Sunday, November 7, 2010

Obama answering question I didn't get to ask

By Robin Washington
Duluth News Tribune

A month ago, I received an invitation to the White House for a meeting with President Obama and a small group of African American newspaper columnists.

A couple of days later, I was disinvited when the list of 16 was cut to 10, and our first-come, first-serve system — I was No. 5 — abandoned. Others were cut and a new list of attendees drawn up, by whom I still don’t know; either the unelected leader of our group or the president’s staff, or both.

However they were chosen, the columnists who attended went on to gush their adulation, writing things like, “As I watched Barack Obama walk alone across the south lawn of the White House to his waiting helicopter ... I understood the campaign strategy Republicans have cleverly crafted.” The transcript shows barely a critical question.

I’ve met Obama several times over 20 years, so I’ll get over the dis. And sour grapes or not, if the expectation was to be an apologist for an administration in trouble, it’s just as good I missed it. My single question would have been:

“People are unhappy. If the Democrats win the election, what will you do differently?”

If I never got to ask it, history now has the president answering it, only not the way he wanted. His party shellacked, Obama has no choice but to be contrite, start thinking about compromise and admit that maybe his administration’s approaches didn’t always work.

I saw an early indication of that trouble in August 2009, when the same columnists group met with Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s senior adviser. Then, the wildly popular Cash for Clunkers program was expiring and the GOP was balking at extending it.

“Why not extend it for six months?” I asked her. “Ask the Republicans,” she replied. Reminding her that the Democrats then had a Senate supermajority, I followed: “Well, why not draw the line in the sand against them?”

She brushed me off, and the administration settled for a one-month Clunkers extension, then set its sights on health care. The rest you know.

If the administration failed to flex its muscle when it had broad support, it also missed accepting an olive branch when compromise was needed. A New Yorker magazine story last month told of a lost opportunity on a climate bill co-sponsored by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. Instead of embracing Graham, who even threw in an acknowledgment of climate change, the administration leaked to Fox News the fallacy that the Republican senator was hiding a gas tax in it. So much for the climate bill and on to health care. The rest you know.

I’m not saying Obama’s policies were all wrong and the surefire road to ruin. In fact, even one of those elected last week on a platform to change that course found merit in some. In the free-for-all Duluth Entertainment Convention Center debate on Oct. 20, Republican Chip Cravaack voiced his support for the Health Care Act’s ban on insurance denials of pre-existing illnesses.

If Cravaack has hushed a little on that since becoming the 8th District congressman-elect, he might remember such compromises when he and his freshmen colleagues arrive in Washington if they want to get something done.

Obama should, too, and he won’t need my question to remind him.

Robin Washington is editor of the News Tribune. He may be reached at rwashington@duluthnews.com .