Voice From the Republican Past

Two days after his 90th birthday, Edward Brooke was at the Capitol yesterday to receive the Congressional Gold Medal from President Obama and scold Mitch McConnell for his failure to be bipartisan.

Brooke, the first African-American ever elected to the Senate in 1966 as a Republican from Massachusetts, took the occasion to tell his party's leader:

“If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. We’ve got to get together...It’s time for politics to be put aside on the back burner. You have awesome responsibilities.”

In today's polarized climate, Sen. Brooke would be almost unrecognizable as a Republican, championing civil rights and fair housing, voting against two mediocre Nixon choices for the Supreme Court and speaking out as the first in his party to tell him to resign over Watergate.

As a nonagenarian, he may be a distant figure to today's generations, but Barbara Walters brought him back into the spotlight last year by revealing in her memoirs that they had had a passionate affair in the 1970s but ended it out of fear of ruining their careers.

Nowadays, that might have just led to guest shots on The View and a joint coming-out interview on Sixty Minutes.

Ghosts of Harry and Louise

The Senate Republican leader is channeling a couple of GOP golden oldies to oppose a public option in the health care reform pending in Congress.

Unlike Harry and Louise in the 1993 TV commercials to torpedo the Clintons' initiative, Mitch McConnell's protagonists are real people--sort of--Bruce Hardy of England and Shona Holmes of Canada, who have been brought out to personify the horrors of "socialized medicine." But their stories have been as edited as a TV commercial to make the point.

Hardy had to pay for a new cancer drug for two months before it was approved. McConnell's take: “The government bureaucrats who run Britain’s health care system denied the treatment, saying the drug was too expensive...that Bruce Hardy’s life wasn’t worth it.”

About Holmes, who paid for her own surgery in the US as she could have in Canada, the GOP leader finds this lesson: "Here’s how Shona described her plight: ‘If I’d relied on my government, I’d be dead,’ Shona’s life was eventually saved because she came to the United States for the care she needed.”

This Harry-and-Louise flummery is part of a last-ditch effort to persuade Americans that the choice of a public plan to, in President Obama's words, "keep the insurance companies honest" is no less than a takeover of the entire industry.

As Paul Krugman notes, there are two lessons in the current debate: "(1) Don't trust the insurance industry. (2) Don't trust the insurance industry...The insurance industry will do everything it can to avoid being held accountable."

Including manufacturing a new generation of Harrys and Louises.

White House Health Care Rally, Web Site

On a day dominated by news of falling retail sales and a diving stock market, the President held a pep rally for health care.

He told 150 members of Congress and heads of labor unions, business groups, doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and consumer organizations:

“Since Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform nearly a century ago, we have talked and tinkered. We have tried and fallen short, stalled time and again by failures of will, or Washington politics, or industry lobbying...This time, there is no debate about whether all Americans should have quality, affordable health care. The only question is, how?”

There were no specifics to Obama's call for "bottom up" reform, but his optimism got a reality check in a letter from five Senators saying they are "eager" to work with him while rejecting his campaign call for “a new public insurance program” to compete with private insurers.

“Forcing free-market plans to compete with these government-run programs would create an unlevel playing field and inevitably doom true competition,” said the letter from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Michael Enzi, Charles Grassley, Orrin Hatch and Judd Gregg, Obama's drive-by, would-be Commerce Secretary.

“Ultimately, we would be left with a single government-run program controlling all of the market.”

This is the same Bushspeak that led the former president to veto extension of SCHIP coverage for children and presages a bitter battle for health care reform.

But Obama seems ready to fight it. As he spoke, the White House unveiled a new Web site, www.healthreform.gov, and said it plans to hold town-hall meetings across the country to rally public support.

Teddy Roosevelt would approve.

Obama's Body Language

By my count, Barack Obama kissed at least two dozen women on his way in and out of the House last night, but the affectionate post-speech highlight was a quick back rub from Sen. Barbara Boxer, who had been seen having an ecstatic reaction during the President's words on health care reform.

There were hugs, too, many of them for men, including his polar political opposite, Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, for whom Obama expressed friendship during the campaign.

Not to make too much of it, but all this body language reflects an extraordinary ability to connect with people beyond the routine political pressing of the flesh with a wary fixed smile.

During the speech, some reactions from Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden were animated well beyond the usual, but apparently Obama's sensory appeal has its limits. Close-ups of Mitch McConnell and John Boehner showed them looking blank and immobilized, pretty much the way they had been during the weeks of debate on the stimulus bill.

It looks like we have a long way to go before Republicans get all touchy-feely.

GOP Scorpions and Democratic Tortoises

This is a time for mixed metaphors. As the House was voting on the stimulus bill yesterday, Minority Leader John Boehner held up his hand with thumb and forefinger to create a zero, indicating the number of Republicans who would back the bill.

He might have done better with a V for pyrrhic victory.

We are in tortoise-and-scorpion territory here, with the GOP willing to drown both themselves and Democrats in the economic flood by doing what is in their nature--ideologically stinging the bearers of government spending as they try to prevent impending disaster.

