Sunday, January 24, 2010
Where is the message machine that elected Obama
Frank Rich wants to know. In his first year the President has too often been silent or, at best, ambiguous about what he wants.
Worse, the master communicator in the White House has still not delivered a coherent message on his signature policy. He not only refused to signal his health care imperatives early on but even now he, like Congressional Democrats, has failed to explain clearly why and how reform relates to economic recovery — or, for that matter, what he wants the final bill to contain. Sure, a president needs political wiggle room as legislative sausage is made, but Scott Brown could and did drive his truck through the wide, wobbly parameters set by Obama.Granted, the media in crowd is more interested on John McCain, Joe Lieberman and others of their ilk, but where is the White House effort to crowd out these douchebags with their best spokesmen and allies? But I guess to have that you must be willing and able to fight. Sadly, in a political arena that calls for political fighting skills on the level of a Lewis or Ali we are getting the equivalent of Canvasback McGoon.
Ask yourself this: All these months later, do you yet know what the health care plan means for your family’s bottom line, your taxes, your insurance? It’s this nebulousness, magnified by endless Senate versus House squabbling, that has allowed reform to be caricatured by its foes as an impenetrable Rube Goldberg monstrosity, a parody of deficit-ridden big government. Since most voters are understandably confused about what the bills contain, the opponents have been able to attribute any evil they want to Obamacare, from death panels to the death of Medicare, without fear of contradiction.
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