The Much-Needed Bill Moyers’ Touch on Health Care Reform

In July 2006, the late Molly Ivins wrote a column promoting Bill Moyers for president. Ivins led off with these words:

Dear desperate Democrats:

Here’s what we do. We run Bill Moyers for president. I am serious as a stroke about this. It’s simple, cheap, and effective, and it will move the entire spectrum of political discussion in this country. Moyers is the only public figure who can take the entire discussion and shove it toward moral clarity just by being there.

Ivins died of breast cancer in January 2007 but I thought of her today when I read this piece on health care reform by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship. Like many Americans, I’ve been struggling to follow the progress of health care reform this time around as reported by a media still doing its best to damn Hillary Clinton and prop up Barack Obama. Barely mentioned by either the old or new media are the travesties perpetrated by the insurance and pharmaceutical companies continuously in league with the Republican Party from the 90s until today when they’ve managed to get their way with Democratic Party leadership.

Sure enough it's taken Moyers’ touch to bring moral clarity to the topic. First, he and co-author Winship nail the Repubs:

The Republican strategy is almost identical to the way they turned health care into Waterloo for Bill and Hillary Clinton in 1993. Back then, one of their chief propagandists, William Kristol, urged his party to block any health care plan for fear that Democrats would be seen as "the generous protector of middle class interests." Now he's telling the GOP to "go for the kill... throw the kitchen sink... drive a stake through its heart... We need to start over."

Next, our intrepid authors go after corporate interests:

As the Republicans fired away, big business stepped up the attack, too, their lobbying and advertising guns blazing. The Chamber of Commerce, for one, announced a major campaign of rallies and print and Internet ads to crush the White House plan for a competitive public option allowing consumers to choose between a government plan and private health insurance. In key states where members of Congress remain on the fence, the airwaves are vibrating with television commercials aimed at shifting hearts and minds away from any change that might threaten profits.

Obama does not escape criticism:

President Obama rejected the Republicans' Waterloo metaphor and mounted a massive media counteroffensive of his own. But the President has already run into booby traps of his own making and minefields laid by members of his own party, exacerbated when the Congressional Budget Office reported that reform plans, instead of controlling costs, would send the national debt further into the stratosphere.

Meanwhile, supporters who want to scrap the present system for fundamental change are staring glumly though the fog of war at a battlefield in total disarray. They fear that in the White House's desire to get a bill -- any bill -- passed by Congress, it will have been so compromised, so bent to favor the big interests, that it will be less Waterloo than water down, a steady diluting of the change they had hoped for and that America needs.

And here’s a depressing word or two regarding the successes of the pharmaceutical industry (Remember when candidate Obama pledged to rid Washington of lobbyists?):

According to the Associated Press, the drug industry's trade group PhRMA (the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America) and the drug company Pfizer "reported spending more money than other health care organizations on lobbying in the second quarter of this year" -- $6.2 million from PhRMA, $5.6 million from Pfizer.

"Including its latest report, PhRMA has now spent $13.1 million lobbying so far this year. Pfizer has reported $11.7 million in lobbying expenses for 2009."

There’s more:

This is part of the reason, as Alicia Mundy and Laura Meckler recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal, that "the pharmaceuticals industry, which President Barack Obama promised to 'take on' during his campaign, is winning most of what it wants in the health-care overhaul."

Their story describes "a string of victories" plucked from the Senate Finance Committee by drug company lobbyists, including no cost-cutting steps, no cheaper drugs to be allowed across the border from Canada, and no direct Federal government negotiations with the pharmaceutical companies to lower Medicare drug prices.

And that's not all. The Senate Health Committee is giving the biotech industry monopoly protection against competition from generic drugs for 12 years after they go on the market.

And now for the return of the fabled Harry and Louise. Moyers and Winship conclude:

No wonder the cost of reform keeps going up and up and up. Could it be that Harry and Louise are happier because, this time, they're in on the deal?

Back in 2006, Molly Ivins suggested to her readers that we write to Moyers and let him know what we thought of her idea to enter his name in the Democratic primary. I took her up on it and urged him to run. As I recall, I received a thoughtful card in response from Moyers. Too bad he declined. Seriously.

Will the Obama Cult Result in a Failed Presidency?

Lexington (the Economist) offers quite a warning in the title of a recent post, “The Obama Cult: If Barack Obama Disappoints His Supporters, They Will Have Only Themselves To Blame.” Lexington tells us that appalled by the hubris of presidential candidates in 2007, ‘“a libertarian scholar called Gene Healy wrote “The Cult of the Presidency”, a book decrying the unrealistic expectations Americans have of their presidents. The book was written while Barack Obama’s career was still on the launch pad, yet it describes with uncanny prescience the atmosphere that allowed him to soar.”

