More Important Considerations Than Personnel

What the hell were McChrystal and co. thinking? I don’t know. (Yes I do: they were drunk.) But this much I know to be true: their complaints about the civilian leadership are a hell of a lot less important than the actual on-the-ground success of their strategy in Afghanistan. Matt Yglesias makes the necessary point:

Back in the real world it seems obvious to me that the Obama administration’s actual McChrystal-related problem is simply that the situation in Afghanistan is deeply problematic. The hoped-for improvements in governance and the credibility of Hamid Karzai’s regime have not emerged. The population in much of the country remains pro-Taliban, anti-Karzai, and anti-ISAF. This is a big problem. And the portrait that emerges in the Rolling Stone article is of a military command that knows it’s not really making progress but doesn’t see the door open to any alternative policies. It’s a huge problem—much bigger than the question of what to do or not about one general.

What you have to remember here is that McChrystal is the architect of the bold and controversial Af-Pak strategy announced last December. The outcome of the months-long “strategic review” was buy-in to his vision. And that vision is failing. However, I don’t think that if McChrystal does leave, as is looking increasingly likely, this affair will occasion any change in strategy — the basic underpinnings of the current strategy are time and patience, after all. There’s still a year to go until the July 2011 deadline, nearly six months until the December review. Obama cannot be seen as capricious in this. But it does seem clear that McChrystal, brilliant strategist though he may be, is not the man for the job.

OH NO: Socialism Has Come To America

Or rather: Yay, it happened!

I’m not going to wade into the actual politics that led to health care reform’s passage — Yglesias and Chait do a fine job of that, and Bart Stupak is just so tiresome to think about, and really, Peggy Noonan, is “demon pass” the best you could come up with?

The noise is just noise, especially when there are practical consequences to think about. Soon everyone will have health insurance! And yes, while it is true that the whole nightmare debate isn’t quite over — the reconciliation bill, which, don’t let’s forget, improves the package, still has to tumble through the Senate — it is also true that the bill passed by the Senate in December will, with the President’s signature this week, become law. A huge part of American life will be improved by the stroke of a pen.

What I think is interesting is what can happen next. Can, not will. There are so many predictions and opinions, and all the pundits are so convinced of their right(eous)ness:

It’ll kill the Democrats in November! Think again! Major reforms always become popular over time! It’s poisoned our politics! We’ll repeal it! Good luck with that! Baby killer!

Shut up, all of you. (Especially the last.)

If there’s any advice I would give to a casual observer of this mess, it would be to turn off the TV, click “close tab” on everything except cat videos and your Netflix Instant Player, and reflect on the fact that half a century of work by progressives has finally paid off. That’s a long time, and anyone who thinks they can untangle the meaning of it in less than 24 hours is fooling themselves. 99% of what the pundits are saying today will be meaningless by tomorrow. They have no idea what they’re talking about! Remember when everyone was saying reform was dead after a moderate Republican beat a terrible Democratic party hack in a special election by a few hundred thousand people in a state that already had universal health insurance? Yeah, exactly.

So let’s all do ourselves a favor, take a step back, and if like me you think health care reform was a moral and historical imperative, gloat softly, to ourselves. Of course it’s difficult not to enjoy the hilarity of the Right’s meltdown. Feel free to do that too. (I mean, come on. You can’t make this stuff up.) But there’s still plenty of work to be done — on jobs, on the environment, on gay rights, on any number of problems America faces today. But we can cross this one off the list, for now, and that’s something.

One last point: if for some weird reason you’re interested in what the reform package actually does (and when), check out here, here and here. You’ll be surprised how banal socialism is when you get down to the details.