Oh my stars and garters...where to begin?
The beginning, naturally.
In breif, Fearless Leader was invited to attend and address the House Republican retreat in Baltimore Friday, the 29th of January, 2010. In a surprise move, Obama demonstrated the very trait of fearlessness and spent more than an hour, going over his time, to take questions directly from the gathered Republican House members...and their follow-ups, which he also answered. Fearless Leader indeed.
So the first point I want to make here is that the POTUS and his hosts were all quite cordial and even at the most heated moments nobody at all broke from the sctrictest good grace and decorum. Thus we demonstrate that yes, yes our leaders can conduct themselves in a civil manner and that they can have a serious discussion about policy issues without degenerating into bombast or hysterics. Now moving on to the substance of it.
In the first place, let's don't assume the entire event was nothing but creased brows and pursed lips:
Obama: I very much am appreciative of not only the tone of your
introduction, John, but also the invitation that you extended to me. You know
what they say, "Keep your friends close, but visit the Republican Caucus every
few months."
The traditional breaking of the ice accomplished, we move on to the substance of the address:
The message here should be obvious, "This a conversation, not a monologue; I expect it to continue beyond this moment." The importance of this cannot be understated; most Americans will agree, I think, that the primary difficulty in getting anything useful or meaningful done in government is the massive partisan gridlock. Neither party is willing to even enter into discussion with the other. The motives for this are specifically addressed further down, but for now let's settle for the basic fact.Obama: Part of the reason I accepted your
invitation to come here was because I wanted to speak with all of you, and not
just to all of you. So I'm looking forward to taking your questions and having a
real conversation in a few moments. And I hope that the conversation we begin
here doesn't end here; that we can continue our dialogue in the days
ahead.
Obama: But I don't believe that the American
people want us to focus on our job security. They want us to focus on their job
security. I don't think they want more gridlock. I don't think they want more
partisanship. I don't think they want more obstruction. They didn't send us to
Washington to fight each other in some sort of political steel-cage match to see
who comes out alive. That's not what they want. They sent us to Washington to
work together, to get things done, and to solve the problems that they're
grappling with every single day.
Here he addresses the single most important motivation in creating the afore-mentioned gridlock. Much further below he states, in a simple, straight-forward and matter-of-fact manner how this motivation, which is not entirely unreasonable in its own right, because horribly warped and perverted to defeat itself.
Obama: And I think your constituents would want
to know that despite the fact it doesn't get a lot of attention, you and I have
actually worked together on a number of occasions. There have been times where
we've acted in a bipartisan fashion. And I want to thank you and your Democratic
colleagues for reaching across the aisle. There has been, for example, broad
support for putting in the troops necessary in Afghanistan to deny al Qaeda safe
haven, to break the Taliban's momentum, and to train Afghan security forces.
There's been broad support for disrupting, dismantling, and defeating al Qaeda.
And I know that we're all united in our admiration of our
troops.
The basic translation of this is, "We can cooperate. We have cooperated. You know it, I know it and more importantly your constuents know it." He goes on to breifly describe some specific examples of such cooperation followed some very high-profile subjects where the party-line vote has, in his own words, "been disappointing". I won't waste time listing each, I want to get to the underlying point (going to start jumping around a little bit, so bear with me):
Obama: I'm not suggesting
that we're going to agree on everything, whether it's on health care or energy
or what have you, but if the way these issues are being presented by the
Republicans is that this is some wild-eyed plot to impose huge government in
every aspect of our lives, what happens is you guys then don't have a lot of
room to negotiate with me.
I mean, the fact of the matter is, is that many
of you, if you voted with the administration on something, are politically
vulnerable in your own base, in your own party. You've given yourselves very
little room to work in a bipartisan fashion because what you've been telling
your constituents is, this guy is doing all kinds of crazy stuff that's going to
destroy America.
And I would just say that we have to think about tone. It's
not just on your side, by the way -- it's on our side, as well. This is part of
what's happened in our politics, where we demonize the other side so much that
when it comes to actually getting things done, it becomes tough to
do.
This came as part of a response in the Q&A that followed the scripted address. While not the only thing of importance that was said, it is, I think, the single most important point raised. The undeniable fact is that while demonizing the opposition is a great way to get elected, it makes it impossible for you compromise with them without looking like a sell-out, thereby getting yourself voted out by your own constituents; a vicious cycle there ensues, with new rounds of angry, uncompromising ideolouges renewing the cycle and enforcing the general grid-lock.
Now look, I'm not a huge fan of Reagan or O'Neil...but for all their differences and rhetoric, at the end of the day they could sit down and hammer out some sort of agreement that was, if not universally satisfactory, at least (more-or-less) universally acceptable. I was talking about this a year ago.
