ShareThisPresident Obama is a clever and ambitious man. And he has surrounded himself with a clever and ambitious staff.
This bright crew understood from the outset that time would determine if they would succeed with their health care plan.
They understood that their plan, which would require massive new expenditures, new taxes, and major new government interventions, had to be done quickly if it would get done at all.
They understood that it had to be done while the president's approval ratings were still high so that Congress would bend to his will. And that it had to breeze through and land on the president's desk before the general public could scrutinize it and understand the major way it would impact their lives.
As result, we've been hearing for months about the President's deadlines, tied to a list of explanations (economic recovery, if we don't do it now we'll never do it, growing hordes of uninsured, etc.) why the world will collapse if these sweeping reforms were not passed by August.
Now Washington's hot and humid August is here, Congress is adjourned, health care reform did not reach the House or Senate floor, and the White House is in panic. What they knew and feared they now confront. Dropping approval ratings and rising public awareness.
When the administration kicked this off with its White House Health Care Summit early last March, the president's 62-percent approval, per Gallup, was 36 points higher than his 26-percent disapproval. Now, at 56-percent approval and 37-percent disapproval, the gap has shrunk to 19 points.
A new poll from Quinnipiac University has him at 50-percent approval and 42-percent disapproval.
And, the details of the 1,000-page monstrosity, word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, are being delivered to desktops, laptops, and blackberrys. Group emails, websites, twitter and facebook accounts are churning.
Old discredited socialist ideas meet the new economy and free people are reacting and revolting -- as the White House knew they would if they got a chance to know what was going down.
Ironically, this technologically savvy administration is being hung by its own petard.
Rather than concluding that the public understands what they are being served up and doesn't want it, the White House damage control machine is breaking out the smoke and mirrors, determined to spin government health care past the American people if they won't buy it outright.
Instead of talking about "health care reform", the White House website now uses the focus group tested "health insurance reform." Make the insurance companies the bad guys.
And they, along with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, claim that grassroots protests at town hall meetings are manufactured.
Perhaps they also think that Quinnipiac University pollsters, who now report that 39 percent of Americans "approve of the way Barack Obama is handling health care" and 52 percent disapprove, are being paid off by insurance companies.
Suggestions that grass roots protests prevent the White House from getting its message to the public are hilarious. This president has been on a honeymoon with the press for the last six months. You can't turn the TV on without seeing him.
He has had an unprecedented four prime time press conferences in six months.
No. Their problem is not that President Obama has not communicated. Their problem is that he has. We've got the message and we don't want it. We don't want bureaucrats determining what health care is and how we get it. We don't want abortion, much less federally funded. Or government meddling with how our elderly live out their lives. And we don't want trillion dollar deficits.
Perhaps Mr. Obama, who once suggested he admires Lincoln, will grasp Lincoln's understanding that ours is a government "of the people, by the people, for the people."
(Star Parker is president of CURE, Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education (www.urbancure.org). She can be reached at parker(at)urbancure.org.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
COLUMN
Just Another Brownshirt
I've only recently been made aware of your columns and it's been a real pleasure reading through your archives.
Not to be a devil's advocate, but I really have to give the Democrats credit for one thing: transparency. When the Democrats start invoking Nazi imagery (as they frequently did during President Bush's term) against citizens that have the temerity to publicly disagree with them, their true nature becomes exceedingly transparent. It's quite clear to me that they despise the citizens of this country. However, I can't blame them for that. This is the same citizenry that voted them into office in overwhelming numbers. It's only natural that they would not only have no respect for us, but also assume that we're both stupid and gullible. They're like a person with low self esteem that despises anyone stupid enough to love them.
As an aside, I enjoyed your "Back on Uncle Sam's Plantation" column. I'm going to have to order your book from Amazon. I've been saying for a number of years that the power of being a white male in this country has nothing to do with race or sex -- it has everything to do with not having anyone to provide me with excuses for my failures. I don't think the Democrats are actually wise enough to realize that, by forcing me to be personally responsible for myself, they've empowered me far beyond their wildest dreams. Although I do have to confess that the cynic in me often wonders if they do realize it and fear that an empowered minority base would stop voting for them.
Keep fighting the good fight! Looking forward to your next column.