Tomorrow, President Obama will hopefully explain to American what, precisely, we’re fighting for.  At a time when the public is deeply split on whether the Afghanistan fight is worth the effort and whether Obama is personally handling the operation well, this is the president’s best shot to sell a continuation of an eight-year-long battle against an amorphous enemy with no end in sight.

            It’s tricky to phrase Obama’s dilemma in that way.  Is this war worth it?  Many people would say, of course it’s worth the fight.  We were attacked on 9/11.  We still have to capture Osama bin Laden.  We may get attacked again if the Taliban and al Qaeda resurge in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  The whole region could be destabilized, and the rest of the world could follow. 

            Yes, that’s always possible.  But then again, that was a widespread concern during the Vietnam War: that if Vietnam fell to communism, a domino effect across the region would destabilize all Southeast Asian countries.  Not only did that prophecy fail to come true, but communism itself soon collapsed entirely—not because of our willingness to put boots on the ground, but largely due to its own shortcomings and the right combination of charismatic leaders.

P100709PS-0353, originally uploaded by The White House.

            As it stands, though, Obama is poised to initiate a military escalation in the range of 30,000 to 40,000 troops.  But to ask that commitment from those men and women, from Congress, and from the public, he owes us an explanation of his goals.  Obviously, if he could stabilize the country with a one-time infusion of force and be absolutely certain that no further commitment of troops would ever be needed, the decision would be fairly easy.  But no one knows whether this new strategy will work, hence Obama’s search for the least-awful course.

            Are we sending troops over to train the Afghan army?  Are we going to track and kill members of the Taliban and al Qaeda?  Are we trying to stabilize the Karzai government while forcing him to get a handle on corruption?  Are we trying to keep quasi-democratic institutions from collapsing?  Are we continuing to destroy poppy crops to deny terrorists a major source of funding?  Are we building schools and creating jobs to get the Afghan people on our side?  Is this a watershed moment—a modern day Tet Offensive—which, if it fails, will signal the impossibility of restoring order in key parts of the country?

            No one should be accusing the president of only “half-heartedly” fighting the war.  He, like many members of Congress from both parties, wants to complete the struggle as soon as possible and end the United States’ costly overreach.  The continuing need to monitor corruption reports and casualty counts in the Middle East detracts from Obama’s attention on the economy, healthcare, energy, and countless other policies.  Furthermore, an inability to deliver on promises in one policy area may have a ripple effect across the legislative spectrum: hostility toward his Afghanistan policy by Congress may portend a failure on healthcare, or vice versa.

            This is not a lesson in victory and defeat.  It is a question of how to cut our losses without removing all semblance of stability from the region.  We will not “win” this conflict in the sense of creating full, functioning democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan.  What we must settle for is stability abroad—even if it is authoritarian—and peace of mind at home.

            I hope that Obama will support (if not propose himself) a source of funding to continue this war.  Any tax burden should not fall on only the rich, since every American has the responsibility to support our troops and will benefit from a secure Middle East.  It is unfair to prevent radical and necessary reforms in our healthcare, education, and energy generation systems from taking place because they will add to our debt and burden our children.  These issues are just as vital to our national security as the fight overseas and it is time for the country to pay the real cost of interventions in the Middle East—a responsibility that has, so far, only been shared by the men and women in uniform.

            This recession should have been the perfect excuse for our country to work towards mitigating climate change.  Granted, if carbon emissions were couched in purely environmentalist terms, most Americans would wonder why we should care about the polar bears and melting glaciers—have become the iconic face of global warming—when thousands of people are losing their jobs each month.  Instead, the Obama administration has tried to frame the debate in terms of economic opportunism: as globalization has exported U.S. jobs in manufacturing overseas, clean energy technology could prove to be a source of pride and growth for the United States.  In the coming decades, we could be known not just for our universities, our biomedical research, and our defense technology, but also for our renewable energy infrastructure.

            The president has made the correct decision to attend the Copenhagen climate change talks next month with a loose set of commitments that the United States is willing to make to mitigate climate change.  Although Obama’s target—a 17 percent reduction from 2005 greenhouse gas levels by 2020—is less than what the Europeans (and American environmentalists) desire, it is probably the number that is politically feasible at home.  Hopefully, the promises of China and India, two rapidly-developing economies, to curb their emissions will dim conservatives’ outcry that the U.S. cannot cap emissions unless our Asian competitors agree to do the same.