Imperfect as the House bill is, the unanimous vote against it signifies Barack Obama's failure to get a serious bipartisan dialogue going there over the relative efficacy of spending vs. tax cuts, neither of which is guaranteed to reverse the economy's freefall. (Conservative economist Martin Feldstein, among others, has ideas that seem to be worth consideration.)

The President keeps inviting such engagement, as he did in response to the House vote last night:

“I hope that we can continue to strengthen this plan before it gets to my desk,” he said. “But what we can’t do is drag our feet or allow the same partisan differences to get in our way. We must move swiftly and boldly to put Americans back to work, and that is exactly what this plan begins to do.”

The hope now for urgent debate needed over specific measures is in the Senate, where Mitch McConnell, with a six-year lease on his seat, seems more willing to work with Democrats than Boehner and his crew, whose eyes seem to be firmly fixed on the 2010 elections.

Their unanimity is impressive, but they could turn out to be lemmings headed for a seaside vacation.

Obama Says No to the Party of No

At the White House today, the President made it clear that his Inaugural message to Muslims "on the wrong side of history"--that "we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist"--applies to Congressional Republicans as well.

Responding to Rep. Eric Cantor's objection to the proposal to increase benefits for low-income workers who don't owe federal income taxes, Obama reminded him of the November election results. "I won," he said. "I trump you on that."

He also suggested to Cantor, John Boehner, Jon Kyl and other leaders of the GOP's negative wing, "You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done."

Eager as Obama is for bipartisan support for his efforts to prop up the economy and the financial system, these are the first small signs that he may be willing to take some lessons from the Rahm Emanuel school of political hardball.

In the Senate, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who had a near-death experience in the November balloting, seems to have gotten the memo.

“I realize," he said today, 'that if you told most people Mitch McConnell was down at the National Press Club hoping for bipartisanship, they’d tell you that’s like an insurance agent hoping for an earthquake. Most people don’t exactly view me as the Mr. Rogers of the Senate.”

But, he added, “Everybody believes that government action is necessary. This is coming out of the mouth of someone who doesn’t normally advocate government action as a first resort.”

This could be a reality check for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is announcing on its web site: "Thanks to Republican economic policies, the U.S. economy is robust and job creation is strong."

If the GOP is to avoid becoming the irrelevant Party of No, they will have to get real at their annual retreat in the resort of Hot Springs, Va. next week as they pick a new chairman, while mingling with lobbyists who are paying $25,000 a head for the privilege.

Otherwise, their party may turn out to be as "robust" as the economy.

Doomsday Minus Twelve

The Barack Obama countdown to saving the American economy continues today, this time with his warning, "A bad situation could become dramatically worse."

In what the transition team describes as a major speech at George Mason University this morning, the President-Elect says:

"I don’t believe it’s too late to change course, but it will be if we don’t take dramatic action as soon as possible. If nothing is done, this recession could linger for years. The unemployment rate could reach double digits. Our economy could fall $1 trillion short of its full capacity, which translates into more than $12,000 in lost income for a family of four. We could lose a generation of potential and promise, as more young Americans are forced to forgo dreams of college or the chance to train for the jobs of the future. And our nation could lose the competitive edge that has served as a foundation for our strength and standing in the world."

On Day One minus twelve, Obama is rallying public support for the coming Congressional battle to deploy up to $1 trillion more to stop the economic slide.

Yesterday, Democratic legislators were warned by what the New York Times calls "a startling range of name-brand economists...to think more boldly than ever before."

Afterward, the "shell-shocked" chairman of the House Budget Committee, Rep. John M. Spratt Jr. of South Carolina, told a reporter, “The thing I wanted to ask was if there was some limit which we should be wary of? Is there some limit in terms of how much borrowing and debt creation we should take on?”

The answer to his unspoken question seems to be no, but Congressional Republicans are scrambling to find their role in the process as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi predicts a bill by the middle of next month and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell promises "to make certain that any dollar spent to stimulate the economy will in fact achieve that outcome and produce jobs and opportunity."

After years of torpor on Capitol Hill, it's beginning to look like one of those speeded-up silent films with everyone racing around to get something done. It will be fascinating to hear what comes out after January 20th when they add the sound.

Throwing Money at the Economy

With the worst financial hangover in recent history, Americans start a new year, still trying to figure out what hit them and being urged to swallow hair-of-the-dog pick-me-up remedies to steady their nerves.

In the aftermath of a buying binge in real estate and on Wall Street, the ironic answers to getting straight are more personal spending and much, much more government spending. In his weekly address, the President-Elect today proposes “an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that not only creates jobs in the short-term but spurs economic growth and competitiveness in the long-term.”

But this new spending spree, unlike those that caused the meltdown, according to Barack Obama, "must be designed in a new way—-we can’t just fall into the old Washington habit of throwing money at the problem.

"We must make strategic investments that will serve as a down payment on our long-term economic future. We must demand vigorous oversight and strict accountability for achieving results. And we must restore fiscal responsibility and make the tough choices so that as the economy recovers, the deficit starts to come down. That is how we will...create three million new jobs, more than eighty percent of them in the private sector.”

