David Brooks, in his New York Times opinion piece today, argues that the Obama administration is trying to solve too many problems at once, a Herculean task doomed to failure in his opinion.
I started writing this piece before the president's address to congress, and I'm finishing this as he ends. Irrespective of your politics, you have to admit this guy can make us feel good about being an American, and makes you feel that he understands the magnitude of our many problems.
Whether he, his cabinet, and Congress can come together with appropriate solutions is another matter. True Americans need to put their differences aside, join together, and contribute to the solution. This is not a time for ideology, party, or campaign rhetoric - it is a time for ideas, and the recognition that we have major problems we cannot pass on to our children and grandchildren, unless we also pass on the ability to solve them.
We need to watch how we spend money to control terrorism. This means not engaging in wars that don't destroy terrorists, and may actually generate more. We need to find a way to educate the poor of the world who may otherwise grow up to hate us.
We need to end no-bid contracts to the friends of government, and go after those who have stolen from our country over the last 8 years. Not simply for vengeance or justice, but to ensure that those tempted to do it again know there are painful consequences. To me, this is a conservative proposal, because it guarantees that no person or company cheats our citizens.
We need to work to keep children in school. These are the people we will need to fill high technology jobs in the future. And, the better their jobs, the more and better taxpayers we can look forward to.
We need to find Bin Laden. Not for vengeance, but to show the world we are actually competent enough to do so. For that, we need more than bounties of $25,000,000 offered to those for whom loyalty is more important that huge and instant wealth. Also, we need to find those who harbor him. It would also feel good to get him.
We need to return to the "fairness doctrine." For a true democracy, that is important. We cannot afford to have the newspapers and TV stations controlled by those who mislead us - we don't need repeats of the Hearst papers' stampede into war more than a century ago. We need both sides of issues to be presented. We don't need to have our major networks, on the other hand, afraid to call things the way they really are. As one pundit analogized: It's not fairness for a network to have one person say "the world is round", and some loon say "it's flat," then conclude that the shape of the earth is in dispute." Yet that is what the major networks do. It's not fair and balanced to have a moderate representing one point of view, and some extremist representing reason, with a host screaming down the moderate.
Without some semblance of fairness, we can't have an educated democracy, even if it means you may be forced to listen occasionally to someone with whom you do not fully agree.
We need to solve the health insurance crisis. Not because liberals think that everyone should have free health care. Because we need to have healthy productive citizens, workers who aren't concerned they can't afford to pay to take their children or spouses to the doctor - they will work more productively. But mainly, because we can't expect our employers [including me] to fund insurance when we compete against those who don't pay for those benefits - that includes foreign employers for whom their governments pay the cost, as well as our homegrown competitors.
It's all a matter of practical solutions to problems, rather than relying on slogans to determine the choices we make.
It's nice to have a president make a speech that makes you want to go out and do good for your country and make some sacrifices.
END OF SERMON