            In reality, though, Obama should have called early in his presidency for a new American challenge.  Similar to his desires to have every American attend college or technical school and to give back to their communities by volunteering, he should have called on the country to reduce their energy consumption, ask their power companies to generate electricity from renewable sources, and ask themselves how to lessen their impact on the planet.  Under different circumstances, the people of this country might have seen this entreaty as a way to save money, conserve natural resources, and support small-scale renewable energy projects in neighborhoods and cities.  Instead, it’s highly probable that this message would have gotten hijacked by Tea Partiers who believe that it would be a step toward rationing, raising the price of electricity, and harming middle-class families.

            But now is the time to make that call to action.  If Americans are worried about how high unemployment, a Middle Eastern quagmire, and the rise of China are destabilizing America’s power, this is an easy way to get back on top.  Right now, China is the world’s leader in solar cell production; France and the Netherlands are working with African countries to export wind technology.  The United States ought to divert some of our defense spending for research and development to making these technologies affordable to produce and install.  (After all, our energy supply is as much a national security issue as is fighting insurgents in Kandahar.)

            Just as Silicon Valley came to host a booming information and communications technology industry at the end of the twentieth century, there is no reason why the entrepreneurs and their capital cannot center their operations first and foremost in America.  If we do not jump at the opportunity to lure these business ventures to the United States, all of the intellectual and mechanical expertise on the renewable energy front will congregate overseas.  We may not have to worry about the military strength of any of our rivals, but it should be a serious embarrassment to the United States if their economic strength in the coming years is propelled by this new sector.

            In a sense, China has a huge incentive to push for worldwide greenhouse gas reductions: while renewable technology is not cheap for them domestically, all of the European nations and the United States seeking to fulfill their pledges on emissions reductions will be shopping on the Chinese solar market.  Unless we want to remain permanently indebted to China, the president ought to order a substantial retooling of our economy.  Let all the money that is wasted on failing American automakers—which can’t compete with the Japanese and German industries—and on Wall Street trading—which only serves to fatten the pockets of executives—be put toward something worthwhile: creating a worldwide market for our technology.

            If the United States takes the lead post-Copenhagen, Europe will see us as a partner in the climate change battle and Asia will see us as a competitor in the race to renewable energy production.  Unlike Afghanistan, this is a fight we can win—and the entire world will benefit.

            For the past year or so, the District of Columbia’s city council has been engaged in a tug-of-war between factions as it has attempted to conduct the people’s business: first, it was a meddlesome Congress that tried to supersede all local direction of the city’s gun-control policy.  Then, an ongoing proxy battle with an arrogant mayor resulted in clashes related to education, recreation, and contracting policy.  Now, the Archdiocese of Washington is threatening to withdraw from its Catholic Charities partnership with the city—in which the Church provides social services to some 68,000 homeless and poor residents—if the council proceeds with its plan to legalize same-sex marriage next month.

            There are plenty of freedom-of-conscience provisions built into the bill: the Church would not be required to marry same-sex couples or allow them access to non-public spaces of their property.  They would, however, be required to follow non-discriminatory guidelines for entities receiving government money—e.g. extending health insurance to and facilitating adoptions for gay couples.  Since Catholic Charities would not, out of moral reservation, be able to meet those requirements, it would thus not be eligible to do business with the city.

            Reactions have been mixed: some council members say that the Church is not indispensible to the city and should not dictate its policy.  Other people are sure that more concessions could be made to satisfy Church tenets without subjecting gays to wholesale prejudice.  Still others have argued that the measure should be put on the ballot, as has been the case in dozens of states.  Mostly, this argument has come from gay marriage foes, confident that a law will be rejected if submitted to voters (a board of elections and ethics has twice denied a ballot initiative or referendum to go forward). 

            One recent opinion article in The Washington Post presented an alternative version of that argument: a gay man in D.C. who writes, “I yearn, too, to be married someday, but at what cost? To force same-sex marriage into law through the caprice of judges, the sympathies of a majority of various legislatures or even the fiat of a president can be viewed as a kind of tyranny.”  While it’s common for parties who are on the losing side of policy fights to rail against “activist” judges and legislators that don’t respect the “will of the people,” it is strange to see that sentiment from someone who is benefitting greatly from those two sources of legal redress.

