, on the airwaves, and in the streets about the debate over same-sex marriage in the United States, for obvious and important reasons. I don;t think it comes as much surprise to most of you that I wholeheartedly support same-sex marriages. Scratch that. I support marriage equality. There is no reason my marriage should be referred to any differently than yours. But with Miss California USA's recent comments on "opposite marriage" and her defense of free speech (something I also tirelessly support), there seems to be a need for comment. And I am breaking my blog silence to do so.

With regards to Miss California USA, Carrie Prejean's, statement during the competition about her personal support for "opposite marriage" as opposed to full marriage equality for all United States citizens, I object, and I object to her holding the crown, worthless as it may be. As a number of my close friends and advisers have pointed out, if Ms. Prejean had said she believes interracial marriage to be wrong, there is not a chance in hell that she would hold the title she holds today. What we, as a society, need to start acknowledging, is that what she said is equally as wrong. Opposing marriage equality (same-sex marriage/gay marriage) is wrong. It is WRONG, it is immoral, it is un-American and it is intolerable. I am sick and tired of being told that I need to tolerate the opinions of bigots who believe that I am less of an American citizen than they are. I am done. If you believe that marriage (a legal right; I am not referring at all to the Christian sacrament of Matrimony, which is different) should be exclusively between a man and a woman, then, I am sorry, but you are narrow-minded and wrong, and I am not required to indulge your ignorance. What the Miss California USA highlighted is that while same-sex marriage is, inextricably, a complicated and hotly debated issue in the U.S., it is not an issue where both opinions hold equal weight. One side favors the Constitution of the United States, which millions of men and women have, and others, including myself, will willingly, die for, and another favors archaic bigotry. I do not have to accept her point of view. Her point of view is flat out wrong. I put blame on the committee for allowing Ms. Prejean to keep her crown. What she said is not simply a matter of opinion; it is bigoted, anti-American, and wrong.

What gives me hope is for as fast as she says these ignorant comments, more and more states acknowledge my Constitutional right to equality, so her opinion really does not matter. But, seriously, we should not be rewarding it.

Republicans and Race

I continue to be amazed not only at how much the Republican Party doesn’t seem to understand why they have such difficulty winning the support of minorities, but how condescending they can be in doing so. It seems to have taken the election of the first African American president to alert the GOP to the fact that they cannot continue to so earnestly alienate minorities. But their ongoing attempts to win the support of more than just white men are terribly pathetic. They’re also futile, naïve, and fairly insulting.

The country elects a Democrat who is a black man its President, the Republicans elect a black man party chairman. The nation watches as an African American President addresses Congress, the Republicans follow that with a governor who is Indian American. Rap, hip hop and R&B artists help make both the President and his call to national service popular among American youth, the Republicans begin awkwardly using phrases like “off the hook” and “you be da man.”

They just don’t get it. Jon Stewart put it well on “The Daily Show” last month:

“You know, Republicans, I appreciate what you’re trying to do here. He’s your
voice of change, your Barack Obama. But, you know, it’s not as simple as that. I
know you want to take his fight to the Democrats. But Michael Steele, he’s like,
remember when your kid really wanted a Tickle Me Elmo for Christmas? But all the
stores were sold out, so you went to Chinatown and got him a Giggle-Time All-Mo.
Michael Steele is the Republican Party’s Giggle-Time All-Mo”

Has it occurred to the Republican Party that maybe part of the reason that African Americans vote so overwhelmingly for Democrats in every election is about more than racial symbolism? Maybe the consistent support of the Democratic Party for civil rights – not just for African Americans, but for all Americans – has something to do with it. Maybe the Democratic emphasis on supporting America’s cities, inner city education and housing has something to do with it.

One of the reasons people – and parties – lose elections, is they treat the electorate as though they are stupid. Reminding the country that, while the Democratic Party has 42 African Americans in Congress, scores of African American mayors, two African American governors, not to mention an African American president, that they (the GOP) just elected an African American RNC chair, is not about to convince black voters that suddenly the Republican Party shares the values of so many African Americans. Voters think, voters choose, and believe it or not, sometimes they even do so on the basis of policy.

Plus, when Michelle Bachmann tells RNC Chair Michael Steele, “you be da man” she not only sounds like an idiot, but she highlights the ignorance the GOP has about race, because everyone – black, white, whatever – can see through that. And it’s pretty demeaning.