Loading ...Continuous TV appearances can’t rescue a bad argument.
By: Karl Rove
It sounded to White House advisers like a good idea. Put President Barack Obama on five Sunday morning talk shows. This would focus attention on health care, re-establish momentum, and show off Mr. Obama’s passion, intelligence, and persuasive abilities. It didn’t work.
Mr. Obama made a classic mistake of politicians on a downward-bending arc. He jumps out in front of the cameras without having something fresh to offer.
As a result, he was on the defensive and failed to win over the slice of America that opposes his plans. His refusal to sit down with Fox News’s Chris Wallace made him look petulant if not fearful, and his answers weakened his credibility.
Take, for example, his dustup on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” over whether requiring Americans to buy health insurance or pay a fine was a tax. Legislation in the House and Senate defines it as a tax, and Mr. Stephanopoulos said it fit Merriam-Webster’s definition of a tax. But the president insisted it was not a tax. That’s because by favoring the mandate Mr. Obama is breaking his pledge not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. He already signed a cigarette tax increase in February, but this tax could be as much as $3,800 a year for a family and is therefore a more material breach of his promise.
On “Face the Nation” Mr. Obama said he would pay for two-thirds of his health-care proposal by redirecting Medicare funds that are “just being spent badly.” “This is not me making wild assertions,” Mr. Obama said, “waste and abuse” can provide “the lion’s share of money to pay for” health-care reform.
If that is true, Mr. Obama could flip the health-care debate to his advantage by offering a stand-alone bill that would cut the $622 billion from Medicare and Medicaid that he sees as badly spent. Such a bill would show that Mr. Obama can be trusted when he says overhauling health care will be painless. But the White House won’t do any such thing because those cuts aren’t easy to make. If they were all “waste and fraud” they would have been cut already. And such a bill would force Democrats to either stick with the president or side with constituents who would be hurt by the cuts.
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