            There are two main points to be made about this controversy: one, is that not all opinions are equal.  I can, at a basic level, understand why the Catholic church would deny religious services to gay couples: for the reason that spiritual beliefs cannot be legislated out of existence, nor are they something that the believer can choose to have.  To have faith or not is hardly a free and simple choice for most believers—although the same can be true about being homosexual.  (And yes, I realize that the religious community is not monolithic—there are undoubtedly Catholics who would gladly marry two homosexuals.)  However, governmental protection to practice one’s beliefs does not mean that discrimination is legal.  To say that the Church’s views on sexuality should be given equal consideration as should views on sexuality from a scientific, cultural, or human rights perspective is erroneous.

            Secondly, the will of the people is a fickle protector of civil rights.  Even though it is our duty to resist governmental encroachment on our liberties, the legislatures and the courts were never intended to be a reflection of popular opinion.  As dysfunctional as our Congress appears at times, the elected men and women always have to take a view of what the greater good to society is when they cast their vote, which sometimes entails offending their constituents.  The courts, to an even greater degree, do not merely affirm and clarify policy that the legislature has passed, but they sometimes must overturn it when it violates the Constitution.

            People (conservatives in particular) abhor the notion that one unelected judge can alter the course of history by deciding which laws are appropriate or inappropriate by the principles of our society.  Take these words of an ambivalent Supreme Court justice in the early 1950s: “how is it that the Constitution this morning forbids what for three-quarters of a century it has tolerated or approved?”  The case he was reviewing was Brown v. Board of Education.  The man was Robert Jackson, a liberal who was having doubts about overturning segregation laws (even though a decade earlier he was in the minority of justices who voted to uphold the rights of Japanese-American citizens who had been placed in internment camps).

         In the end, of course, he voted to end segregation.  But for him and others like him who have spurned the popular will to uphold the Constitution, I would hope that the people who are elected or appointed to run the government are chosen not just for their knowledge of policy, but for their ability to listen to all sides and create laws that demonstrate the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

            Healthcare reform is inching along and if the close vote in the House is any indication of the deep split between liberals, moderates, and conservatives, then the Senate—with a higher concentration of the latter two groups—will have to dilute the bill even more to surmount a filibuster.  Still, the House’s bill is not a resounding victory.  It takes two steps forward and one step backward—in that for all of the great features that will expand health coverage and crack down on insurance companies, this comes at the expense of women’s reproductive rights.

            While abortion coverage (along with illegal immigrant coverage) was always a contentious point of reform, the settlement over the weekend on the Stupak Amendment is not only against women’s rights, but is against working-class women’s rights.  The language of the amendment denies federal funding for abortion services (an already-established provision of the law), but also denies women who are receiving subsidies from the government to purchase public or private insurance in the new Exchange from getting an abortion even if they pay out-of-pocket into their monthly premiums.  A far more sensible amendment was offered by Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) in which federal funds and private funds would be segregated in premium payments, and only the non-subsidized money would be used for the operation.  However, detractors called it an accounting gimmick that could not be enforced.

            The glaring irony is that small-government conservatives of both parties voted in favor of this amendment, even though it expands the reach of federal prerogative right into a woman’s physician’s office.  What’s more, the vast majority of those voting for the amendment would not have voted for the final bill even if the language was not approved.  But alas, the art of politics requires that a tiny fraction of lawmakers be appeased for the country as a whole to progress.

            While the language makes an exception for women whose life is endangered, or who have been the victims of rape and incest, that is little consolation.  A pregnancy is more than a medical condition.  It is an obligation to the woman, the child’s father, and the families of both parents.  But the weight of obligation is sometimes too much for women to bear.  The child might be unwanted or the woman might be physically, mentally, or financially unprepared to bear such a burden.  No one wants any abortion to happen, but when a woman needs more time before  entering into motherhood or when she must weigh the costs of rearing a child to whom she cannot dedicate herself or her material resources, it is unfair for a group of (primarily) men to stipulate that a woman must be dying or traumatized for her to have any choice in the matter.

