It’s Time To Play Some Dodgeball

The Morning Joe Rebuttal for January 20th, 2010


Observations:


1) Here's how bipartisan progress should work: the majority and minority leaders and the committee chairmen of the various health care related committees get together in a binding selection framework.


Harry Reid gets to go first and says “no pre existing conditions” , Mitch McConnell gets to go second and says “tort reform” , Nancy Pelosi goes third and says “end to antitrust exemption”, John Boehner goes last and says “rescind state line limitations”


The two sides go back and huddle up for a day. And come back and see if there is a phase two selection. The selection is sudden death and there are five available attempts to get the first set of 4 selections complete or the process is scuttled for the congressional session. So if anyone says something and the following chooser says I can’t agree to that, the selection process is scuttled, and goes back to what we have now.


If any party says public option, the process is likely killed, if either party says unfunded mandate, the process is likely killed, but if the bipartisan horse trading results in progress for the free market system, we all win. Obviously, John Boehner could say with his last vote, “John Boehner for termless king” but that likely wouldn’t get 60 votes. Nor would abortion restriction, nor would medicare for all.


But what would happen is if the 4 things we need the most in the existing system were progressed in a bipartisan manner, it would avoid omnibus pig troughs and limit amendments and earmarks. That’s the rules in horse trading, an amendment is a fifth selection, and that wasn’t the bipartisan deal.


2) There is no doubt that the Brown victory is a victory for the American people. The American people gave Obama a fair chance to make his case, and his case was as popular as Ishtar. Health care has proven to be a feckless giveaway on par with the stimulus, which consensus says was misguided beyond all doubt.


Goldman Sachs, big pharma, the insurance industry, and the ethanol lobby all have a closer relationship with this administration than any citizen who voted for this President, thus making the lion’s share of his election mandate appear to be an absolute fraud to an angry electorate.


Blaming centrism for dilution and corporate giveaway is making matters worse. You are beholden to Lieberman and Nelson because you did not talk to the whole Republican party, just a couple of tokens. This was your own doing.


This math could’ve been overcome several ways, but they all had a common necessity: leadership. When we’re selecting managers for industry, we look to see if they manage by crisis or are out in front of potential trouble spots allowing at least some of them to be reduced to managed events rather than blowups. It’s been blowup after blowup after blowup on this executive’s watch, and he has just been made accountable.


3) As an optimist, I’m ready for year two to be Obama the tornado. What Bill Clinton found out early on, is that you sign the checks yourself. Clinton micromanaged and immersed like no President before him. He was obviously fluent in everything from Bosnia, to the oppositions contract with America.


You have every opportunity to be the ball in year two, and it starts with the horse trade above as an admission that you have not achieved your bipartisan goals and will need to reinvigorate that process to finish this health care agenda once and for all. A horse trade version of health care can be through the legislature in weeks. Make those leaders make that deal in your office, make them show up every Monday at 8 am until its done. That’s what being an executive is all about, they all work for you, including the opposition.


But it can’t stop there, you are going to need to clean house in Treasury. Austan Goolsbee and Elizabeth Warren have to move reform forward unencumbered by the industry interests. Your staff are directly executing the industry’s agenda, visible to voters who are choosing to vote against you until this changes.


Lastly, this Mohammed trial is a domestic loser beyond all scope. Now that it’s not Dick Cheney shooting holes in your patriotism, its Democratic voters saying they had no idea you we’re this far off of the grid when it comes to using our courts to protect the rights of admitted terrorists, your choice is clear. Let’s rush on domestic needs and slow down on Guantanamo and banning Tribunals until we can catch our breath on this. It appears you have grossly overcomplicated the already complicated.


We are at a historic crossroads. One more wrong move and this country will look a lot like what’s going on in Russia right now with our own Putin named Romney. I don’t think we have much longer to fight that off. And if that happens to us, how many other great societies go with us?


That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.