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| Home Front: Politix |
| The road to Demon Pass |
| 2010-03-19 |
| Peggy Noonan, WSJ Excuse me, but it is embarrassing—really, embarrassing to our country—that the president of the United States has again put off a state visit to Australia and Indonesia because he's having trouble passing a piece of domestic legislation he's been promising for a year will be passed next week. What an air of chaos this signals to the world. And to do this to Australia of all countries, a nation that has always had America's back and been America's friend. How bush league, how undisciplined, how kid's stuff. You could see the startled looks on the faces of reporters as Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, who had the grace to look embarrassed, made the announcement on Thursday afternoon. The president "regrets the delay"—the trip is rescheduled for June—but "passage of the health insurance reform is of paramount importance." Indonesia must be glad to know it's not.... Thursday's decision followed the most revealing and important broadcast interview of Barack Obama ever. It revealed his primary weakness in speaking of health care, which is a tendency to dodge, obfuscate and mislead. He grows testy when challenged. It revealed what the president doesn't want revealed, which is that he doesn't want to reveal much about his plan. This furtiveness is not helpful in a time of high public anxiety. At any rate, the interview was what such interviews rarely are, a public service. That it occurred at a high-stakes time, with so much on the line, only made it more electric. I'm speaking of the interview Wednesday on Fox News Channel's "Special Report With Bret Baier."... ...the Baier interview was something, and right from the beginning. Mr. Baier's first question was whether the president supports the so-called Slaughter rule, alternatively known as "deem and pass," which would avoid a straight up-or-down House vote on the Senate bill. (Tunku Varadarajan in the Daily Beast cleverly notes that it sounds like "demon pass," which it does. Maybe that's the juncture we're at.) Mr. Obama, in his response, made the usual case for ObamaCare. Mr. Baier pressed him. The president said, "The vote that's taken in the House will be a vote for health-care reform." We shouldn't, he added, concern ourselves with "the procedural issues." Further in, Mr. Baier: "So you support the deem-and-pass rule?" From the president, obfuscation. But he did mention something new: "They may have to sequence the votes." The bill's opponents would be well advised to look into that one. Mr. Baier again: So you'll go deem-and-pass and you don't know exactly what will be in the bill? Mr. Obama's response: "By the time the vote has taken place, not only will I know what's in it, you'll know what's in it, because it's going to be posted and everybody's going to be able to evaluate it on the merits." That's news in two ways. That it will be posted—one assumes the president means on the Internet and not nailed to a telephone pole—should suggest it will be posted for a while, more than a few hours or days. So American will finally get a look at it. And the president was conceding that no, he doesn't know what's in the bill right now. It is still amazing that one year into the debate this could be true.... Mr. Baier forced him off his well-worn grooves. He did it by stopping long answers with short questions, by cutting off and redirecting. In this he was like a low-speed bumper car. In the end the interview seemed to me a public service because everyone in America right now wants to see the president forced off his grooves and into candor on an issue that involves 17% of the economy. Again, the stakes are high. So Mr. Baier's style seemed—this is admittedly subjective—not rude but within the bounds, and not driven by the antic spirit that sometimes overtakes reporters. He seemed to be trying to get new information. He seemed to be attempting to better inform the public. Presidents have a right to certain prerogatives, including the expectation of a certain deference. He's the president, this is history. But we seem to have come a long way since Ronald Reagan was regularly barked at by Sam Donaldson, almost literally, and the president shrugged it off. The president—every president—works for us. We don't work for him. We sometimes lose track of this, or rather get the balance wrong. Respect is due and must be palpable, but now and then you have to press, to either force them to be forthcoming or force them to reveal that they won't be. Either way it's revealing. And so it ends, with a health-care vote expected this weekend. I wonder at what point the administration will realize it wasn't worth it—worth the discord, worth the diminution in popularity and prestige, worth the deepening of the great divide. What has been lost is so vivid, what has been gained so amorphous, blurry and likely illusory. Memo to future presidents: Never stake your entire survival on the painful passing of a bad bill. Never take the country down the road to Demon Pass. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #6 Successful politics, like successful preaching, is about winning converts, not burning heretics. How many times do you have to re-win the former converts? Peggy and her ilk sneered at Reagan, until he became a Force. Then they jumped on the bandwagon. This is probably why I stay away from politics. I don't trust those with shifting loyalties. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2010-03-19 23:47 |
| #5 The president said, "The vote that's taken in the House will be a vote for health-care reform." We shouldn't, he added, concern ourselves with "the procedural issues." I’m gonna have to agree with the President on this one. As rotten as the process has been it’s the substance that that really reeks. The announcement of this procedural maneuver may have been played as a double head-fake. Clearly, if Pelosi needs this to pick off a couple of the “retard” votes she will. But most likely the Demon Pass Play was floated as a last second diversion. And if they pass this boondoggle with a straight vote the slobbering press will drone on how the Dems ended up taking the "high road". |
| Posted by: DepotGuy 2010-03-19 10:29 |
| #4 Peggy Noonan tends to get captured by conventional wisdom now and then, but she usually comes to her senses before too long--and she never was in the tank for Obama the way Chris Buckley and so many of the Palin-bashers were. Even if she had been remember Luke 15:7. Mock not those who repent, but welcome them home. Successful politics, like successful preaching, is about winning converts, not burning heretics. |
| Posted by: Mike 2010-03-19 09:26 |
| #3 Good heavens! First David Brooks, now Peggy Noonan. Upper Mahattan is turning into a hotbed of seething discontent. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2010-03-19 08:57 |
| #2 How bush league, how undisciplined, how kid's stuff. Welcome to Chicago politics and alleyway thuggery Peggy. That Hope and Change bumper sticker hard to remove was it? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-03-19 07:36 |
| #1 thanks, Peggy. Now where's your apology for being a Obama-twit in the campaign? Where's your grovelling begging for forgiveness, cuz until we get that, STFU |
| Posted by: Frank G 2010-03-19 07:31 |