            It makes little sense to me that this bill will bring opportunity for treatment to millions of working-class and young women—both of whom are most subject to false information and interest group tug-of-wars on the family planning front—so that if they accidentally get injured, they will be fine—but if they accidentally get pregnant, they are out of luck.  Would it not be more practical to simply regulate abortion providers to ensure that women who seek the procedure are not put in jeopardy by back-alley, unlicensed abortionists?  The last time I checked, the Constitution charged our government with promoting the “general welfare” of all its citizens, not simply the welfare of those who are wealthy and already have access to employer-based private coverage and who have an unbiased accounting of their options regarding reproductive rights.

            While the bill should not be sunk on the basis of this one anti-woman provision, it just goes to show that sex discrimination is still acceptable by the majority of elected representatives, even if it takes away a long-established legal right.

Lowell over at Blue Virginia has written an excellent postmortem of last night’s election (from the Democratic perspective):

http://www.bluevirginia.us/2009/11/after-action-review-of-mcdonnells.html

Likewise, Ben Tribbett at Not Larry Sabato has an equally fascinating pre-mortem:

http://notlarrysabato.typepad.com/doh/2009/11/the-democratic-gilmore-repost-from-july-2008.html

Governor-elect Bob McDonnell (R-Va.) is facing calls to verify the location and circumstances of his birth.

Charlottesville, VA—Less than four hours after Republican Robert F. McDonnell won the governorship of Virginia by a wide margin over his opponent, Democratic state senator R. Creigh Deeds, he faces calls from some prominent Democratic activists to provide proof of his citizenship.

            “I’m not saying that he’s not a citizen,” said Michael Karlik of The 28th Amendment, a liberal-leaning blog.  “I’m just saying that the allegations are out there—and the burden of proof should be on him” to disprove the rumors.  Karlik is calling on the governor-elect to produce his certificate of birth to show his qualifications to hold Virginia’s highest office.

            Although McDonnell, who was born in Philadelphia to American citizens, has held elected office for nearly two decades, this is the first time any concerns over his birth are receiving scrutiny.  The Virginia constitution requires governors to be citizens of the United States. 

            The outcry echoes the movement by some conservatives after the 2008 election in which President Obama, who was born in Hawaii, was accused of being Kenyan by birth and thus not eligible to hold the presidency.  Neither the McDonnell nor Deeds campaign had any immediate comment on this issue.

            Still, Karlik is not giving up.  “I think it’s completely rational to assume that Bob McDonnell is not a citizen of this country until it is proven otherwise.  As the former attorney general, he should know that one is presumed guilty of a charge until able to provide proof of his innocence.”  Karlik added, “I mean, McDonnell?  What kind of name is that?  Sounds Congolese to me.”

      We knew it was going to be bad, but not this bad!

This is a real screen capture, but the data are not authentic.  Apparently, someone at the SBE accidently put a 2 in the millions place, producing this comical result.

         Still, in looking at the real returns from tonight, the result is pathetic: a thorough rejection of the Democratic ticket, with gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds the worst performer, followed by attorney general candidate Stephen Shannon and lieutenant governor candidate Jody Wagner.  As is sometimes the ironic case, Deeds’s concession speech was the most impassioned bit of oratory he had given to date.  At the victory party, meanwhile, McDonnell thanked God profusely for his win, while Attorney General-elect Ken Cuccinelli quoted Dr. Seuss and vowed to protect Virginia’s “sovereignty” against federal encroachment.

         Today’s election may mean many things: a repudiation of the Obama agenda; a pushback against Deeds’s negative campaigning on social issues; a resassertion of Virginia’s true conservatism; or a declaration of Virginia’s preference for balanced partisan administration between the state and federal levels.  But one thing is clear: given the victors tonight, we may very well know who the next governor will be in 2013.

        In Virginia, attorneys general and lieutenant governors have a habit of running for governor after their term is finished.  Since Virginia is the only state whose governor is elected to a non-renewable term, it is virtually certain that Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling or Cuccinelli will seek the Republican nomination in 2013.  And, assuming Obama is elected to a second term, there is a good chance they will win.

