Andrew’s Miracle Drug

If you didn’t already think that our health care delivery system was in total shambles, maybe this will convince you.

Oregon is giving away health insurance to lottery winners. That’s right: playing Powerball or scratching a couple of lotto tickets might just be your way to finally getting adequate health care coverage.

Will this be enough to convince Congress that it’s time for reform?

Last night, while jolking (jog-walking, a form of exercise particular to those of us trying to get in shape) at the gym, I had the deep displeasure of catching about 50 minutes of cable news. I had the option of either watching Fox News, CNN, or the gym parking lot.

I should have gone with watching the parking lot.

The topic of conversation on Lou Dobbs, Bill O’Reilly and Campbell Brown’s shows was, of course, Senator Obama’s speech. O’Reilly and his guests (the not-as-noxious-as-Limbaugh-or-Hannity-but-noxious-nevertheless Laura Ingraham) presented intellectually dishonest presentations of Obama’s speech, saying that he failed to reject Reverend Wright’s unhinged and unsavory remarks, while Dobbs and Brown asked their esteemed guests questions, and subsequently failed to correct or challenge them when they offered false or questionable claims. Is this what passes for intellectual debate these days?

Today while sitting in my car during my lunch break (don’t worry - I wasn’t idling), I heard a discussion on NPR regarding Obama’s speech that I wish were the standard for the norm for intellectual debate in the mass media.

One of the panelists, a Michael Meyers (no, not that one. Nor the even more frightening one), wrote an Op-Ed piece for the LA Times yesterday claiming that Obama “blew it.” And Obama blew it, he says, not for any of the reasons you might think.

No, Obama blew it not because he failed to acknowledge the concerns of one group or another, nor because he insufficiently distanced himself from remarks of one kind. Rather, Obama blew it because he failed to offer a way out of the way we currently think about race.

Meyers contends that Obama had an opportunity to remind us that we are all a part of the human race, and that race as it has hitherto been discussed and thought of is not merely wrong, but harmful:

We can’t be united as a nation if we continue to think racially and give credence to racial experiences and differences based on ethnicity, past victim status and stereotypical categories. All of these prejudices surrounding tribe-against-tribe are old-hat and dysfunctional — especially the rants of ministers, of whatever skin color or religion, who appeal to our base prejudices and to superstitions about our supposed racial differences. The man or woman who talks plainly about our commonality as a race of human beings, about our future as one nation indivisible, rather than about our discredited and disunited past, is, I predict, likely to finish ahead of the pack and do us a great public service.

This, rather than O’Reilly’s bilious conversation and Dobbs’ irrelevant discussion on The Speech, is thought-provoking.

Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama could have offered a defensive speech today on his relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. He quite easily could have downplayed his relationship with Wright, stating that he only attended the Trinity United Church of Christ for fellowship with other African-Americans. He could have offered platitudes about race.

Instead, Obama offered what could be the speech that defines the 2008 campaign. Obama didn’t skirt the legitimate questions of his relationship to Wright, nor did he downplay his relationship with Wright. Instead of platitudes and clichés, Obama’s speech was honest and forthright about race in America, and yet hopeful for the future.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

Obama goes on to say that we can continue focusing on gaffes by opposing campaigns, demanding apologies, or we can continue focusing on Rev. Wrights, or seeing race only “as a spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial…We can do that. But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election we’ll be talking about some other distraction…and nothing will change.” Rather, Obama asks that we focus on the common issues and problems we all share:

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There are only a few times I can think of when my heart swelled with pride to be an American. I remember when President Bush, just a day or two after 9/11, standing atop the rubble of the World Trade Center, grabbed the bullhorn and told the firefighters that he heard them, and that all of America heard them, and soon, the people who had committed this atrocity would hear them, too. I was proud of our resiliency, our strength, our determination.

Obama’s speech today was another such occasion.

…I’m back. For a bit, at least. I got through mid-terms successfully, I think. I suppose we’ll see in the next couple of weeks when results come back.

We’re still waiting for our baby to make her entrance into the world - the doc says we can expect her sometime in the next couple of weeks, so I might take yet another brief hiatus. But for now, you can once again enjoy my penetrating, earth-shattering, removing-scales-from-eyes commentary.

Yes, I’m coming to this story a bit late, but I figure that by now, we’ve had some time to reflect on its ramifications.

I watched soon-to-be former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer’s ascendancy with interest and hope, thinking he might someday be the Democratic Presidential candidate. I was attracted to his self-confidence, his righteous anger, and his ability to achieve results. He wielded a tremendous amount of power, and seemed interested to pursue the greater good.

My hope, however, began to wane last year as hints emerged that Spitzer might be abusing his power. (more…)