As always, well said, but when Congress starts working next week on up to $1 trillion of stimulus, old Washington habits won't suddenly disappear.

Republican minorities are reduced to playing tough cops on what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell calls the "largest spending bill in the history of our country at a time when our national debt is already the largest in history" and the House's John Boehner is warning against "pork-barrel spending that does nothing but give taxpayer money to special interests and campaign contributors."

It's good to see the party that racked up the largest deficits in history returning to its fiscally conservative roots. We're moving into new territory here and, for all our sakes, Washington leaders have to stop scoring political points and start figuring out how to do more than just throw money at the economy.

One more brainless spending binge could send the country into an economic AA.

The Confederate Senators From Japan

In killing the Detroit bailout yesterday, Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Toyota joined his colleagues Dick Shelby of Honda and Bob Corker of Nissan in upholding a basic American principle: Blame all economic woes on greedy unions.

After shoveling billions out the door for Wall Street bastions of free enterprise, McConnell expressed the worry that “a government big enough to give us everything we want is a government big enough to take everything we have.”

There is enough fault in the failing auto industry to go around--management, labor, shareholders and consumers--but taking cheap shots at the health and pension benefits of organized workers as the root of it all is a perfect example of what the great journalist Murray Kempton described half a century ago:

“There is a certain kind of politician who stays safely in the hills during a battle and then comes down and shoots the wounded.”

McConnell and his coterie of Southern senators, including Louisiana's David Vitter and South Carolina's Jim DeMint, all represent states with foreign-owned, non-union plants that would benefit from the disappearance of the American auto industry, no matter how much havoc it would wreak on the country as a whole.

Now these patriotic stalwarts are turning away from the Bush Administration they supported all through a disastrous foreign war to show their independence in the last days of the lame-duck hunting season by playing to the prejudices of constituents who barely reelected some of them last month.

The rest of the politicians in Congress and the White House will no doubt find a way to throw General Motors and Chrysler a temporary life-preserver, but certainly without the help of the union-busting senators from Japan.

The One-Party Rule Scare

In this desperate week of fighting to hold onto Washington power, the GOP will play its last card--to arouse voter fear of what one-party rule would do to the country, of what the "Socialism" of Barack Obama would mean if supported by filibuster-proof majorities that would give Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid a free hand.

By implicitly acknowledging the defeat of their White House ticket, Republicans could make the argument in an attempt to save such endangered Senate seats as those of Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina, Saxby Chambliss in Georgia and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky.

Since Americans have an innate mistrust of concentrated power, the notion could gain traction for voters with short memories. They would have to forget the past two years of "checks and balances" that prevented extending health care to impoverished children and setting reasonable timetables for withdrawal from Iraq, among other majority desires.

Some might look at the first six years of the Bush Administration with a compliant Congress that produced a disastrous war, a ruined economy and an assault on the Constitution. That was one-party rule with a vengeance, but does that make the case for an impotent divided Washington or for putting the future in the hands of a party that won't abuse its power?

No reasonable person would be willing to trust an Obama Administration and Democratic Congress with unlimited power but, in cleaning up eight years of Bush wreckage, it makes sense to let them start doing the job without their hands tied.

The Unhealthy Body Politic

While Rudy Giuliani peddles fake survival statistics about his prostate cancer to lambaste "socialized medicine," George Bush and his Congressional loyalists are still blocking health insurance for children.

For those who care about Giuliani's glitch, Paul Krugman explains it in his New York Times column today, but that's only a minor symptom of the GOP war on health care compared to the ongoing epidemic of SCHIP-bashing by the Bush Administration.

Senate Democrats and Republican allies were working on a House-passed compromise yesterday of the bill Bush vetoed when faithful Mitch McConnell, whose office savaged 12-year-old Graeme Frost for advocating coverage for other kids, stepped in to stop it by forcing a vote on the bill.

But the issue is far from dead, as evidenced by an editorial in Maine's Bangor Daily News:

"The president’s arguments against SCHIP have put him in a corner. He opposes the program, he says, because he doesn’t want the government making decisions for doctors and customers. Patients don't have their medical decisions made by government under SCHIP; they use private insurers and private doctors, who presumably make their decisions based on their medical expertise. He has also painted the program as a Democratic scheme.

"To get out of that corner, he should consult with 'Democrats' like Sens. Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Orrin Hatch and Chuck Grassley to understand why they are such strong supporters of the program.

"Maybe if they explain the program allows 'customers'-— children, in this case--who now have no relationship with a doctor because they have no insurance, to start one, he'll better understand and support the program."

Meanwhile, advocates are running up to $2.5 million worth of ads against House members supporting the White House to help them understand the threat to their political well-being if they persist in such unhealthy behavior.

Senate Sleepover

After so much squabbling in the sandbox, it’s nice to see our Senators planning to spend the night together on a play date. There will be games, of course, including blogging and making videos, and someone will undoubtedly bring hot chocolate and cookies.

They may not be any more grownup in the morning, but picturing Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid in Dr. Dentons is worth it all.