       To use a phrase that both campaigns employed tonight, Virginia Democrats stand an excellent chance of being in the wilderness for the next eight years.

            On Tuesday, two different political parties in two elections occurring in two states will have a similar dilemma: what happens when your party’s candidate doesn’t effectively represent your party?

            First, New York’s 23rd congressional district: a special election is being held to replace Republican representative John McHugh, who resigned to become President Obama’s secretary of the Army.  Running for his seat are Democratic attorney Bill Owens, Republican assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, and attorney Doug Hoffman of the Conservative Party.  Scozzafava is a fiscal conservative, but is liberal on abortion and gay rights.  She was endorsed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who warned that the way for a party to lose elections is to impose ideological litmus tests, no matter how ill-matched the “pure” candidates may be with their constituencies.  Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has spoke out for Owen and condemned “blurring the lines” between parties.  As it stands, Owen and Hoffman are leading Scozzafava.  It is entirely possible that come election day, this Republican-leaning district will give the plurality of its vote to Owen because Republicans could not unite behind their selected candidate.

            Then, look at Virginia’s gubernatorial race: Democratic state senator Creigh Deeds was selected by wide margins in all areas of the state in the June primary against his two liberal Northern Virginia rivals.  Since then, Democrats from the White House down to the grass roots level have widely viewed him as running his campaign into the ground, to Republicans’ glee.  Besides distancing himself from the Obama administration, Deeds has suggested in the final weeks of the campaign that he is against the climate change legislation and the public option in the healthcare bill, presumably to shore up his standing in rural Virginia (which he has somewhat obnoxiously termed “Deeds Country”).

            Consequently, Virginia Democrats have been posting on blogs that they are so disenchanted with Deeds that they will refuse to vote on November 3.  Or else, they will write in “Mark Warner,” “Thomas Jefferson,” or some other popular Virginian to express their dissatisfaction.  The problem is, by not turning out to vote for Deeds, all of the other Democratic candidates on the ballot will suffer, which is unfair to those who have waged competitive and competent campaigns.  Not to mention, these overly-sensitive liberal Democrats would never choose Republican Bob McDonnell in a million years, but they are essentially handing him victory by refusing to vote for their party’s candidate in order to teach someone (the other seven million people in this state?) a lesson.

            It’s entirely possible that other Democrats will outperform Deeds on the ballot, an indication of either the candidates’ strength or the loyalty of the rank-and-file voters (just not to Deeds himself).  It’s also possible that New York’s Republicans will end up uniting behind the candidate who is most likely to win in order to prevent enabling a Democratic victory in the district.  The takeaway lesson here is to remember that it is fine to disagree with candidates on principled issues, but the degree of “purity” should not prevent you from voting for the candidate who stands the best chance of implementing a vision similar to yours.  It is unproductive to think that the qualities which are best for the party are necessarily what is best for the people as a whole.

            Yesterday, Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson pointed out a widely-overlooked aspect of healthcare reform that ought to be addressed before the final bill is deliberated upon.  Throughout the deliberations on how to pay for increasing coverage, two options have solidified.  The House’s plan is to tax wealthy households and individuals, which will cover about half the cost of the bill.  The Senate, on the other hand, will tax “Cadillac” plans that exceed roughly $21,000, encouraging folks to buy less expensive plans, consume fewer costly treatments, and thus reduce expenditures.

            Liberals are wary of the Senate’s plan because union members have, over the years, settled for lower wages in exchange for generous healthcare benefits, and any tax will ensnare middle-class families who happen to have well-earned, expansive health coverage.  However, it has been pointed out that many union contracts will have to be renegotiated in the coming years and employers can simply reduce the level of healthcare coverage while boosting wages in an attempt to shift the balance between income and non-taxable health benefits.  This will ensure that these workers will not cost the healthcare system as much in treatment and if they need to seek medical help above and beyond what their coverage entails, their extra wages can be used to cover that treatment.

            But Meyerson cautions us not to fall into a rhetorical fallacy: just because two ideas appear to be connected does not mean that there is necessarily a logical link between them.  In this case, we are dealing with the assertion that employers have a “pool” of money for each employee, into which are divided wages and healthcare benefits (in addition to Social Security taxes, pensions, etc.).  If one part of the pool—healthcare—shrinks, the other part—wages—will get larger, and the overall size of the pool will remain unchanged, as long as revenues and expenditures remain constant.

