Is this on the lines of what you wanted?
Posted on 10/23/2009 5:00:46 PM PDT by seanmerc
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama’s leadership is being tested on two historic fronts: health care reform and U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.
By the time he has made decisions on these two titanic issues, we will know whether he has the courage to make tough calls and we will know more about his bottom-line principles.
On health care, Obama thought he had learned lessons from 1993 when Hillary Clinton, then the first lady, was put in charge of developing a universal health plan when her husband was president.
She flunked partly because she did not touch base with Congress. She didn’t let the lawmakers in on the takeoff as well as the landing, as President Lyndon B. Johnson would put it. The result: Congress wasn’t there for the landing.
This time around, Obama has gone overboard to win congressional approval of legislation that has little meaning without a government-sponsored health-insurance program. But his efforts raise questions of whether he is trying to appease the opposition at any price and whether he is willing to fight for a government-run health insurance program.
Obama should listen to the people who have voiced their opinions about health reform. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows a majority favors a government health insurance plan. The president and wavering congressional Democrats should heed that view.
The Republicans in the Senate are solidly against the reform plan, except for Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, who played hard to get and seemed to love the attention and tension she created over her Senate Finance Committee vote -- which ended up being a "yes." Now she’s back playing games again and says she is unsure how she will vote when the Senate takes up its final bill.
Obama has tried too hard to woo the so-called "blue dog" conservative Democrats -- who seem to be Republicans at heart. They are obstructionists when it comes to health reform and appear eager to follow the bidding of the health insurance industry.
It’s hard to think that other presidents -- Harry S. Truman and the two Roosevelts come to mind -- would not have loudly rebuked the Republican "plutocrats" for blocking the vital health plans being debated.
The president’s other test of leadership is Afghanistan where he is considering a request for 40,000 more troops. Any escalation in that rugged primitive land would be reminiscent of the Vietnam War and Gen. William Westmoreland’s bids for more and more men. We know how that turned out.
Obama has made it clear that he is not going to be rushed. Perhaps the presidential caution has been inspired by the U.S. experience in Iraq, a war that should never have happened in the first place. It’s pretty amazing that we still don’t know the motives of the Bush administration for pushing, pushing, pushing for an invasion that turned out to be tragically wrong. The folly of that war and the sacrifices by Americans and Iraqis are beyond painful to contemplate.
War is too important to be left to the generals -- much as presidents would like to pass the buck and rely on decisions by the "commanders on the ground," as the civilians like to put it.
But that’s not the way it works in a democracy. The buck stops with the president who has been bombarded with advice in the last several weeks.
For all that, he would do better if he reads up on White House decision-making involving the last few wars, especially Vietnam.
Bob Woodward, the Washington Post reporter, recently described a 2007 interview with Robert S. McNamara, secretary of defense during the 1960s Vietnam troop surge.
McNamara told Woodward that LBJ had ordered U.S. escalation in Vietnam because the president was very nervous about political criticism from conservatives eager to accuse him of being soft on North Vietnam. So Johnson went along with requests from "commanders on the ground" -- in this case, Westmoreland -- for more American troops. The result was deeper U.S. commitment in a war we could never win.
There’s a lesson there for President Obama: He should map the way forward in Afghanistan without worrying about his conservative critics.
OMG! You found your way here - or at least to post that awful pix!
WE already know - but will THEY?
...an Rover’ll getcha iff’n ya don’t - watch - out!
Is this on the lines of what you wanted?
Hanki
I think we’ve been through this before. I call BS.
Recently it was claimed directly that this pix was c. 1936 or some such.
By the looks it is indeed c.1930; certainly no later than 1940.
The person is ~25; at worst 15.
HT was born 1920. No way is that pix Helen Thomas.
Forgive me if you were just being fascetious.
http://www.familyoldphotos.com/pa/mercer2/helen_thomas.htm
There is not enough beer in the universe to make that hittable.
Looks like the old Helen is back (no pun intended). Seems the last week or two when she took the President to task was the liberal version of Alzheimers: that is she temporarily talked sense.
Giggling at your pics. Thanks!
Try to have a nice day...
That link says the pic was taken in 1932 and that she was a junior in college.....hell, she was born in 1920; couldn’t have been in college then and is sure older than 12 or 13 there.
“Forgive me if ...”
Good grief, you don’t have to apologize to me.
I really have no idea if that’s truly her picture or not, but it could be—I’ve known many Lebanese who change in appearance just like that.
I appreciate the comments, though, and you are probably right.
Hank
The lady there is in 1932, from PA, while in college.
THE Helen Thomas was 12 in ‘32 and born in KY, and raised/lived/colleged in Detroit area.
Of course, “Helen Thomas” I’m sure is very common. Not like “LaDanian OchoCinco”.
So there you have it. Thanks for your grace.
BTW, why not just go to her blog?
www.helenthomas.org
Apparently, she is an organization these days.
The “Grand Dame” is right.
Obama needs to understand that the buck stops with him - no matter how stupidly or cravenly he whines about it.
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