Lexington need not have reminded us of the excesses of Obama supporters during his campaign:

Mr Obama has inspired more passionate devotion than any modern American politician. People scream and faint at his rallies. Some wear T-shirts proclaiming him “The One” and noting that “Jesus was a community organiser”. An editor at Newsweek described him as “above the country, above the world; he’s sort of God.” He sets foreign hearts fluttering, too. A Pew poll published this week finds that 93% of Germans expect him to do the right thing in world affairs. Only 14% thought that about Mr Bush.

And we are also given to know that Obama has been complicit in the adoration of his followers:

Perhaps Mr Obama inwardly cringes at the personality cult that surrounds him. But he has hardly discouraged it. As a campaigner, he promised to “change the world”, to “transform this country” and even (in front of a church full of evangelicals) to “create a Kingdom right here on earth”. As president, he keeps adding details to this ambitious wish-list. He vows to create millions of jobs, to cure cancer and to seek a world without nuclear weapons. On July 20th he promised something big (a complete overhaul of the health-care system), something improbable (to make America’s college-graduation rate the highest in the world by 2020) and something no politician could plausibly accomplish (to make maths and science “cool again”).

After pointing out the several aways in which Obama has already fallen short in fulfilling his campaign promises, Lexington offers this conclusion:

All presidential candidates promise more than they can possibly deliver. This sets them up for failure. But because the Obama cult has stoked expectations among its devotees to such unprecedented heights, he is especially likely to disappoint. Mr Healy predicts that he will end up as a failed president, and “possibly the least popular of the modern era”. It is up to Mr Obama to prove him wrong.

Barack Obama, the Nation’s Most Polarizing Modern President

David Paul Kuhn, Chief Political Correspondent for RealClearPolitics, highlights the latest poll numbers for President Obama who it seems is way past his honeymoon.

Here’s the bad news for 44 (emphasis mine):

This week Obama crossed the six-month mark with a public approval rating in the lower half of modern presidents, compared to the 11 presidents regularly polled by Gallup in the post-War World II era.

Obama's final approval rating after his first half year in office, based on a three-day average as of Tuesday, is 57 percent--ranking eighth of the 11 modern presidents.

In statistical terms, Obama is tied with George W. Bush (whom Obama technically falls a point above) and Richard Nixon (whom Obama technically falls a point below).

It's hard to believe, but according to Kuhn, the candidate who promised to transcend all those baby boomers’ issues and unite the country continues to be the most polarizing president of modern history.

Kuhn concludes:

Yet even the most remarkable fact of Obama's first 100 days, compared to past presidents, has eroded. The portion of Americans who thought that the nation was on the right track roughly doubled from Obama's first day to his 100th, from 22 to 42 percent respectively based on the RealClearPolitics average. But today, only 37 percent of Americans believe the country is on the right track.

This is not how Democrats imagined Obama's narrative six months ago.

Students, er, Senators Miss Professor-in-Chief’s Deadline for Health Care Reform Bill

I know. I know. Just last night the Professor-in-Chief explained the importance of setting deadlines for his wayward students, er, senators; otherwise, they’d never get anything done. That’s why he told them they had to turn in their completed papers, er, health care reform bill, before their summer break.

But What’s this? Those darned kids - senators - must not have been listening. Donna Smith and Kim Dixon at Reuters report:

President Barack Obama's drive for healthcare reform suffered a setback on Thursday when Senate leaders said they would not be able to pass the measure before leaving for a monthlong August recess.

The day after Obama's prime-time news conference to sell the healthcare proposal, congressional leaders struggled to ease doubts about the plan and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the full chamber would not take up the bill until after its monthlong recess that begins on Aug. 7.

"We'll come back in the fall" to work on the bill in the full Senate, he told reporters.

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was "more confident than ever" that Congress would meet Obama's timetable of passing a bill by the end of the year, but the initial vote might not come as quickly as hoped.

"We will take the bill to the floor when it is ready, and when it is ready we will have the votes to pass it," Pelosi told reporters.

The reform package under construction in both chambers of Congress has been besieged from all sides by criticism about its more than $1 trillion price tag and its scope, with debates raging behind closed doors over how to pay for the program and rein in healthcare costs.

Read More:

The Professor-In-Chief at his Fourth Prime-Time Press Conference (video)

Give me credit. I watched President Obama’s entire press conference this evening even though the professor-in-chief was back giving long, detailed answers to every question. Tuned to CBS I waited until Katie Couric wrapped it up with Bob Schieffer and Nancy Cordes, neither of whom seemed impressed. Schieffer, one of Obama’s early unabashed media worshippers, declared that Obama was trying to take control of health care reform. Couric and Schieffer both seemed concerned that with this fourth prime-time press conference in six months and other public events, the president was in danger of over-exposure.

