Priorities Rant

The President has an important job. As “Leader of the Free World” his responsibilities include the military (with two wars), diplomacy (with key focuses on Iran and North Korea), the national and global economy (in the midst of a serious recession), and public policy (healthcare is a big example). During the campaign, President Obama rightly pointed out that the President must multi-task. In his recent State of the Union (SotU) address, the President mentioned dozens of his priorities for the coming year and the next three years of his administration. The trouble is, when everything is a priority, nothing is.

The President has made transforming healthcare a priority. It was absolutely critical that we pass this package before the August Congressional recess. I mean, before Thanksgiving. Well, before the New Year. Er, um, it’s absolutely critical that we pass it. It’s not that I support this version of healthcare reform, I don’t. In fact, I’d be perfectly happy if this President (and really most Presidents) accomplished next to nothing. “Accomplishments” in government almost always mean “bigger, more intrusive government.” If the trade is do nothing or do the wrong thing, I vote for doing nothing.

Back to the President’s priorities, however. The President made healthcare his number one focus, then farmed it out to House Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid (among others). If something is my number one, absolutely critical, must-have priority, I’m going to be the one writing the thing. The President can’t focus all his attention on that one issue, of course, but that’s what he has staff for.

Besides, I’m sure those other issues are really keeping the President occupied full time. He’s too busy to give more interviews in his first year than any other President in history. Or fly to Copenhagen to win the Olympics for his cronies in Chicago (October 2009). Or fly to Oslo to accept a Nobel Peace Prize for all the things he might accomplish (December 2009). Or fly to Copenhagen again a week later to speak to the climate change crowd (December 2009). Or call for a Justice Department investigation of the Bowl Championship series in college football (January 2010). Or call for a repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the policy excluding openly gay individuals from serving in the military (January 2010).

I want to spend a moment on the last one. For the record, I think everyone who wants to serve in the military should be allowed to. But the military isn’t McDonald’s. If the guy working the fry station at McDonald’s hates gay people, and the guy working the register is gay, the security of country isn’t affected. If Corporal Smith loses respect for Lt. Jones because the lieutenant is gay, the whole unit is pretty much useless. We’ve come a long way in accepting people in this country. You cannot, CANNOT force someone to end their own prejudices. In the business world, that works itself out. In the military, it does not. The only thing that really bothered me about the announcement of the intention to begin studying the possible repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is the blatant political pandering of it. Despite having the same stated position on gay marriage as Senator McCain, people who viewed that as a primary issue in the campaign overwhelmingly preferred then-Senator Obama’s version of it. The only possible reason why is that they didn’t believe him. They believed he was lying about his position in order to win more votes, then he’d break his word and enact something (maybe not full same-sex marriage, but something) that would benefit their key issue. In a year, President Obama has done nothing. So, on the eve of the SotU, it seems like he (more likely an advisor) went down a checklist of supporters – we pushed for cap-and-trade and spoke at Copenhagen, the Greens are covered; we pushed for card check so the unions are good; we have healthcare bills in the works, so that lobby has been addressed; wait, we haven’t thrown a token issue to the gay community. Let’s . . . um, repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” If this had come in the first few months of the Presidency, or when the President’s approval rating wasn’t in the gutter, it would have been different. The only way this could have been more politically timed is if he did this while speaking to a gay group to Get Out the Vote. That would have been politically more dangerous, but still more political.

(What concerns me about changing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is the effect on military structure. I mean that in two ways. One way is the kid I referenced before not liking gays and being reluctant to follow orders. The military already does an excellent job of training its members to follow orders, no matter how you feel about the person giving them. Personality conflicts will always exist, that’s why the principle of respecting the rank is so important. What really concerns me is the creation of another dividing factor. As it stands, no one knows if a soldier is gay (at least according to the policy). There’s no reason to think that you’re being treated differently because of it. The minute you add that distinction, every decision must come with the thought of discriminatory aspects. Race can’t be avoided. We are the color we are. But it’s not immediately obvious that a person is gay. Why include something that could be divisive when you don’t have to.)

This President doesn’t have priorities. He has a wish list. And like any kid at Christmas, he wants it all. There’s no thought of saving something for later or even that he can’t play with everything at once anyway. It’s only more, more, more, now, now, now.

Notice what I haven’t mentioned so far: the two wars and terrorism. That’s because even though everything else is a priority, those aren’t. The President responded faster to a procedural vote in the Senate on the healthcare bill than he did to the Christmas Day bombing attempt. The deadline on healthcare was always immediate, but the President took months upon months to decide to support his generals in the field and send more troops to Afghanistan. American troops and the American people are at risk, and the most important item on the agenda is a bill that doesn’t take effect until 2013.

The last point I’ll make is that the President doesn’t seem to know how to take a win. He plays politics to crush the other side, see them broken before him, and hear the lamentations of their women. That’s fine if you’re Conan the Barbarian, but politics doesn’t work that way. You need wins, little ones, to build up to something. On healthcare, he could have let the Republicans write a section on tort reform, included that in the overall bill containing probably everything but a single-payer system, and passed it with more than 70 votes. But that would have been win-win. There is no win-win in this President’s playbook, unless it’s the terrorists getting the win. Domestically, it’s I win, you lose.

Update: I forgot to mention the President's stint as a college basketball analyst on ESPN last March when he explained his bracket to the hosts. Fortunately, the President still had time today to take in a college basketball game (Georgetown) and offer some analysis with the broadcast team. I hope it was as insightful as Lee's favorite: the team that scores the most points is going to win this one.