            Yet, this is not an ironclad deduction.  Unions have been successively weakened in America, and many people disdain unions as only serving the purpose of protecting incompetent workers from being fired.  This public condemnation—combined with the fact that in 2008, “top executives at 386 Fortune 500 companies averaged $10.8 million in total compensation, more than 364 times the amount paid to the average American worker”—demonstrates the relatively impotent bargaining position of the average employee.

            Employers could very well shrink the pool—paying less for healthcare, refusing to increase wages, and then pocketing the rest.  Congress ought to write a provision into the bill requiring employers to match dollar-for-dollar any decrease in existing health benefits with an increase in wages.  If that cannot be done without a compelling reason, union leaders should have the right to appeal to the Labor Department for an inquiry and/or punishment.  Among the administration’s many endeavors to reinvigorate the middle class and curtail the rampant greed of corporate culture, ensuring that unions receive proper respect at the bargaining table will prevent the further widening of the wealth gap that is a byproduct of the American myth that what is good for wealthy businessmen is good for the country overall.

            Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) announcement that the healthcare bill for his chamber will include a government-run option is a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, it is a relief to liberals who consider the public option to be the next-best (and only) alternative to a single-payer system but at the same time it puts moderates of both parties (well, Democratic moderates plus Sens. Collins and Snowe) in an enormous position of power.  Every senator who could potentially vote for this bill is needed and must be accommodated in the search for sixty votes.  It’s an undemocratic system that gives disproportionate advantage to rural states, but that is the way our Constitution works, for better or worse.

            The small state senators have a legitimate point with a public plan which is linked to Medicare, in that doctors already receive lower per-patient reimbursement by the government than by private insurers in their states or by Medicare payments to other states.  In part, this is due to the different costs of living throughout the country, but also it is attributable to formulas which have historically penalized efficient, rural providers such that they cannot afford to take on a good number of Medicare patients and still meet operating costs.  So, from their perspective, private insurers would better compensate doctors.

            Still, the formula can be altered.  What’s more, the people who do not have insurance currently are treated either at neighborhood clinics or in emergency rooms, so all that this legislation is doing is shifting the costs around.  The goal of healthcare reform is to bring down the cost of providing care overall, so the combination of new customers, reduced premiums, lower drug prices, and patient-centered care will, in theory, increase the number of patients that doctors see while decreasing the amount of billable-hours treatment people receive for their illness.

            I am concerned about this new “opt-out” aspect of the public option.  If states are allowed to forgo participation, how will the people currently uninsured find an affordable plan, especially if there is a mandate on individuals to purchase insurance?  Plus, the greater the number of people that participates in the public option, the more the costs of treatment will be spread between healthy and ill people, lowering premiums not just for people in the government plan, but for its competitors.  If half of the states choose not to make the public option available, what will that do to cost estimates which base premium prices on a certain level of participation?

            Lastly, there is a civil rights question here: if states are presented with a means of insuring those who are sick but choose not to make that path available to citizens, is the state liable for every ensuing preventable death?  Will public plan-based insurance be valid if a person seeks medical treatment in a state that has opted out?  And if states opt out, should they have to find another way to ensure that at least 95 percent of their legal residents have insurance or face some penalty, such as being denied funding for highways?

            The top map in this graphic is from Gallup, and I colored in the bottom section with the electoral results from last year’s election.

There seems to be a slight correlation between the percentage of insured adults per capita and the political leanings of the state.  Of course, this map does not indicate which party is in charge of the state legislature or the governor’s mansion.  For instance, even though Virginia voted Democratic in 2008, we will very likely have a Republican governor and legislature when the healthcare bill takes effect.  So, we can say that generally, state governments controlled by Republicans (who will be most likely to opt out) tend to have higher rates of uninsured adults.

            What it comes down to is this: I am worried that the ability to opt-out of the public option will fail to help people in states that most need an alternative method of procuring affordable insurance.  The senators from states such as Arkansas, Nebraska, and Louisiana should look at the 19 to 27 percent of constituents who lack insurance and explain why they were loathe to support a plan that will ensure their wellbeing.