A recent editorial from the York News-Times, the local York, Nebraska paper (not to be confused with the New York Times) gets right to the point with the title “Questions for the Left.” Being on the left, I decide to offer some answers. What can I say, us lefties are big softies.
There are many things those of you on the far left need to clarify, questions that need answered.
One of your most vicious attacks on George Bush is that you believe he’s a liar. Well we know that Barack Obama has lied to you about his position on FISA. Additionally, he now says that he’s consistently claimed more troops in Iraq would reduce the violence. However, his recorded statements in opposition of The Surge prove he insisted it would increase violence, not reduce it. By your criteria, he’s lying. Why aren’t you mercilessly attacking him, consistent with your attacks on the President?
There was certainly plenty of anger at Obama’s decision to sign the telecom-immunity bill. That said, one politically-caculated move to the center, while it may gall us, is not even comparable to the 7-and-a-half years of deceit, villainy, and stupidity we’ve had to endure from Still President Bush and his administration. When Obama has started a war based on lies, pillaged the environment, and enriched the wealthy at the expense of the poor, well, maybe we’ll give this analogy more than a passing glance. Also, the word “liar” is usually reserved for those who make a habit out of misleading others.
As for the Surge (or “The Surge” if you really believe it requires the capitalized definite article), I don’t disagree with Obama’s analysis. I’m still dubious about the lasting value of the current military efforts. Certainly things are going better than those first few years (when Bush kept insisting it was all hunky-dory), but it’s not much of an accomplishment to set the bar so low it makes a later mediocre showing look impressive by comparison. Next!
You’ve been quite critical of the President for being bullheaded, “in a bubble,” and controlling the information flow in and the message out. The last couple weeks have revealed some journalists quite frustrated with the Obama camp for doing the exact same thing. Why aren’t you criticizing him?
Controlling the message out is one of the hallmarks of a political campaign. I’m not sure I’d vote for a politician who I couldn’t trust to stay on message. It’s not bad to have a common refrain provided the content of the message is good. The way one runs a campaign differs significantly from the way one runs a country. Or at least, it should. The Bush administration has severely blurred the lines between the two.
Aside from all the problems with wanting to federalize healthcare, why should we trust the government, as you ask of us, to control a mandated national healthcare system when the same government has failed so miserably at managing Social Security?
Now this is easy, I trust the government to do a good job of managing health care because they already do. Medicare covers 43 million Americans, making it easily the largest health insurance program in the country and one with the lowest overhead costs. Another excellent example of the benefits of single-payer health care is the VA health care system which delivers better health results at a lower cost (or at least that used to be a prime example of success before the Bush administration got to it). The success of the VA system is largely attributed to two factors that can only be reliably achieved with national health care: 1) patients’ records stay with the same organization for their entire lives making care easier, and 2) patients receive consistent and preventative care instead of suffering bouts of non-coverage.
As for Social Security, don’t believe all the breathless hype you read about its shaky foundations (a myth that I do lay some blame on Obama for perpetuating). Social Security is solvent “until 2042 or 2052, according to the most widely accepted estimates” and 34-44 years leaves a lot of time for changes to the program. Increasing the age for payouts and decreasing the amount to wealthy retirees are just two of the possible changes that can be quickly implemented to protect the program.
You showed neither the wisdom nor the courage to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq. Why should we believe you’ll demonstrate either attribute in a tough fight against them in Afghanistan? Shouldn’t we expect the same white flag parade?
Um, what? Al Qaeda wasn’t in Iraq until we got there. Saddam Hussein was a vile man, but he and Al Qaeda got along like a house on fire. Hussein couldn’t tolerate any other bullies on his turf, so he worked very diligently to keep Al Qaeda out. Not everyone follows the rule that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” This works to our advantage, because the U.S. has a lot of enemies. And these are not fights were “toughness” is the ultimate determinate of the winner. Terrorism is a primarily political tactic. From his speeches, this seems to be something that Obama understands.
My heart goes out to those who’ve fallen on hard times and are having mortgage difficulties because of it. I have sympathy for those taken by less than reputable mortgage companies. I refinanced my house several years ago, avoided the pitfalls, but saw where their tricks could lie. But tell all of us again why we, out of our own pockets via your tax and spend policies, need to bail out the others who made poor choices and got in over their own heads.
The rationale behind the bailout is that the poor choices of individuals will catastrophically impact the economy if allowed to balloon. It’s cheaper to address the problem now, while it’s smaller, instead of allowing it to cripple the economy. Sure, it’s not fair, but life never seems to be.
