by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n Liberal columnists decrying the Obama administration\u2019s supposed lack of partisan fortitude and eagerness for a nasty fight for healthcare seem oddly detached from reality. The opposition to Obamacare would have gone nowhere had the president offered a concise plan, had his team kept repeating four or five logical and easily understandable talking points, and had he prepared a few pat answers to the more controversial elements of the plan, from the public option to so-called \u201cend of life\u201d panels to treatment of illegal aliens and the real cost.<\/p>\n Instead, Obama and his advisers, in lazy fashion, outsourced the plan to the partisan left-wingers of the Democratic party who are key House chairs. They in turn offered up a 1,000-page legalese mess, which the administration\u2019s key players never read, and which Obama arrogantly thought he could wing through in a few weeks with his \u201chope and change\u201d\/\u201ctrust me\u201d cadences.<\/p>\n Once a few citizens at town halls started to call them on it, it quickly became clear not just that Obama\u2019s healthcare reform was an effort to emulate in the long run the failed Canadian system, but far more importantly, that none of its defenders were able to explain, much less defend, the plan.<\/p>\n Now the problem is not just that health care is going down, but that in the process the administration has tarnished the blue-chip Obama brand, and we are in a sort of emperor-has-no-clothes moment. Take away the rhetoric and charisma, and this same absence of preparation, professional research, and focused public defense seems to apply to almost everything Obama has offered, from more stimulus and more deficit spending to cash for clunkers and cap and trade.<\/p>\n The likes of Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, and Nancy Pelosi, all according to their stations, demagogued the Iraq War and unfairly tarred Bush as some sort of satanic figure. But they succeeded, primarily because the Bush administration in response could not articulate what the aims in Iraq were, why they were worth the likely costs, and why decisions like disbanding the Iraqi army, at first pulling back from Fallujah, giving a reprieve to Sadr, etc. were mistakes and would not be repeated. The problem was not that Bush and Co. did not fight back sufficiently, but rather that they did not explain adequately to the American people why the people\u2019s growing doubts about winning in Iraq were mistaken.<\/p>\n So liberals should not blame conservatives for opposing what they do not believe in and think is harmful for the country, or their own team in the White House for not waging a partisan defense (they in fact have, ad nauseam). Rather they should fault Obama himself for not offering a simple, understandable plan and for failing to explain and defend with clear language and logic something that really does seem \u201cfishy\u201d to the American people.<\/p>\n \u00a92009 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner Liberal columnists decrying the Obama administration\u2019s supposed lack of partisan fortitude and eagerness for a nasty fight for healthcare seem oddly detached from reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[653],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-BC","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2464,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/spare-us-the-sermons-mr-president\/","url_meta":{"origin":2332,"position":0},"title":"Spare Us the Sermons, Mr. President","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services During the recent debt crisis, President Obama talked about the need for bipartisan compromise and, as in the past, urged civility. Giving ground and engaging in polite discourse, of course, can be noble aims. But, like most one-eyed-jack politicians, Obama has rarely embraced\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Debt and Deficits"","block_context":{"text":"Debt and Deficits","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/debt-and-deficits\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1511,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-new-take-on-partisanship\/","url_meta":{"origin":2332,"position":1},"title":"Obama’s New Take on Partisanship","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 9, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online One of President Obama\u2019s strangest complaints is that there are too many in Congress who act, well, like former senator Obama. In his recent speech on the question of comprehensive immigration reform, President Obama once again blasted Republican political opportunism that opposes his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "July 2010"","block_context":{"text":"July 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/july-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7948,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/7948\/","url_meta":{"origin":2332,"position":2},"title":"America\u2019s October Worries","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 23, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Unlike the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, many of the threats we currently face are self-created. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online In October of 1962, America worried whether an untried young president, John F. Kennedy, could keep us safe from nuclear-tipped missiles from nearby Communist Cuba. Today\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"(Alex Wong\/Getty Images)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/pic_giant_102314_SM_Barack-Obama-Problems-G-500x291.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6638,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-heed-thyself\/","url_meta":{"origin":2332,"position":3},"title":"Obama, Heed Thyself","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"He used to know some important things. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online\u00a0 Republicans and Democrats are still name-calling in their arguments over the government shutdown, out-of-control federal spending, and the implementation of Obamacare. Yet if both sides would agree to just follow the earlier advice of President Obama,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Debt and Deficits"","block_context":{"text":"Debt and Deficits","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/debt-and-deficits\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/3544735027_8a0ac7b28a-201x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2694,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/bush-obsessive-compulsive-disorder\/","url_meta":{"origin":2332,"position":4},"title":"Bush Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Obama continues to trash Bush in words--but his actions speak louder. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Last July I wrote a column entitled \u201cBarack W. 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