David

Karki

Read David's bio and previous columns here

September 9, 2009

Obama's Health Care Speech: Republicans, Stay Away!

Tonight, when President Obama desperately tries to rescue his faltering health care bill by reading teleprompters in the well of the House to a joint session of Congress, the Republican Party should not be there. Their one-third of the chamber should consist merely of empty seats.

Why? Because Obama will only use them as a target for disingenuous blame, when the truth is that it's recalcitrant “Blue Dog” Democrats whose votes he needs. The Republicans don't have sufficient numbers to stop anything, and the fact that Obama can't keep his own right flank intact has nothing to do with them at all.

Therefore, since this is by definition an internal Democrat debate, they can have one for all the country to see. Let's see if Obama is the consensus-building non-partisan he pretended to be in order to get elected, or the hardcore far-left partisan he's been from the moment he put his right arm back down after taking the oath on Inauguration Day. Let's see if the Democrats can do anything other than follow their base's marching orders.

This won't happen, of course. Obama won't publicly show up the Democrats from more centrist districts whose votes he needs, and who themselves need to keep fooling their constituents into thinking they're not as liberal and obedient of Speaker Pelosi as they are to get re-elected. (Remember, the operative word in the term “Blue Dog Democrat” is Democrat. These folks have no ideological problem per se with a government takeover of health care. They just know they can't do this on top of having already let Pelosi ram cap-and-trade through and expect to hold their jobs past November 2010.)

Not to mention that Obama simply isn't the fence-mender he claimed to be. He's a committed leftist, will stop at nothing to get his way and is neither capable of negotiating nor willing to accept a compromise.

Hence his need to manipulate Republicans as a means to shift blame and attention, and if worst comes to worst with the Blue Dogs, perhaps peel off the few liberal GOP votes he would need to make up for their loss, just as occurred with the cap-and-trade vote.

Republicans should not play the role that Obama would have them play in this veritable show trial of a speech, the content and outcome of which will be just as pre-determined as a professional wrestling match. Think about it – what can they do if they show up? If they refuse to applaud and show unhappiness, they've stepped right into Obama's blame trap. If they mindlessly applaud, they're not only being dishonest, but they're giving Obama every chance to get back up off the mat and seize the momentum. There is no way they can win, no matter how they react. Given that the game is rigged, the only sensible recourse is to choose not to play.

Republicans should realize that Obama is desperate. With the numbers the Democrats have, this bill should have sailed through. But Obama screwed the pooch by passing his porkulus bill first, the cost of which has hamstrung everything else since. The last thing they should do is give him any assistance in climbing out of the hole he dug for himself, and which he continues to deepen with each passing day.

If Obama arrogantly thinks he can just read his omnipresent teleprompters and let his supposed overpowering charisma save the day, not realizing that the bloom is completely off that rose, let him. Let him crash and burn right there in the well of the House, and be nowhere in the vicinity when it occurs. Let him get destroyed in the Nielsen ratings by the finale of So You Think You Can Dance? or America's Got Talent or what-have-you, and live that embarrassment down.

There is only one benefit to being so badly outnumbered in Congress: The other party owns full responsibility for everything, or should. All you have to do is stay away from what they do (or try to) and then communicate who did it (or tried to). In this case, the GOP doesn't even have to worry about the passage of an awful bill as a result. We're only talking about a silly orchestrated speech that might as well be called The Tempest – full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

They could actually use the visual to illustrate the point: Democrats have a quorum by themselves, but Obama can't even keep enough of his own rank-and-file aboard to pass anything. What does that tell you about how far left he really is? They could demand time from the state-run media for a response, as the Democrats never failed to do when a Republican president gave any speech. But first they have to find the nerve to think and act strategically for once, and not like gutless Beltway incumbents. 

If Obama wants to have his choreographed propaganda show, thinly veiled under the veneer of a State of the Union address, fine. But that doesn't mean he can force anyone else to participate in his charade.

The votes Obama needs, and the people he needs to convince, will all be there in the House chamber tonight, whether Republicans show up or not. That fact should be driven home by the sight of empty seats.  

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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