With the GOP 2012 prospects sinking fast, Piyush 'Bobby' Jindal feels it is now politically safe to add his name to the growing list of Obama's health care plan critics.
Monday July 20, was a safe day for Piyush 'Bobby' Jindal. It was Bobby's turn to add his name to the growing list of President Obama's Health Care Plan critics. Critics whose numbers include many from Obama's own Democratic Party.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal(R) will wade into the national debate over health care this week by penning op-eds in Politico and the Wall Street Journal and appearing on a series of cable chat shows today and tomorrow.
"Governor Jindal has seen enough," said Curt Anderson, a consultant for Jindal. "As a health-care policy expert, he strongly believes that the House Democrat[ic] plan would be a disaster for the long-term health of the American people, and the long-term health of the economy."
That Jindal is adding his voice to the chorus of Republican critics of Democrats' approach to President Obama's chief policy priority is evidence that the youthful governor sees a role for himself in the national policy debate despite a rocky introduction to the country earlier this year.
But now is not the time for politicians with mealy mouths and spaghetti spines, who wish to play it safe and are unwilling to take political risks. Where was Bobby and his national health care expertise when his migrant parents adopted nation could have used it to help draw up the blueprints for a universal health care plan that would benefit all the citizens of this nation. Now is the time for decisive leadership action and people willing to take a stand for a greater good than that of their political party. Unfortunately, Bobby Jindal's johnny-come-lately decision to wade into the whitewater rapids of the universal health care debate, prove that he is not that man.
Maybe young Bobby should have spent less time watching reruns of his soulmate Bobby Brady and more time reading up on another young Republican, our 26th President Theodore ("Teddy") Roosevelt.
Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901, and was elected to a second term in 1904. At the time, he was America's youngest President, and he had a reputation as a dynamic, vigorous, and energetic executive. Years earlier, in the Spanish-American war, Roosevelt had become a national hero as he led his "Rough Riders" to victory over Cuba. He hunted game in Africa and explored South American jungles. He had also been New York's governor, New York City's police commissioner, and Vice President under William McKinley, who was assassinated one year into his second term, which is how Roosevelt, a Republican, first became President.
As President, Roosevelt pursued a progressive agenda, especially after his first two years in office in which he had largely adhered to McKinley's conservative doctrine. He attacked monopolistic corporations, and staked his political future on the premise that individuals - not businesses - are the key to political clout. Partially as a result of this public-oriented paradigm, T.R. introduced the concept of the "bully pulpit" and the public presidency by holding daily press briefings and going on national speaking tours to raise support for his policies.
I can remember reading Teddy Roosevelt's speech Man in the Arena during a civics class probably around the same time young Piyush was watching his soulmate, Bobby Brady, on reruns of the Brady Bunch.
Bobby Jindal with his Kenneth the Page personna, could only wish that he could be mentioned in the same breath with Teddy Roosevelt, the Republican president who is is also credited as the father of the Progressive Party. Bobby Jindal could learn a lot from Teddy Roosevelt.
What struck me about T.R.s "Man in the Arena" speech about the responsibilities of citizenship, and has stayed with me throughout my life was the following:
"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States
"Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910
What Bobby Jindal apparently learned from hours of watching Bobby Brady is that it is easier to tear down than it is to build up. That it is easier to be the critic than it to be the author. But I guess young Piyush must have missed the episode where Mike Brady taught his kids how easy it is to take a stand when you're part of a big group but that it is more difficult to stand for something when you stand alone. Likewise, it is much more difficult to be at the forefront of a new vision.
But the time has come for men of vision. John F. Kennedy said when he launched the Space Program, We choose to go to the moon. "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
Barack Obama is my generation's John F. Kennedy, and universal health care for all Americans is our goal-to-put-a-man-on-the-moon moment. To postpose universal health care because it is difficult is not entrenched in what America stands for.
The GOP party that Bobby Jindal hopes to lead is not Teddy Roosevelt's Republican party or the party of Abe Lincoln as Republicans like to claim, for that matter. The current day Republicans, the likes of Cantor, Bhoener, McConnell, Jindal and the rest of the Party of NO NEW IDEAS has decided if they can't run the country, than they are willing to not just sit on the sidelines and watch it burn down but to provide the fuel and the match. Country First appears to be an empty campaign slogan rather than a philosophical virtue. Everyone who has reviewed the matter has conceded that this nation cannot continue on this path of double-digit rising health care costs. We pay more than any other industrialized nation for health care and for that privilege we are ranked 37th in the world for the quality of health care that price tag brings with it. To continue to do nothing is no longer an option this nation can afford.
Your elected representatives need to hear from you NOW. Republicans want to KILL health care reform. There is no PERFECT health care plan which will please everyone, even everyone within the President's own Democratic party. But we need a plan, and we need it NOW. There will be time for revisions later. What program did we ever get right the first time. But because this plan is not perfect, is no reason to allow cynical Republicans to KILL it. Make no mistake, we will never get another opportunity to do what we need to do NOW.