Carolyn Jack
Editor and CEO, Geniocity.comA project of The Genius Group LLC
Creative Nerve
A good knight’s work
Barack Obama seems to be setting a good example of not letting fear stymie creativity.
In his speech to Congress last night, the U.S.president countered the absurd rumors circulating about health-care reforms (death panels, incipient communism) by bluntly calling them what they are: lies. He also made it pretty clear that he’s not going to cave on the innovative elements he wants to see in a revised health-insurance program, such as a “marketplace” of insurance options, including government-sponsored plans, for individuals and employers of varying means to choose from. He also pointed out – not insultingly, but unmistakably – that supporters of the Bush administration are in no position to question the cost of providing health care to the American people when they’re the ones who overwhelmingly supported spending billions on the Iraq war and cutting taxes for the extremely rich.
It was a speech that rode in, took an unshakable moral and policy stance and delivered knockout offensive blows while simultaneously conveying fresh ideas and the hope and expectation that left and right will unite in an effort to think up even more.
Whether or not you like the ideas or Obama himself, you’d have a hard time claiming that it wasn’t a bold speech. And boldness – guts, spine, heart and brains – is what we need more of in our thinking and our actions. It takes courage to invent new ways of solving our problems, but it take even more to make sure the best ones are put to use, in spite of other people’s reluctance, resentment, knee-jerk opposition and attempts at sabotage .
P.S. And how nice to see a president act boldly in the interest of actually helping people. Maybe before Obama’s term is up, all of us will be able to afford annual check-ups.
September 15th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Yes, it certainly was a “bold” speech.
Then again, boldness isn’t really a criteria unless the boldness is backed up by real substance and sensible ideas. After all, it’s a “bold” thing to run right into traffic without looking.
Alas, our President is failing. He is failing to frame the message, define the real debating points, and make the sale. When a APresident says, in a nationally broadcast speech, “the details need to be worked out” and immediately generates laughter, well, you may have been “bold” at other moments, but you are comical right then.
But what is more astonishing to me is the wishful thinking in this speech that masquerades, quite frankly, as boldness. When the President said,he “will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits — either now or in the future…” does anyone really BELIEVE this is possible?
Certainly Bob Herbert of The New York Times — one of the president’s ardent supporters — doesn’t believe that statement when he writes “I’m sure he means it. But I have not spoken to anyone, either on Capitol Hill or elsewhere, who believes that is doable.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/opinion/12herbert.html
So what do we have here? Is this speech, at least on this item, purposely deceitful? Or is it wishful thinking and naivete? Surely is it must be one or the other–there is no middle grayish nuanced ground here.
Oh, yes, it is a bold statement. But bold statements can also become foolish ones. George Bush learned this lesson. Barack Obama may soon learn it as well, if he hasn’t already.
September 16th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Well, it’s a week after the bold speech, and what do we have?
–The American electorate is still highly skeptical of the Obama “change.”
–Max Baucus is set to introduce a Senate bill that has no public option, but is at least honest is framing the real cost of this “change” — to be funded by large fees/taxes on young people and businesses.
–The House of Representatives is wasting time trying to embarass a congressman for an impolite remark even as he had already apologized…though they somehow are having a hard time starting ethics investigations on a committee chairman who has almost certainly violated tax laws and hid income.
Oh, well…this is the political landscape in which our Republic lives today. A crazed patchwork of posturing, of a political class run amok, of a true lack of intellectual and creative depth.
September 17th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Carolyn, thought you might find of interest Peter Wehner’s take on Obama’s speech:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/wehner/91222
Money quotes below.
I guess the question is this: at what tipping point does “boldness” become “arrogance?”
It is not enough for Obama to repeat his false claims, day after day, speech after speech. No, he must also portray himself as America’s Socrates, our voice of reason amidst the angry mob, an intrepid truth teller, a singularly unifying and visionary figure, and a man astonishingly free from the ideological baggage that defines his critics. He views himself as the adult in a world of children.
This is all quite silly. Obama is, in almost every respect, the opposite of what he portrays himself to be. He is a divisive, polarizing figure, among the most divisive and polarizing we have ever seen. He has shown no interest at all in reaching across the aisle and working with the opposition party. He is an orthodox liberal through and through. He denigrates his critics and questions their motives. He has made the health-care debate more muddled, more confused, and less honest. He has hardened the disdain many Americans have toward their government. And he is increasing cynicism among the polity.
He is also a man of astonishing arrogance. “I am not the first President to take up this cause [health care],” Obama said last night, “but I am determined to be the last.”
The last president to take up the issue of health care? Are we to take from this that Obama’s plan will be so perfect that this issue—among the most complicated public policy issues of all— will be solved now and forever more?
What is most remarkable, and in some ways most unsettling, is that President Obama seems to believe all this. Even as he has, in the span of eight months, lost more support than any president before him, he continues to view himself in almost mythical terms. None of this, of course, was ever warranted. But by now his act has worn thin, his posturing and hectoring beyond tiresome.
September 18th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Carolyn, see also:
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/09/the_biggest_lie.html
This piece lays bare all the misleading statements in the speech.
However, the biggest whopper in the whole speech is that Barack Obama is talking about “his” plan.
Not true. He doesn’t have a plan. There’s a plan in the House bill, there’s now a plan in the Baucus bill, but BO never really had a “plan.”
If you are going to repeatedly refer to “my plan” or “this plan” or “the plan I’m proposing,” then unless you have a plan you are lying. The only question is whether it is a little lie or a big one. Obviously, most people think it is only a small lie, or the President would have been called out on it. However, I think that health care policy is an area where there is too much temptation to promise results that are economically impossible to achieve. In that context, my opinion is that giving a speech in favor of a nonexistent plan is a really big lie.