The Political Courage of President Obama

President Obama's position on health care delivery systems and the need for comprehensive reform is totally consistent with the ideals and traditions of the nation. The Republican continuing assertion that an apparent populist aversion to the reforms should prevent their adoption reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the underpinnings of America.

I will assume, without much confidence in the assumption, that many of those opposed to the health-care legislation are sincere folks, albeit the victims of cynical manipulation of GOP operatives, honestly are concerned about sky-rocketing deficits and concerns about larger and more intrusive government. On the other hand, many in opposition have accepted the falsehoods about "death panels" [which was dreamt up by Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck out whole cloth] or of federal financial payments for abortion [presently forbidden by the Hyde Amendment and unchanged in the proposed legislation].

In fact, however, Barack Obama, in continuing to seek true and comprehensive reform, is acting in the true traditions of America and of the Founders of the Republic.

An article by Peter Wehner published this week is illustrative. Mr. Wehner was a speechwriter and Presidential aide to President George Bush (# 43). He writes about the remarkable advances in Iraq and the actions of President Bush:

The progress in Iraq has been truly remarkable, especially when one considers where things were at the end of 2006. Iraq was caught in a death spiral. The odds were stacked against us. And most people in Iraq and America - including almost all of the political class and virtually the entire foreign policy establishment - had given up on the possibility of success. The main question for them was the terms of our retreat and de facto surrender.

In Iraq we have seen the rebirth of a nation. The "emergence of politics" in Iraq - including the willingness of its political leadership to engage in compromise; the Iraqis' passion for democratic processes and willingness to set aside sectarianism; a free press; and the respect and legitimacy the Iraqi military has gained among its people - is unprecedented in the Arab world.

And then are the comments that have application to President Obama's position today:

With the passage of time, President Bush's decision to champion a new counterinsurgency strategy, including sending 30,000 additional troops to Iraq when most Americans were bone-weary of the war, will be seen as one of the most impressive and important acts of political courage in our lifetime. And those who fiercely opposed the so-called surge were not only wrong in their judgment; in some instances their actions were shameful.

The former Bush aide therefore defines political courage as the willingness to go against public opinion in pursuit of what a leader believes to be the public interest. And I would certainly agree. I also refuse to admit that democracies can do without courage; I submit that there's nothing undemocratic about defying public opinion when the stakes are high. After all, the people will soon have the opportunity to pass judgment on the leader's decision. And they will be able to judge that decision, not by the claims of its supporters or detractors, but by its results. This the GOP is unwilling to accept, perhaps because it is afraid that, within the next year, the economy turns, comprehensive health care is available and affordable and the sky hasn't fallen.

If one accepts the existence of political courage then it follows that President Obama and the Democrats are not acting irresponsible or high-handedly-let alone anti-democratically-in moving forward with comprehensive health insurance reform. They genuinely believe that the public interest demands it­-and that the people themselves will eventually agree. And they know that the people will have the last word. That's why we have elections!

The concept of overriding political courage, the promotion of a policy believed to be correct, is part of the history and traditions of this country.

This approach has the firmest possible roots in our constitutional traditions. The Framers deliberately established a republican form of government that is representative rather than plebiscitary. Alexander Hamilton, in the Federalist Papers, wrote in 1778, that

There are some, who would be inclined to regard the servile pliancy of the executive to a prevailing current, either in the community, or in the Legislature, as its best recommendation. But such men entertain very crude notions, as well of the purposes for which government was instituted, as of the true means by which the public happiness may be promoted. The republican principle demands, that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they entrust the management of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion, or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men, who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests. It is a just observation, that the people commonly intend the PUBLIC GOOD. This often applies to their very errors. But their good sense would despise the adulator, who should pretend that they always reason right about the means of promoting it. They know from experience, that they sometimes err; and the wonder is, that they so seldom err as they do; beset as they continually are by the wiles of parasites and sycophants, by the snares of the ambitious, the avaricious, the desperate; by the artifices of men, who possess their confidence more than they deserve it, and of those who seek to possess, rather than to deserve it. When occasions present themselves in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests, to withstand the temporary delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection. Instances might be cited, in which a conduct of this kind has saved the people from very fatal consequences of their own mistakes, and has procured lasting monuments of their gratitude to the men, who had courage and magnanimity enough to serve them at the peril of their displeasure.

But however inclined we might be to insist upon an unbounded complaisance in the executive to the inclinations of the people, we can with no propriety contend for a like complaisance to the humors of the Legislature. The latter may sometimes stand in opposition to the former; and at other times the people may be entirely neutral. In either supposition, it is certainly desirable that the executive should be in a situation to dare to act his own opinion with vigor and decision. [Emphasis supplied.]

Can this philosophy, so vital to the United States government from its very inception be so foreign to many of today's Republicans? I really do not believe that for a second! Yet, many conservatives don't seem to understand. In response to the health care proposal President Obama released prior to the bipartisan summit, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced,

"It's disappointing that the Democrats in Washington aren't listening, or are completely ignoring, what Americans across the country have been saying."

House Minority Leader John Boehner seemed to agree:

"The president has crippled the credibility of this week's summit by proposing the same massive government takeover of health care based on a partisan bill the American people have already rejected. .... [Democrats want] to circumvent the will of the American people and jam through a massive government takeover of health care."

A recent Wall Street Journal editorial condemns Democrats of scheming to pass health reform "merely because they think it's good for the rest of us"-as though pursuing the public interest were a suspect motive for legislating rather than its very purpose.

William Galston summed up the GOP situation and future:

So today's conservatives have a choice: They can contest health reform and the rest of the Democratic agenda on its merits, or they can go down the populist road that Sarah Palin and her followers represent. But let's call that populism by its rightful name-namely, shameless flattery of the people and the manipulation of public fears and prejudices for short-term political advantage. Honorable conservatives know better. We're about to find out how many of them there are.

President Obama has been steadfast in holding to his basic core principles. At the White House last week, the president spoke of the need to enact his health care reforms. His statements are worth considering in the light of Alexander Hamilton's words. One must recall that he ran for president on a promise to tackle the nation's most challenging problems--and, since winning election, he's steadfastly denied those who warned him he was trying to do too much.

This has been a long and wrenching debate. It has stoked great passions among the American people and their representatives. And that's because health care is a difficult issue. It is a complicated issue. If it was easy, it would have been solved long ago. As all of you know from experience, health care can literally be an issue of life or death. And as a result, it easily lends itself to demagoguery and political gamesmanship, and misrepresentation and misunderstanding.

But that's not an excuse for those of us who were sent here to lead. That's not an excuse for us to walk away. We can't just give up because the politics are hard.

Barack Obama is keeping his promise; he is bringing leadership in areas where it counts. There will be an election where the people can affirm his beliefs or repudiate them . . . but, in the meantime, I applaud him!