Ugh! Another health care speech?
“Obama plans to unveil his latest proposal Wednesday, starting at 1:45 p.m., at a White House ceremony, an administration official said, speaking anonymously under White House ground rules.”
It’s a good thing all our economic problems are solved and we’re back to full employment.
There is an often-repeated phrase that I’ve been hearing lately in the debate over the actions of the Bush administration, and in relation to the closing of Guantanamo and what to do with the people being held there. President Obama repeated it in his speech on national security Thursday.
Former Vice-President Cheney has used it several times as his justification for the Bush administration’s “enhanced interrogation techniques.” It was the priority of the administration and the aim of it’s policies after 9/11, according to Mr. Cheney.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs included it in his press briefing on Wednesday, citing it as “the most important job” of President Obama. The president himself said in his speech it is his “single most important responsibility.”
That phrase is “keeping Americans safe.”
I would argue that Mr. Gibbs, Mr. Cheney, and President Obama are mistaken. In my opinion, the most important job of the President of the United States, and what should guide every president and their administration, is to fulfill to the presidential oath of office, which is:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Nothing there about keeping the people safe.
In his inaugural address, President Obama spoke of not sacrificing our principles for safety:
“As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.
Our founding fathers faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations.
Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.”
Preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution that includes the protection from unreasonable search and seizure, and the rights of due process, trial by jury, and of the accused to be “informed of the nature and cause of the accusation.”
But in his otherwise excellent speech on Thursday, President Obama included something that was unsettling to me and should be to anyone who holds these protections dear. That is the notion of “preventive detention”–indefinite imprisonment of those whose crimes can’t be proven in a court of law but who are deemed “dangerous” because of what they might do if released.
In Glen Greenwald’s piece for Salon, he explained it this way:
“It’s important to be clear about what “preventive detention” authorizes. It does not merely allow the U.S. Government to imprison people alleged to have committed Terrorist acts yet who are unable to be convicted in a civilian court proceeding. That class is merely a subset, perhaps a small subset, of who the Government can detain. Far more significant, “preventive detention” allows indefinite imprisonment not based on proven crimes or past violations of law, but of those deemed generally “dangerous” by the Government for various reasons.
…After all, once you accept the rationale on which this proposal is based — namely, that the U.S. Government must, in order to keep us safe, preventively detain “dangerous” people even when they can’t prove they violated any laws — there’s no coherent reason whatsoever to limit that power to people already at Guantanamo, as opposed to indefinitely imprisoning with no trials all allegedly “dangerous” combatants, whether located in Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Western countries and even the U.S.”
Not a road I think we want to start down in the name of “keeping us safe.”
To be clear, this isn’t about my not trusting President Obama to do what he thinks is best for our country, which I do. But that trust is not absolute and without limits. It is about trusting government, no matter who the president happens to be, with this kind of power.
The government may keep us safe from the terrorists, our Constitutional protections are there to keep us safe from the government. To me, the second protection is more important than the first.
Senator McCain’s acceptance speech last night was just about what I expected, judging from the theme of the other speakers at the Republican Convention. It was long on generalities and platitudes and short on specifics. It was a speech that could have been given by any Republican candidate for president in the last 20+ years.
Lower taxes, reduce spending, cut government programs, the usual suspects. He also found time to misrepresent Barack Obama’s proposals on taxes and health care, although he presented no health care plan of his own, and even get in an “anointed one” reference.
What McCain’s speech had plenty of was his autobiography. You know, the one he doesn’t like to talk about that much. For someone who claims that his experiences made him realize “I wasn’t my own man anymore, I was my country’s” and that he has been his country’s servant “first, last and always”, Senator McCain certainly spends a lot of time attracting attention to himself and his personal ordeal.
I would think that servant’s spirit might include a dose of humility, but then again I could be wrong.
Senator McCain also proclaimed his hatred for war, which is strange coming from the man who less than a month after 9/11 expressed his desire to take retaliation against Al-Qaeda beyond Afghanistan, and on January 2, 2002 said “Next up, Baghdad.”
McCain also continued his assertion that Obama would raise taxes, again leaving out the fact that it would only affect those making over $250,000 a year.
But he didn’t stop there, saying this:
“His plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government-run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor.”
To coin a McCain phrase, my friends, that is not a misrepresentation, that is a lie. Here is Obama’s health care plan. Someone please find for me where it says anything about forcing people into a government-run health care system. Remember the debate between Hillary and Obama over health care mandates? How her plan contained them and his didn’t?
Then there was this:
“I’m not running for president because I think I’m blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save our country in its hour of need.”
Another cheap shot, but not unexpected. No, Senator McCain is running for president because he wants to “serve a purpose greater than himself.” Hmmm, serve a purpose greater than yourself. That sounds to me like the job description of a community organizer. Nah, couldn’t be.
Finally, on the issue of “changing the way Washington works.” Refresh my memory, but hasn’t John McCain has been in Washington for nearly 30 years? Yet he talks like he has never even seen the place. He is going to suddenly reform something he has been hip-deep in for almost 3 decades. Does anybody see a contradiction there? But excuse me, who am I to question a former POW. Never mind.
