THE STASH SEPTEMBER 9, 2009
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This was the best speech I've heard Barack Obama give as president--possibly the best since January of 2008. Unlike his inaugural address, or even his convention speech, this one really soared and inspired by the end--a bit counterintuitively for a health care speech. I thought the invocation of Ted Kennedy was pitch perfect: not tacky or maudlin and certainly not partisan (hence the allusions to Kennedy's friends Orrin Hatch, John McCain and Chuck Grassley). Obama managed to depict Kennedy as a completely ecumenical figure ("Ted Kennedy’s passion was born not of some rigid ideology, but of ... the experience of having two children stricken with cancer."). And then, by segueing from Kennedy into a pragmatic defense of liberalism ("hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play"), he managed to depict liberalism as a completely ecumenical worldview. That, too, was right out of Obama's greatest campaign hits. (See here, for example.)
This was also as animated a speech as I've heard Obama give as president. On the campaign trail, he was great at talking over applause to reach a rhetorical crescendo. He did that nicely a couple times tonight, including during one of his take-away lines: "Well the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action."
A couple more quick thoughts:
1.) The distillation of the proposal itself was very solid: "It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance to those who don’t. And it will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government. " Not quite bumper-sticker length, but as close as a Democratic health plan is going to come, I think.
2.) The rhetorical case for expanding health coverage involved a very deft bait-and-switch. In a nutshell: If you don't have health care, we'll help you get it by creating a new insurance exchange. This is how employees of large companies and members of Congress get insurance, and ordinary Americans should have the same opportunity. Which is to say, Obama started off with a semi-controversial substantive goal (health care for those who lack it), then shifted to an uncontroversial procedural goal (you should be able to get your health care delivered the same way Congress people do). In the course of making this shift, he elided the original question of whether we should cover the uninsured. Kudos to the speechwriter who came up with it. (Really.)
3.) The line about the Medicare trust fund was also very savvy. It reminded me of Clinton's "Save Social Security first" mantra from his 1998 State of the Union address (which, for those who don't remember, prevented Republicans from spending the surplus on tax cuts for the wealthy):
More than four decades ago, this nation stood up for the principle that after a lifetime of hard work, our seniors should not be left to struggle with a pile of medical bills in their later years. That is how Medicare was born. And it remains a sacred trust that must be passed down from one generation to the next. That is why not a dollar of the Medicare trust fund will be used to pay for this plan [emphasis added].
Of course, unless I'm missing something, this promise is essentially meaningless--the trust fund begins running a deficit in 2017 according to the latest trustees' report. So the question isn't whether we'll raid the Medicare trust fund, but what else we're going to raid to shore up Medicare. But it's an evocative line--as if there's a big pile of cash locked in some vault with seniors' names on it--that sounded pretty damn reassuring. Another nice speechwriting touch.
7 comments
Obama Back in Top Campaign Form? That's a terrible thing to say. We all know that anything Obama promised on the campaign trail has as much likelihood of happening as Van Jones and Marty Peretz getting married---to each other. gw
- iambiguous
September 10, 2009 at 2:02am
I join the writer in giving kudos to the speechwriter for a well crafted speech and the President for delivering it with a perfect balance of emotion and forcefulness. However, I am surprised the writer did not notice the mealymouthed handling of the Public Option and its importance as the only reliable way to achieve the very objectives promised in this eloquent speech. President continued to repeat his very recent ritual of publicly cutting the legs of the Public Option ostensibly to court GOP votes, appease his own Stray Dogs and Health Inc. He claimed PO was only one additional feature. There may be other ideas to replace it. He has no further evidence than before that the objectives above can be achieved by any other means, yet he did not want to sell it to the American public. May be I am missing something about a political stratagem President is after. President also failed to clearly connect the pathetic plight of many Americans to his solutions. Also did not tell them honestly the time table of when the relief will come to the blighted. Like 4 years to an exchange. 4 years from 2013? From today? Progressives should not think PO is the only way, it is just one means. They should be open to other ideas. Mr P, have you not been open for months now? What do you have to show? Belittling the Public Option and the Progressives as extreme left who are stuck on this one idea. Is this a way to display your postparitsanship? I did not know that a compromise from Single Payer to making the Public Plan Optional is some kind of extreme left philosophy (horror of horrors some one labels him as a socialist). Do you think this approach will unite your stray dogs and right wing saboteurs to support a sham bill to put a feather in The Democratic Party cap. Mr P we have all bought into the importance of your three core objectives and your touching empathy for 14000 losing insurance every day and hundreds dying and going bankrupt. What I do not see is your commitment to selling and pushing the only real means to get there, i.e. the Public Option. I do not see you showing clearly how you will take care of the blighted, you so eloquently described in the campaign and continue to do so, in a timely and effective (in terms of $ & c from their pockets) way. Imagine the number of people losing their insurance, 14000*1400, tens may be hundreds of thousands dying or going bankrupt while waiting for 2013.