The second most important thing in the whole event was, in my own opinion, the President's push-back on Republican talking points. As demonstrated most visibly in this exchange:
Congressman Hensarling: Jeb, Mr.
President.
Obama: How are
you?
Congressman Hensarling: I'm doing
well. Mr. President, a year ago I had an opportunity to speak to you about the
national debt. And something that you and I have in common is we both have small
children.
Obama: Absolutely.
Congressman Hensarling: And I left
that conversation really feeling your sincere commitment to ensuring that our
children, our nation's children, do not inherit an unconscionable debt. We know
that under current law, that government -- the cost of government is due to grow
from 20 percent of our economy to 40 percent of our economy, right about the
time our children are leaving college and getting that first job.
Mr.
President, shortly after that conversation a year ago, the Republicans proposed
a budget that ensured that government did not grow beyond the historical
standard of 20 percent of GDP. It was a budget that actually froze immediately
non-defense discretionary spending. It spent $5 trillion less than ultimately
what was enacted into law, and unfortunately, I believe that budget was ignored.
And since that budget was ignored, what were the old annual deficits under
Republicans have now become the monthly deficits under Democrats. The national
debt has increased 30 percent.
Now, Mr. President, I know you believe -- and
I understand the argument, and I respect the view that the spending is necessary
due to the recession; many of us believe, frankly, it's part of the problem, not
part of the solution. But I understand and I respect your view. But this is what
I don't understand, Mr. President. After that discussion, your administration
proposed a budget that would triple the national debt over the next 10 years --
surely you don't believe 10 years from now we will still be mired in this
recession -- and propose new entitlement spending and move the cost of
government to almost 24.5 percent of the economy.
Now, very soon, Mr.
President, you're due to submit a new budget. And my question is
--
Obama: Jeb, I know there's a
question in there somewhere, because you're making a whole bunch of assertions,
half of which I disagree with, and I'm having to sit here listening to them. At
some point I know you're going to let me answer. All
right.
Congressman Hensarling: That's the question. You
are soon to submit a new budget, Mr. President. Will that new budget, like your
old budget, triple the national debt and continue to take us down the path of
increasing the cost of government to almost 25 percent of our economy? That's
the question, Mr. President.
Can you see what's wrong with this? I can tell you in one sentence; the Congressman prefaced a simple, direct, relevant single-sentence question with a two paragraph talking point, making an tangential, opinion based assertion as if it were fact. This isn't conversation. This isn't reasoned, respectful discourse in the interest of solving problems. This is pure political gamesmanship. This tactical manuevering to score political points:
Obama: Jeb, with all due
respect, I've just got to take this last question as an example of how it's very
hard to have the kind of bipartisan work that we're going to do, because the
whole question was structured as a talking point for running a
campaign.
The last thing I want to bring to bear is the whole issue of bipartisanship itself:
Obama: You know, Mike, I've
read your legislation. I mean, I take a look at this stuff -- and the good ideas
we take. But here's -- here's the thing -- here's the thing that I guess all of
us have to be mindful of, it can't be all or nothing, one way or the other. And
what I mean by that is this: If we put together a stimulus package in which a
third of it are tax cuts that normally you guys would support, and support for
states and the unemployed, and helping people stay on COBRA that your governors
certainly would support -- Democrat or a Republican; and then you've got some
infrastructure, and maybe there's some things in there that you don't like in
terms of infrastructure, or you think the bill should have been $500 billion
instead of $700 billion or there's this provision or that provision that you
don't like. If there's uniform opposition because the Republican caucus doesn't
get 100 percent or 80 percent of what you want, then it's going to be hard to
get a deal done. That's because that's not how democracy works.
So my hope
would be that we can look at some of these component parts of what we're doing
and maybe we break some of them up on different policy issues. So if the good
congressman from Utah has a particular issue on lobbying reform that he wants to
work with us on, we may not able to agree on a comprehensive package on
everything but there may be some component parts that we can work on.
You
may not support our overall jobs package, but if you look at the tax credit that
we're proposing for small businesses right now, it is consistent with a lot of
what you guys have said in the past. And just the fact that it's my
administration that's proposing it shouldn't prevent you from supporting it.
That's my point.
Again, I have covered this before. I have said repeatedly that this was happening and what would result:
In any case, I've said my piece. In case you didn't catch the whole thing on your own, I strongly advise you to follow this link and do so. Before I go however, I would like to point out two things.
First is the fact that this sort of Q&A session is the Parliamentary norm in the United Kingdom. Second is that, as suggested by Mr. Llewelyn King, the goodness and excellence of this event was its unscripted nature and, while it is highly desirable that it happen again, regularly, the high probability is that in such case, it would become scripted, like the rest of the political-media circus we presently endure.
