Killing Yourself with Kindness

Will somebody please explain to me why Barack Obama is still on his bipartisan kick?

Ever since Obama's first efforts to reach out to Republicans, with his cabinet appointment of two Republicans, Gates at Defense and LaHood at Transportation, and his appeasement of Republican tax-cutting demands in the stimulus package, the Republican opposition has made it clear that no goodwill gesture, no effort to meet them halfway signals anything other than weakness. They are out to destroy his presidency, pure and simple. Nothing makes this clearer than the battle over health insurance reform.

Even Chuck Grassley, the rank (I mean ranking) Republican on the Senate Finance Committee and the great white hope of bipartisanship for his Democratic buddy Max Baucus, was giving aid and comfort to the Palin "death panel" nonsense. "In House bill there is counseling for end of life," said Grassley, "And from that standpoint you have every right to fear ... we should not have a government program that determines you're going to pull the plug on grandma." Maybe it's time to pull the plug on Grassley.

The White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, is said to be a tough guy. And Obama's top political adviser, David Axelrod, is supposed to be some kind of tactical genius. What do these guys think they are getting by continuing to kiss up to the Republicans?

I don't buy the claim that making nice got them any more Republican votes for Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation. The handful of Republicans who supported her were motivated either by demographics of their state or by the fact that a few GOP senators are still willing to approve a highly qualified centrist nominee and didn't want to alienate women voters. Had Obama been playing hardball on other issues, it would not have fatally damaged Sotomayor.
Today's op-ed piece "by" Barack Obama in the New York Times was the same old high-minded pabulum. It read as if it had been pureed several times by the speechwriting staff:

The long and vigorous debate about health care that's been taking place over the past few months is a good thing. It's what America's all about.

But let's make sure that we talk with one another, and not over one another. We are bound to disagree, but let's disagree over issues that are real, and not wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that anyone has actually proposed. This is a complicated and critical issue, and it deserves a serious debate.

That's great above-politics stuff if you are modeling high school civics, not so great if the other side is going for the jugular -- and winning.

Clearly, the administration playbook is to stick to the high road and not take the argument to the other side. But the strategy isn't working. The approval ratings for both the president and for his health plan are falling. He isn't even inspiring his own strongest grass roots backers to turn out in numbers at support rallies.

Obama's own gut instincts seem to be a little better than those of his astonishingly risk-averse advisers. At his own town hall meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire August 11, Obama was quite eloquent and detailed on the foolishness of the "death panel" lies, and he also said this:

Every time we come close to passing health insurance reform, the special interests fight back with everything they've got. They use their influence. They use their political allies to scare and mislead the American people. They start running ads. This is what they always do.

We can't let them do it again. Not this time. Not now. (Applause.) Because for all the scare tactics out there, what is truly scary -- what is truly risky -- is if we do nothing. If we let this moment pass -- if we keep the system the way it is right now -- we will continue to see 14,000 Americans lose their health insurance every day. Your premiums will continue to skyrocket. They have gone up three times faster than your wages and they will keep on going up.

But, oddly, he didn't name the "special interests" (like the insurance and drug industry) because they are nominally part of his reform coalition. If anyone is killing somebody with kindness, it's the insurance industry backing Obama and slyly killing real reform.

Despite the lies, the real insecurity that people feel, and the shameless Republican opportunism, health reform will be a loser for Obama and the Democrats unless this president can shake off his delusion that bipartisanship works. So far, it works mainly to strengthen the far-right and weaken this president and what should be a reform moment.

Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect, a senior fellow at Demos, and author of Obama's Challenge.

Comments

[JohnThomasGillick]

If the President continues appealing to Republicans to PARTICIPATE and they continue to respond with nothing more than shrieking DEATH BEFORE COMPROMISE, Obama continues to appear as the sane, reasonable leader who is more concerned with productive results to the good of the American public - and the Republicans continue to paint themselves before the American public as irrational, anti-compromise, doctrinaire diehards.

President Obama invites, allows and inspires the Republicans to move themselves to where they more and more appear as the party of Irrationality - further isolating themselves from the center of the American electorate.

It's win-win for the President. if the Republicans make any effort, take any step towards bi-partisan cooperation, they would, by doing so, look as if they were conceding the possibility that President Obama may may be advancing good policies.

BTW, to those of you on this side of the aisle who advocate "to hell with them!" ... don't you find a little dissonance between between criticizing President Obama for continuing to reach out to Republicans while supporting him in his determination to conduct foreign affairs by reaching out - at least for the purposes of dialogue instead of confrontation and war - to such regimes as those of Iran and North Korea?

Your position smacks of the same counter-productive self-satisfying self-righteousness that is the hallmark of so many Republican-Right positions.

Okay? Got it?

[ZENN-Man]

What if Gandhi had stuck with his non-violent resistence philosophy / strategy for just a few months?
Let's give this amazing new President some leeway, some time, to implement his philosophies and tune his strategies and see how they play out. Let's not join the the underminers.

[killmenow]

I had immediately lost a lot of faith in the Obama administration when Robert Kuttner wasn't asked to serve in the White House.

[BocaMom]

"Will somebody please explain to me why Barack Obama is still on his bipartisan kick?"

Because we are better than George Bush. We don't want to be like him and the Republicans.

Or we are no better.

[BandsofBlack]

So... instead we continually let them get their way and undermine any real chance of progress.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Oh wait. No it doesn't.

[HST]

Excellent post Mr.Kuttner.

