An Actual Discussion

Dear Friends,

An incredible event occurred yesterday, President Obama met with and answered questions from the House Republicans.  After watching the exchanges between President Obama and various Republican members of the House of Representatives, I was once again reminded why I was so enthusiastic about candidate Obama. 

The questioners got to pick their topics and had notes and in some cases statements that ultimately asked a question written out.  The President had no notes and responded directly to each question.  He challenged the misstatement of facts contained in most of the statements preceding the questions.  He did that from memory, and he was right on the facts.  He challenged the characterizations with a gentle tone and incredible patience.  He rebutted assertions about his record that were clearly untrue.  My favorite was when he pushed back on unemployment numbers saying that surely they weren't blaming him or his policies for the jobs lost before he took office or during his first couple of months in office, when that was exactly what the questioner was doing.  In some cases but certainly not all he called out the hypocrisy of their positions.  My favorite was President Obama pointing out that they voted against the stimulus bill and then had photo-ops at ground breaking ceremonies for projects that were using stimulus money.   He was able to disagree without anger or being condescending. 

He did far more than just correct the factual errors, correct the faulty assertions and answer the questions.  He gave an analysis of the issues and why the current way that politics is conducted makes governing very difficult.  By demonizing your political opponent, you make it virtually impossible to compromise with that political opponent or ever vote for something that your political opponent supports.  It would certainly be change that we can believe in if our elected officials took the President's analysis to heart.  I doubt that they will.

I think that President Obama should propose that he meet with the Republican Representatives and Senators every other week for 2 or 3 hours where the Republicans can question President Obama on any topic that they want and that a discussion like the one that occurred yesterday can take place on television.  By having the discussion often, more follow up questions and comments could take place and specific provisions of specific bills could be discussed.  Reading talking points would not be enough, they would have to be translated into actual detailed legislative proposals. 

What a great tradition would be started.  Future candidates for President and the voters would have to consider how the candidate would do in that kind of setting.  Only the best and brightest candidates could stand that exposure.  Unfortunately, the Republicans are already making it clear that they made a mistake by allowing yesterday's discussion to be televised, so it seems unlikely that my idea will be adopted.

While the meeting with the Republican Representatives reminded me of why I was so enthusiastic about candidate Obama, there were a couple of items yesterday that also reminded me why I have concerns about his Presidency. 

It seems that he is going to propose tripling the loan guarantees for nuclear power to $54 billion.  Candidate Obama did not support the Yucca Mountain site for storage of nuclear waste which means either he has changed his mind about that or we have no permanent nuclear waste storage site that he does support.  Yet he is encouraging the development of more nuclear power plants. I must admit that I have mixed feelings about nuclear power, but there is one thing about which I am very certain.  It is completely irresponsible to build more nuclear power plants and create more nuclear waste, if we have no plan to permanently and safely store the nuclear waste.

I am also getting the sense that when President Obama talked about ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell this year, what he meant was to start thinking about it and maybe start implementing a multi-year process to stop it.  I have yet to hear any logical reason for not just stopping the policy now.  While I gave him credit for raising the issue in the State of the Union, I am getting very nervous about President Obama's willingness to simply push it through Congress.  We have seen in the last three days, the enthusiasm and support for ideas he can engender if he goes to the people.  I hope that he will use his gift to get Don't Ask, Don't Tell eliminated now.

I will try to be more hopeful and less cynical, but in the meantime I will keep an eye on what is going on.  Trust but verify.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

State of the Union

Dear Friends,

I vacillate between the naive sentimentality that President Obama can really bring change and hope to a dangerously fractured nation and hopeless cynicism that nobody can change the way Washington works.  The President's speech tonight reminded me why I was so enthusiastic about him as a candidate and so hopeful about what he could accomplish.  His style, tone and ability to communicate are brilliant.  In a manner far more genteel than anything that I could do, he made clear what his values were and called out those that would obstruct the ability of the government to govern. 

The policy part of the speech was way too conservative for me, but his defense of government spending as the way to get people back to work was articulate and understandable.  His spending freeze is still dumb, but if he gets the spending through Congress this year and that sets the bar higher and then if the freeze is conditioned on an improved jobs market, then maybe it is ok. 

Now we need to see what he actually does.  He offered no approach to getting health care reform through, but let's see what happens.  He again pledged to end Don't Ask Don't Tell but he has done that before.  He pushed for the financial reforms and higher taxes on the wealthy and banks, but let's see.  My cynicism is showing again.

If we have a reasonably educated electorate and they were listening and if President Obama and the Democrats follow through on both the tone and substance of the speech, ie both offering to work with the Republicans but calling them out when they are just saying "no", our country will be well served and the Democrats are likely to perform fairly well in the mid-term elections.  If the President and the Democrats fail to follow through consistent with the speech, our country will suffer and the Democrats will get what they deserve at the polls.

Thanks for reading (I have been told by family members that I should not expect comments but) and please comment (I will not give up),

The Unabashed Liberal

Freeze gets Icy Response

Dear Friends,

It seems that I was not the only one that thought that President Obama's spending freeze was a terrible idea.

"It’s appalling on every level." is what Paul Krugman says about President Obama's freeze idea on his New York Times blog (here).  Just for the record, he is the winner of a Nobel Prize for Economics.

It is always nice to be affirmed.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal