Letter-20: Intellectual Poetry and Pretensions.

Letter #20: Intellectual Poetry and Pretensions.

The primary purpose of this letter is to refer family and friends to a blog being compiled by a friend of mine here in México with the Peace Corps followed by uninvited political bloviation by yours truly.

Mr Arpan Dasgupta exemplifies the type of Peace Corps volunteer praised in my last letter. In our training cycle, because his advanced Spanish speaking ability afforded him free time, Arpan has counselled young drug addicts here in Queretaro. Simply said, Arpan places principles firmly ahead of personalities.

Arpan has been writing out a blog – ‘The Next Cup of Chai’ – that remains oh-so-elegant in its simplicity. This blog celebrates the nitty-gritty of everyday life in México. It is as if Arpan has poetry in his fingertips as opposed to my more abstract (distracted) thoughts. The blog address is http://thenextcupofchai.blogspot.com/.

Now to the more selfish side of this essay. Discussing next week’s mid-term U.S. elections strays “out of my lane” for three reasons.
1. Politics has nothing to do with my work here or the reason for my letters home.
2. As a firm Republican who prides his vote for Senator John McCain in 2008 and remains a faithful fan of President George W. Bush, I have no business counselling Democrats.
3. Ignorance of the political landscape apparently has failed to deter me from bloviating.

Fortunately, I am limiting this essay to the customary length and can only do limited damage to my limited credibility. So here goes…Bluntly stated, my Democratic friends: think long and hard before you give up on President Obama and your political party.

Your party – particularly our President – needs more time in which to succeed or fail. As I described a few letters back, coming from reliable primary sources, President Obama proved his capacity for statesmanship with the delicate dismissal of General McCrystal in Afghanistan.

To limit my wording, I am not going to discuss all that I think is wrong with key Administration policies in the Middle East, in Afghanistan, on the stimulus package, on financial reform or within the health-care insurance law. There are many things I could say, and would, over coffee (perhaps chai).

What strikes me as outstanding, however, is the attempt to address so many problems so long in the making. Health-care is a prime example. Every President who has tried to do something to address this seventy year old political canker–-with the exception of Medicare and Medicaid under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson–-has, well, failed.

Why? Because there are tenacious interests involved in preventing meaningful change.

The venality of current politics dominated by moneyed special interests is neither new nor surprising. President James Madison detailed this fact of strife quite specifically in the Federalist Papers. President Madison was no prophet; however, ‘Jemmy’ was a keen observer of human nature.

So what did President Obama do? Nothing…at first. That apparent inaction proved to make the difference between attaining something and coming away bruised, humiliated and willing to let go of guiding principles to engineer a political comeback.

President Obama recognized, in a manner many Presidents have not, that the President relies mainly on the delegations of power granted him by Congress. Congress funds his initiatives, implements his treaties, operationalizes his policies.

Instead of alienating Congress as President Carter unfortunately did or trying to ignore Congress as President Clinton had attempted to do, President Obama apparently let Congress jawbone the health-care issue to its standard impasse. Only then did he step in with his Administration’s best (sic) thinking and submit a proposal.

This proposal was not intended to supplant debate but to nudge it toward resolution. President Obama used the moral suasion common to modern Presidents to prod his party and listeners on the other side toward an intermediate solution.

Did this ‘landmark’ health-care law resolve the long-running insurance crisis? Of course not. By focussing on progress rather than perfection as a yard-stick of political and electoral accountability, this bill represents an epochal breakthrough.

A policy door, locked tight for so long, has been wedged open, if only slightly. That imperfect bill can be the butt of current criticism or the buttress of a future solution.

But time takes time and my Democratic friends: your party deserves your continued support no matter how disappointing you find President Obama’s policies to date. After all, thanks to the President’s statesmanship and character, what seemed impossible ever to happen a year ago (i.e., comprehensive health reform) now seems improbable not to happen…eventually.