[JMSTX]

I like many others voted republican in the past to support free enterprise, mostly small and private business. In the last few years it became so obvious that the GOP’s real concern was for the large corporations and the very wealthiest. Just follow the money and you will see a major conflict of interest including with health insurance companies.( do we make huge profits or do we provide good fair health care?) At this point anyone that can not recognized that the mission of the GOP is to see to it that President Obama’s administration fails at all cost for the sole purpose to regain power, which I consider as treason, are not likely to change their views anytime soon. Many of the birthers, deathers, and angry shouters consist of racially prejudice conservatives who voted against Obama and are angry that they lost, especially to a black man. (Give us our country back they shout) Now this same minority of people are being used by the Health insurance companies and GOP for the sole purpose to demolish the current administration in any way they can. If the democrats do not stand up and declare this sham for what it is they may pay a big price in the months and years to come.

[Zentrist]

I'm for whatever Chesterton would have been for. In other words, common sense. Trouble is, both sides make plausible-sounding arguments for "common sense." This morning on Fox News, Dennis Kucinich sounded good--"costs will go up," he said, if we just stick with the way things are now. .... Those who oppose the simplicity and "common sense" of a Medicare-for-all system need to be consistent: Medicare itself needs to be done away with. Let's just get back to very, very limited government! But no, people want to have their cake and eat it too. Utterly unsustainable. The more I think about it, the more the Medicare-for-all plan makes sense. Therefore, I support Dennis Kucinich and HR676.

[DesertDogAlpha]

On the Dem side the circular firing squad is forming up today -- don't be late!

[writeaway]

What do these guys think they are getting by continuing to kiss up to the Republicans? Cover.

[mdlawyer2]

Gotta love all the banter that we are not as tough, or should I say as Republican, as the Republicans. They've adopted the mantra that they're always right, the opposition is the devil and lies, if told often and loud enough, become truths. Let's be more like them so we can be more successful; like them? The ends don't justify the means, planting the seeds of civility will bear results, not only in substance but in procedure as well. President Obama is working to change the tone of today's discourse, and if the noise from the other side is any indication, it has them worried that it might work. American citizens must refrain from becoming like corporate shareholders; look beyond today, see the possibitlies of long term success rather than immediate gratification. The outlook is long term lest we find, "we have met the enemy," and we are them.

[wavydavy]

That ship has sailed, and a very, very long time ago.

Obama and his advisers/enablers are now acting like the typical victim of domestic abuse: "Oh, he really loves me" or "Oh, this time is different" or "He doesn't really mean those things he says/does". This usually ends with the victim either in the hospital or the morgue.

In this case, the result is going to be the entire country, particularly the middle class, being flushed down the toilet.

If you are a betting man, would you like to place a wager on the likelihood of a REAL public option being included in any legislation? I will give you odds of 4-1 against.

[Nosmanic]

Their is only one political party in the US and that the republicans. Who was the conservative candiate that said if the ballot box doesn't work we'll go to the bullet box? That's what liberals need to do because the ballot box doesn't work.

[BlackJAC]

Obama's simply playing the gops like a Stratocaster much in the same way Talleyrand played Napoleon. By remaining magnanimous, he makes the gops look like immature, obstinate, self-serving jerks who care more about getting their own way rather than getting results everyone can use. The more they reflexively resist, the deeper the reputation of immaturity, obstinance and self-service gets rooted, and the farther out of favor they fall with the public at large.

[BandsofBlack]

Unfortunately, they DO continue to get their way.

[BandsofBlack]

But it's not working that way:

"In a survey of 1,000 adults taken Tuesday, 34% say demonstrations at the hometown sessions have made them more sympathetic to the protesters' views; 21% say they are less sympathetic.

Independents by 2-to-1, 35%-16%, say they are more sympathetic to the protesters now.

The findings are unwelcome news for President Obama and Democratic congressional leaders, who have scrambled to respond to the protests and in some cases even to be heard."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-08-12-poll-12_N.htm

If Obama really is on our side, which I doubt, he needs to change his way of doing things because it's NOT working.

[LewDan]

Sure, I'll explain.

Obama has this bizarre notion that he's President of the United States.

That the 20 percent who are Republican represent one-in-five Americans. That he has a reponsibility to try to educate them, to convince them that he's right, not just dictate to them. That the President works for the people, including Republicans.

Does that clear things up for you?

[BandsofBlack]

Maybe he should ask himself how that's working out for him.

[TellitLikeItIs]

Yeah, and maybe what he should really be asking himself is "how is that working out" for the other 80% of us?!!

[ShinjiIkari]

Why, when the Right has turned the volume up to 11, and President Obama is being bullied out of the debate, is he talking bipartisanship? The only answer I can figure is the Harry Potter Option. In his final confrontation with Voldemort, Harry tells Voldemort to feel at least some remorse for the mistaken path he has trod; the alternative would be certain death for the wizard who sought eternal life by hedging his bets. He ignored Harry, and he lost.

The public option is an absolute necessity; co-ops just put the foxes back in charge of the henhouse, and we all remember what that was like under Dubbya. Yes, insist that the far right can still redeem themselves, but, if they refuse, then let them suffer the consequences of their folly.

[Paros]

You nailed it. Conservatives see the willingness to compromise as a weakness.
They run their businesses that way.
E.g. - health insurance businesses.
Give them an inch and they will take a mile.

Sidenote: they also see plain talking transparency as a weakness and seem to believe that crossing their fingers behind their backs while spewing lies is just normal behavior for grown men and women. Go figure.

[mmj200]

Cause that's who he is....A zebra doesn't change his stripes now does he? If there's one thing that Barack Obama is...that's authentic.