 | Bob Gabordi is executive editor of the Tallahassee Democrat and Tallahassee.com. He can be reached through this blog, at bgabordi@tallahassee.com or (850) 599-2177 |
Last night, after watching President Obama’s speech to Congress live on Tallahassee.com with an amazing 1,200 other viewers, I went on Facebook. I told my friends that I gave his address high marks overall but thought he had missed a huge leadership opportunity.
In the overnight hours, more than 40 posts were made in response. It drew comments from my work and after-work friends, my graduate-school classmates, readers and relatives. Overnight, they debated as I slept.
The quality of that debate stayed at a relatively high level, even if intense differences were underscored. This country faces a huge challenge. More critical than the health-care debate itself is whether we have the capacity to tolerate those differences.
The question now as it always has been is whether democracy can survive such deep divides. Democracy's enemies have always seen this as our great weakness, but being able to tolerate our great differences of viewpoints must be our strength.
It is on this point that the president reached out to his political foes with one hand and slapped their faces with the other. Last night, we saw this presidency in transition, from partisan politician to national leader. Still, there were too many elements of the partisan in his address.
We witnessed the president’s attempt to place his politics in the center, calling out those who mix politics with policy from either extreme but also reminding all that Republicans left him to deal with a trillion-dollar deficit and two wars in the Middle East. His reminders of the failures of the past decade were sprinkled throughout an otherwise great speech.
Posting on my Facebook page, Tallahassee Democrat political editor and columnist Bill Cotterell put what is going on into this perspective:
“One side seems to want to shout people down (even tonight in the Capitol) and the other seems to think health services will fall from the sky like gentle rain, if they wish hard enough.”
But bickering and wishing are hardly owned by any one side. There has been ample of both from all. Obama addressed this, too, and he denounced as “lies” allegations that his plan would create “death panels,” force people off their current health-care insurance and diminish Medicaid.
“Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics. Some have dug into unyielding ideological camps that offer no hope of compromise. Too many have used this as an opportunity to score short-term political points, even if it robs the country of our opportunity to solve a long-term challenge. …
“Well, the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action. Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do.”
In attacking the extremes, the president implicitly made his own promise that he would rise above the partisanship that has become so divisive that compromise becomes impossible; every negotiation leads to impasse; and every disagreement brings the ugly, hateful rhetoric we have witnessed in town-hall meetings across America.
These are not things of the president’s making, but something he is called to change. Before the public – or for that matter Congress – can focus on the details of this debate, if and when they become available, minds and hearts must be opened.
A president cannot change the tone of the debate by sprinkling magic dust, but perhaps he can do so by acting presidential. Reaching out with one hand and patting a foe on the back with the other can do much to jumpstart that change.
This presidency is no longer about what the Bush administration did or didn’t do but about what the Obama presidency and Americans on all sides can accomplish for generations to come. Bringing America back together, and not any single piece of legislation no matter how dramatic, could be this president’s greatest legacy.
Now indeed is the time, Mr. President.
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