My mind wandered a few times during the president’s latest appearance, although I woke up momentarily when Chris Parsons of the Tribune asked why Mr. Obama’s promises of transparency have not always been fulfilled. She referred specifically to a Freedom of Information request filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington seeking the names of health care lobbyists who have visited the White House recently. The president hastily noted that a letter had just been sent out naming the lobbyists. Obviously, the Administration had been shamed into providing the information. (For more on this story, see an earlier LA Times report.)

Peter Baker, Helene Cooper, and Adam Nagourney at the Caucus (the NY Times) live blogged Obama’s give and take with the media. Nagourney gave the final summary:

Mr. Obama’s audience tonight was not Republicans or Democrats who have resisted his health care plan, but rather the general public. For nearly an hour, often speaking in a monotone, Mr. Obama sought to make the case to the public that his health care plan was essential for the long-term economic health of the country.

The president offered long, and at times technical, responses as he sought to explain this highly complicated subject. He took questions from just 10 reporters, a low number even for him, reflecting how long his answers were (one clocked close to eight minutes). By the end, it was clear just how tough a subject this is to explain, even for a communicator of Mr. Obama’s abilities.

Mr. Obama appeared to drop his insistence that both houses complete a bill before the August recess, and signaled that he was open to the tax plan drafted by House Democrats that would place an income tax surcharge on families making over $1 million a year. He took shots at he described as opposition to his plan by Republicans that he described as motivated by partisan gamesmanship.

He grew most animated when he explained why it was he was insisting that Congress act now, saying the default position in Washington was to do nothing, and that the “stars were aligned” for action.

Mr. Obama spoke at a time when polls suggested that he was losing support for his health care plan, and Republicans have been emboldened as what they sense is his political weakness. The question now is whether Mr. Obama, with his sober and serious presentation today, has managed to reclaim the offensive in his battle to reform the health care system.

Read more.

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Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Sonia Sotomayor’s Confirmation Hearings and Reese Witherspoon in “Legally Blonde”

If it’s not too much of a stretch, consider the contrast between the Sonia Sotomayor we saw last week during her senate confirmation hearings and Elle Woods, a Harvard law student, portrayed by Reese Witherspoon in the 2001 movie, “Legally Blonde.”

I watched “Legally Blonde” for the first time Sunday evening at the invitation of my neighbors. I had no idea how incongruous that particular movie might seem, following as it did on the heels of the Sotomayor hearings. But the synopsis of the movie sounded like fun, and I was in the mood for light entertainment.

Here’s the plot:

Elle, a rich blond residing with her sorority sisters at Delta Nu at California University in Los Angeles, is devastated when her boyfriend, headed for Harvard Law School, dumps her instead of proposing because she lacks substance. Warner explains, “If I’m going to be a senator by the time I’m 30, I need to marry a Jackie, not a Marilyn.”

Elle may be blond, but she’s not dumb. Having scored 179 on the LSAT, she gains admission to Harvard where she hopes to win back her phony ex-boyfriend. It’s significant that on her path to success, our heroine remains loyal to her women friends and true to herself. She overcomes an initial humiliation or two, but she soon begins to hold her own in class. As an intern, she relies primarily on her intuition to crack an important case. Her academic triumph is complete when the Harvard Law School Class of 2004 elects her to give their commencement address.

Elle keeps it short:

On our very first day at Harvard, a very wise professor quoted Aristotle: “The law is reason free from passion.” No offense to Aristotle, but in my three years at Harvard, I have come to find that passion is a key ingredient to the study and practice of law – and of life. It is with passion, courage of conviction, and a strong sense of self that we take our next steps into the world, remembering the first impressions are not always correct. You must always have faith in people and most importantly, you must always have faith in yourself.

In retrospect I have to wish that Sonia Sotomayor had been as free to be herself during her four days of confirmation hearings as Elle Woods was in “Legally Blond;” she might have even displayed a little passion. But as Jill Abramson writes in the NY Times:

Sitting approvingly behind Judge Sotomayor through the long hours was her White House handler, Cynthia Hogan. Judge Sotomayor’s almost robotic performance must have seemed a triumph for Ms. Hogan, working as she does for a president who famously eschews drama.

(Some of us might describe Obama as a bit robotic at times.)

In sum, the movie’s heroine wins primarily by using her intuition, the dominant attribute traditionally ascribed to women; whereas, in real life, the female Supreme Court nominee survives by relying on logic and reason, the dominant attribute traditionally ascribed to men. From my studies in depth psychology, it’s my understanding a whole person, male or female, would present an integration of those two attributes. But then that could only occur in a reasonably enlightened society.