- doubleaseven
September 10, 2009 at 6:28am
Really an amazing feat for the president to leave so many people feeling that his speech was centrist or conciliatory -- I think "ecumenical" is the perfect word for the rhetorical effect of the speech. Yet in actual substance, this was probably the most combative presidential address to Congress since Reagan's last State of the Union. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG-DZqOX_wc) I can't remember a time when the president of the United States stood in the well of the House and called members of Congress liars to their faces. After this speech, no one on the left can honestly disparage President Obama's willingness to go for the jugular; several segments of his speech were as harsh as you can be in Congress without actually beating your opponent with a stick. That most of his audience seemed not to notice just how raw some of the president's red meat was speaks to the brilliance of the text and delivery of the speech. After all, two men called their opponents liars in the House chamber last night, and it's not the president who's been forced to apologize. The president showed us his spine last night, and it looked a lot more like Jackson or Reagan than Clinton or Carter. The only question is whether his own party will respond; with Harry Reid and Nancy "Afraid to Use My Gavel to Maintain Order in My Own Chamber When My Guest, the President, Leader of My Own Party, Is Heckled, Even Though Maintaining Order in This Chamber Is My Entire Job" Pelosi in charge on the Hill, I have my doubts whether the quality of the president's leadership matters.
- rhubarbs
September 10, 2009 at 9:32am
Just a quick word in sympathy with the right about the shape of the dust up and leftist outrage. I find it perfectly reasonable and prudent to be suspicious of investing in a 'program' in which, without too much imagination, one can see a framework being laid for an obscene intrusion into the private sphere of personal liberty all in the name of collective expedience. As far as I am concerned it is not that nothing should be done but that what is done is encouraging to vouchsafing the highest medical performance and standards. We can argue provisional abridgment at every turn which ever side of the debate one chooses. Let's not be overconfident of government involvement in this scenario as the best means to such aspirations. A healthy dose of doubt, particularly in the arena of public options, is damned welcome by my lights. Organizations will advantage themselves, thoroughly convinced of their highest motives. Uh-huh. What with the outsized capacity of the federal government to shape such a playing field, I will happily suffer the, " Yeah but..." angel on the other shoulder.
- jacko
September 10, 2009 at 10:17am
Rhub, I agree with you about the speech, he was spirited and a bit angry in parts of the speech. I also have to say I was as shocked as Pelosi and Biden when he was called a liar from the floor. In my entire adult life this is the first time I have seen such behavior and disrespect. I realize McCain's idea of having a question and answer session in the house would have been a terrible idea as it would have blown away all Presidential decorum. They do that to the PM in England, but never to the Queen. Our President is head of state and should never be treated in such a fashion. I disagree with you Rhub that Pelosi should have done anything other than looked shocked (I doubt her gavel is even there).
- blackton
September 10, 2009 at 10:29am
"I disagree with you Rhub that Pelosi should have done anything other than looked shocked (I doubt her gavel is even there)." Gavel-gazing?
- Tgossard
September 10, 2009 at 2:07pm
- rhubarbs
September 10, 2009 at 2:57pm