Going "Hood" on Arianna Huffington

In the hood when a sentence is started with “I’m gonna need you” it usually doesn’t end well for the recipient. So I am going to have to go there – Arianna Huffington, I am going to need you to stand the hell down. For the past year starting with the period immediately after the 2008 election when then President Elect Barack Obama was constructing his cabinet, through the present, the constant whining by some on the left has been a constant source of irritation. Last November in a blog titled Memo to the Left – I offered that part of the ingredients of change that President Obama represents includes the restoration of competence, transparency, and the restoring America’s global standing. By all accounts the Obama Administration has taken positive steps in those directions. This summer in a blog titled Managing a Big Tent, I wrote that for Barack Obama to govern effectively he would need to take a more centrist and pragmatic approach. Finally this summer in another piece, I noted that as the Republican Party strategy is centered on obstructionism with respect to health care, President Obama should eschew any attempt to seek bipartisan support, in favor of a health reform bill that closely mirrors the plan he ran on. In that light, I agreed with many on the left. That said, when Ms Huffington on her recent blog, inferred that President Obama his been stricken by a bout of timidity, her assertion lacked merit, balance, or proportion. But moreover, her comments suggest that a woman as connected as she seems to be, is either out of touch with the reality of Washington, or more concerned about driving readers to her blog than presenting accurate journalism.


The reality is that President Barack Obama now lives in a dual universe in which he must struggle daily to deliver change in a legislative and political culture that represents the anthesis of change. Change in the idealistic world of a political campaign, often morphs into something else in the political process. The voracity and venom that is coming from the far right are reflection of the change that Barack Obama is pushing. On the right, as health care moves through Congress, the Republican Party sees a bill that is a portal to single payer – ironically the dream of the left – the left sees this potential bill as diminished and not in keeping with the promises of the campaign. Both may be right, which lays the genius of this plan. Health Care is closer to reality that ever before, and even if it passes with a less than “robust” public option, the groundwork will be set to expand it in future years. To throw the health care “baby” out with the “bathwater” because it has been watered down smacks of political suicide. Remember 1994? To have a bill passed in a high stakes environment with competing entities all stalking out their own agenda, takes significant amount of muscle and a high level of political astuteness. The New York Times in a recent article offered that President Obama’s legislative strategy seems to be paying off. And most commentators while acknowledging that the next few weeks are fraught with potential pitfalls, Health Care is now taking on the mantle of inevitability. Moreover, The Wall Street Journal hardly a left leaning publication recently noted the bevy of Democratic initiatives pushed – and passed by the Obama Administration that had been “gathering dust”.


I am not a Barack Obama apologist, syphocant or acolyte. Yet it is extremely tiring, to see the mindless dribble of complaints that comes from the left. Yes, Mr. Obama promised change on the campaign, but change is more than policy, change also includes a Presidency that is now more engaged, more nuanced, more transparent, and much more competent. The Obama Administration represents a new day, yet on the left there are many who view this Presidency through the prism of their own impatience which in effect is a reflection of their own a naiveté – or own incompetence. Those on the left, many long time Washington watchers should be quite familiar with the inner workings of Washington politics. The intractability of the status quo, the pervasive influence of special interests, the widening gulf between the parties and the “dumbing down” of the American voter serve as minefields designed to have a deleterious effect on any progressive legislation. In short, these factors have combined to make progressive change a slumbering, deal cutting process that is often a product of compromise and influence peddling.


For those paying attention, it should be real clear that the ethereal message of change has historically gotten sullied by the political process as proponents of change often are forced to produce change in fits and starts as opposed to a broad stroke of the pen. In 1948 I am certain that many in the Civil Rights community wanted President Truman to push beyond merely segregating the armed forces, and push for breaking the back of Jim Crow. Yet when President Truman signed Executive Order 1099 he opened the floodgates that led to the changes that the Civil Rights community was seeking.


In this light, perhaps a reexamination of the Obama mission may be needed, not by diminishing his role or impact as a change agent, but rather celebrating the fact that the Obama administration is a portal to progress, as future administrations will be able to build upon the foundations laid by Barack Obama. This is not a perfect President, this is not a perfect world, and no administration has been able to inoculate itself from mistakes, and errors, yet no administration in my lifetime inherited a catastrophic mess brought on by years of mismanagement, neglect, and incompetence. The American patient was hemorrhaging internally, and disrespected externally. The Administration of Barack Obama has been forced to make choices that start goes from the range of bad to worse. Tough choices in tough times. Any President is fair game on the issues of policy, and substance, I have no issue with that, but to assert that the Obama Administration is abandoning, or betraying the progressive movement because he is “timid is in my view a cheap shot. So Ms Huffington and those on the left, I am gonna need you to develop a better sense of history, proportion, and context, as you critique the administration of Barack Hussein Obama if not, it will be extremely hard to take your diatribes seriously.