You always claimed to “support the troops” by demanding they come home. Why are you so quiet now that Obama wants to send more of them to Afghanistan? Why aren’t you “supporting the troops” now?
One of your most vile, and incredibly petty, attacks against the President is his struggling to put words together at times. Relentless personal attacks on his intelligence have followed. But we’ve learned over the last couple months that listening to Barack Obama without his teleprompter can be as riveting as listening to Mel Tillis teach sentence structure to a remedial English class. To be consistent, shouldn’t you be insulting Obama for the same thing?
Why do you demand action against genocide in Darfur, but were so willing to accept genocide in Iraq?
Okay, let’s do these quickly: Iraq =/= Afghanistan; misspeaking occasionally is common, Still President Bush has generated enough “Bushisms” to get his own word and to fill seven years worth of 1-a-day calendars with quotes; and we want political and multi-nation action in Darfur, something we decidedly did not get in Iraq. Two bonus answers: 1) you’re really old to bring up Mel Tillis (thank goodness for wikipedia), and insulting someone for a stutter is pure asshattery. (You made me look up Mel Tillis, it’s only fair you to force you to visit Urban Dictionary.)
You oppose nuclear energy, clean coal, oil shale, ethanol, hydro, wind, and solar power for a variety of reasons. You also oppose drilling for more oil, primarily because of your claims that new drilling won’t bring results for 1 to 10 years. This stand against all sources of energy begs a couple questions. First, if you oppose every available energy source, what is your solution? Second, why does it make any sense for us to sit around going broke waiting for a fantasy renewable energy source that hasn’t been invented or brought to fruition, and isn’t capable of affecting our lives for an infinite amount of time when we can be utilizing more of a sure thing in the next few years?
Some, yes, yes, only corn ethanol, only dams, some, and not in the slightest seems to be the actual prevailing opinions among the liberal community, but there is a large diversity of thought on different energy sources. Also, you forgot geothermal power. But seriously, no one opposes solar power. It’s just about the perfect green energy source: clean, endlessly renewable, and passive. You also missed a very important source of energy: conservation. Yep, it’s a huge saver. Here’s my personal solution: conservation-50%, solar-20%, wind-15%, tidal-10% and geothermal-5%, with more going to geothermal if possible. And those are all technologies that are available right now for prices only slightly above those needed for fossil fuels. Drilling for oil is utilizing something that is definitely on the way out when we could be investing that money in the clean technologies we have now.
You criticize the President for what you believe is his “go it alone” attitude in the world, yet you attack international agreements like NAFTA, want him to thumb his nose at China, kill joint ventures like the Columbia free trade agreement, threaten to invade Pakistan unilaterally, and insist on unilateral talks with Iran. You’re definitely not practicing what you preach here. At every turn you demand internationalism, but advocate and practice individualism and isolationism. Given such a schizophrenic stand on world affairs, why should anyone trust you to be any better at international relations?
Cripes, I don’t even know where to start. Attacking a particular international agreement is not the same as attacking international agreements in general. The idea behind boycotting the Olympics would be to get lots of countries to join in (hence multilateral). The last two are stances that Obama backed away from after liberal disapproval.
One last thing for this short list that only scratches the surface of your hypocrisy: when trying to win a Congressional majority in 2006 you made a whole lot of promises about how much better all of our lives would be. Now you’re running a national campaign about the need to change because all of our lives are so miserable. Shouldn’t that mean we need to change away from you, those who have been in power over the last two years during which our lives, according to your measurements, have become so miserable?
Now here’s something we can agree on: the Democrats did not fulfill their 2006 mandate. Considering that they were working against a Republican administration and had only a 51-seat majority in the Senate (not enough to overcome the filibuster threat) it seems unfair to lay all the blame on the Democrats. The view of most liberals is this: the Democrats failed because they were not liberal enough. They failed because they tried to Republican-lite. They failed because they too gave in to the special interests and forgot to uphold the public weal. But absolutely nothing in the past 7-and-a-half years has given any indication that Republicans would do a better job.
Maybe Obama will be able to revitalize a JFK-like liberal resurgence. Maybe he won’t. I’ve lost a lot of the capacity for hope after coming of age during the Bush error. I can see from your questions that you don’t really understand the liberal point of view. I hope that Obama can be a strong spokesmen for a liberal change in this country, we surely need it.