Calm down Republicans, she’s only your VP nominee.
With all the gushing praise and the glowing reviews after Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican Convention last night, one would have thought she was the presidential nominee and not John McCain. Home run, amazing, brilliant, fantastic, the pundits proclaimed. What it was to me was a typical Republican stump speech, with a little personalized biographical information thrown in for good measure.
I’ll give Governor Palin credit for this much, she was well-rehearsed, well-prepared, and well-scripted. She threw enough chum in the water for the Republican sharks on hand and in the television audience to feast on for days and weeks to come.
She repeated the falsehoods and misrepresentations about her record, recounted again for us John McCain’s ordeal in a North Vietnamese prison camp, and took the obligatory shots at Barack and Michelle Obama. Yawn. Same old, same old.
What Governor Palin also did was leave herself wide open for attacks from the Democrats on everything from her alleged status as a reformer during her time as Mayor of Podunk, Alaska, to her support/non-support of the Bridge To Nowhere, to the accusations that she abused her power, to her knowledge, or lack of same, on foreign and domestic policy.
In his remarks to the Convention on Tuesday, President Bush spoke of the “angry left.” What I saw on display last night was the angry right. From Huckabee to Giuliani to Palin, I heard constant attacks on Barack Obama’s lack of experience and his policy proposals. What I didn’t hear were GOP alternatives to those proposals.
Nothing about the economy, other than the tired old ‘Obama will raise your taxes’ line. Nothing about how to deal with our dependence on foreign oil, nothing about the worsening situation in Afghanistan, just a constant stream of one-liners and zingers aimed at Barack Obama.
So I’ll end where I began, calm down Republicans, your main man has yet to be heard from. After all the hubub over Palin’s speech, McCain’s may become anti-climactic. Palin is a base consolidator, nothing more, and this election is not going to be decided by the respective bases, but by the independents and undecideds.
And when those undecideds get beyond Palin’s rhetoric and take a look at her hard-line stance on some issues and her lack of knowledge on others, I believe they will come to the conclusion that she is completely unprepared to be the person a heartbeat away from the most powerful position in the world.
I’m sure most of you saw Barack Obama’s acceptance speech last night and have drawn your own conclusions as to it’s content and it’s effectiveness. I’ll share my thoughts with you and then give the reaction of others and the response of the McCain camp, which was as predictable as hot August days in Texas.
In a nutshell, Obama was magnificent. He answered his critics who say he is all style and no substance by laying out specific objectives that his administration would pursue. He drew stark differences between himself and John McCain, correctly linking McCain with the failed policies of George W. Bush. And he went after McCain, not on personal or character issues, but rather on McCain’s record and what he would do as President. In horse racing that’s called a trifecta, three winners.
Here’s just one reaction to the speech. This is Alex Castellanos, a longtime Republican consultant and a protege of Lee Atwater when it comes to down-and-dirty political warfare. Hearing this should be a cause of concern in the McCain camp.
Then there was the response from the McCain campaign:
“Tonight, Americans witnessed a misleading speech that was so fundamentally at odds with the meager record of Barack Obama. When the temple comes down, the fireworks end, and the words are over, the facts remain: Senator Obama still has no record of bipartisanship, still opposes offshore drilling, still voted to raise taxes on those making just $42,000 per year, and still voted against funds for American troops in harm’s way. The fact remains: Barack Obama is still not ready to be President.”
Here is MSNBC’s Chuck Todd’s assessment of that predictable reaction:
The Republicans definitely have a hard act to follow. If the tone of their campaign against Barack Obama so far is any indication, I expect it to be a 4-day slime and smear festival. The icing on the GOP cake will be the expected riveting acceptance speech by that great orator, Senator John McCain. This much I know, I would love to be the person who has the coffee and No-Doz concession in the arena that night.
Proving that they are running out of reasons for which to attack Barack Obama, some on the far-right are now mocking the stage setting for tonight’s acceptance speech in Denver’s Mile High Stadium. They are calling the backdrop of Greek columns “the Temple of Obama”, the “heights of presumptuousness”, and “blind hubris.”
On his radio program yesterday, Rush Limbaugh said that since the temples in ancient Greece were built as homes for the gods, Obama has taken his Messiah status one step further and now believes himself to be God.
I hate to be the one to burst the GOP bubble, but I guess a little history lesson is in order. Today is the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, which was given in front of the structure pictured here, better known as the Lincoln Memorial. Note the columns.
Here is a photograph of Dr. King taken during a portion of that speech. Again, take notice of the columns in the background.
So you see my Republican friends, the stage is not set up to portray Obama as some sort of Deity, it has an historical context. Oh well, back to attacking Obama’s patriotism and smearing him by taking his remarks on Iran and Israel out of context.
I might, however, suggest an appropriate setting for John McCain’s acceptance speech. Maybe in front of a mock-up of a crashed fighter plane, or in light of his many references to his time in captivity, a re-creation of the Hanoi Hilton. He is a former POW, you know.