In another comparison of fiction to reality, the heroine of “Legally Blond,” gets the satisfaction - along with her audience - of rejecting the ex-boyfriend when he comes crawling back to her. In the meantime, Elle has been keeping company with a good-hearted young lawyer who has managed so far to maintain his integrity. By the movie’s end, we know that Elle has succeeded both professionally and personally.

According to Abramson in the Times column referenced above, Sotomayor has not been so fortunate:

But success came at a price. Judge Sotomayor has talked about having to turn down dates because of work. “A man who calls three times, and three times you answer, “I’ve got to work late. I’m flying to such and such a place,” she said. “After the third time, “Gee, maybe she’s not interested.” Even her closest friends say they have to set up “play dates” months in advance. Although she is a godmother to her clerks’ children and a devoted aunt, Judge Sotomayor divorced after ten years of marriage and has no children.

Abramson continues:

The women coming up behind Judge Sotomayor have given these tradeoffs a lot of agonized thought. Emily Bazelon, a fellow at Yale Law School, has been writing about the hearings for Double X, Slate’s new women’s Web site. “Women of accomplishment like Sotomayor make many of us so proud,” she said, “but they are not necessarily a model if you want to balance work and family, which is a huge issue for younger lawyers.”

Apparently it’s not that huge an issue for younger male lawyers.

Obama Doubles Down on Dubya’s Big-Government Policies and Perpetual Crisis-Mongering

It seems only yesterday when the media was terrified of publishing anything critical about Barack Obama and here we are today with a hard-hitting article in the Washington Post by Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie titled What’s Next, Mr. President – Cardigans? Welch and Gillespie lead off with this sizzling paragraph:

Barely six months into his presidency, Barack Obama seems to be driving south into that political speed trap known as Carter Country: a sad-sack landscape in which every major initiative meets not just with failure but with scorn from political allies and foes alike. According to a July 13 CBS News poll, the once-unassailable president's approval rating now stands at 57 percent, down 11 points from April. Half of Americans think the recession will last an additional two years or more, 52 percent think Obama is trying to "accomplish too much," and 57 percent think the country is on the "wrong track."

Hang on – there’s more:

From a lousy cap-and-trade bill awaiting death in the Senate to a health-care reform agenda already weak in the knees to the failure of the stimulus to deliver promised jobs and economic activity, what once looked like a hope-tastic juggernaut is showing all the horsepower of a Chevy Cobalt. "Give it to me!" the president egged on a Michigan audience last week, pledging to "solve problems" and not "gripe" about the economic hand he was dealt.

Despite such bravura, Obama must be furtively reviewing the history of recent Democratic administrations for some kind of road map out of his post-100-days ditch.

Welch and Gillespie continue with the Carter comparisons:

And perhaps most important, as with Carter, his specific policies are genuinely unpopular. The auto bailout -- which, incidentally, is illegal, springing as it has from a fund specifically earmarked for financial institutions -- has been reviled from the get-go, with opposition consistently polling north of 60 percent. Majorities have said no to bank bailouts and to cap and trade if it would make electricity significantly more expensive.

But here’s where the criticism really gets harsh (emphasis mine):

The key to understanding Obama's predicament is to realize that while he ran convincingly as a repudiation of Bush, he is in fact doubling down on his predecessor's big-government policies and perpetual crisis-mongering. From the indefinite detention of alleged terrorists to gays in the military to bailing out industries large and small, Obama has been little more than the keeper of the Bush flame. Indeed, it took the two of them to create the disaster that is the 2009 budget, racking up a deficit that has already crossed the historic $1 trillion mark with almost three months left in the fiscal year.

And now for Obama’s “magical realism”:

Such is the extent of Obama's magical realism that he can promise to post all bills on the Internet five days before signing them, serially break that promise and then, when announcing that he wouldn't even try anymore, have a spokesman present the move as yet another example of "providing the American people more transparency in government."

The conclusion will no doubt turn the stomach of Obama’s cadre of Chicago aides, especially Axelrod, but just check this out (emphasis mine):

Finally, it's time to connect the poster boy for hope to the original Man From Hope. After Bill Clinton bit off more domestic policy than even he could chew, leading to a Republican rout in the midterm elections of 1994, the 42nd president refocused his political intelligence on keeping his ambitions and, as a result, the size of government growth, limited. Though there is much to complain about in his record, the broad prosperity and mostly sound economic policy under his watch aren't included.

This shouldn't be a difficult task for Obama. As a political animal, he has always resembled Clinton more than Carter. This might help him avoid the Carteresque pileup he's driving into. Far more important, it just might help the rest of us.

Hey, fellas, you really expect Barack Obama, the candidate in the Democratic primary who dissed the Clinton Administration and expressed admiration for the leadership of Ronald Reagan, to own up to Bill’s successes and even follow his example? Don't count on it.