A MAN OF MEASURED RESPONSE

Say what you will about what he has managed--or not managed--to accomplish, I for one am glad to have in the White House a man of measured response. Perhaps that is one of the qualities that infuriate those who hate him--and I must say that I find it very hard to understand them--but in my eyes it is one of his most valuable assets. It's what we need in a President. I hear the word "unflappable."

It would be comic if it were not intended as an insult to hear Barack Obama mistaken for a Muslim. He proclaims himself, unostentatiously, a Christian. I see him as having all the fine qualities of a good Buddhist. Equanimity is one of them.

At least from what we see through the lens of the media, biased as it may be this way or that, he manages to remain calm in every situation. His conduct of our foreign relations seems guided by an equanimous view of every crisis that presents itself. He has refused to be moved to hasty action in the Middle East, where our country's actions in the recent past have led us into a quagmire of troubles. Our military actions in the course of his presidency have been undertaken with careful deliberation and meticulous planning. A good Buddhist would surely call our drone strikes into question, as well the assassination of Al Qaeda leaders; but such dire acts may be the inevitable consequence of hostilities directed against our own country or endangering the lives of innocent people elsewhere in the world. I personally despise violence, but I am not a pacifist. Given the hatred, tyranny and oppression that still to this day abound on our planet, I conclude unhappily that force is sometimes necessary. It's my belief that Obama is judicious in his use of it.

On the political front at home, it seems to me, he is equally judicious. His positions are carefully thought-through in advance and presented with reasoned arguments. He listens respectfully and patiently to opposing views and takes them into account. This past week, he has been restrained, in public at least, in his response to the legal arguments against the greatest legislative achievement of his presidency, the health care bill, and the threat of its nullification by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court. One gets the sense that, should this hard-won victory be overturned, he would simply roll up his sleeves and get down to the exploration of another avenue of approach.

The President's response to the media's clamor for his reaction to the racial and political storm around the "Stand Your Ground" killing of that young black man in Florida was a model of compassionate equanimity. Rather than seize the opportunity to vent about the clear injustice of the situation, he chose instead to back away from the political and racial issues and simply express solidarity with the family in their grief and to model the understanding, compassion, and restraint that serve us better, as a nation, than anger, finger-pointing, and hate.

Most remarkable, in my view, is the President's ability to laugh off the increasingly personal attacks that question not only his religious faith but also his good faith as president. As I was saying earlier this week, despite my many disagreements with George W. Bush and, frankly, some barbs I sent his way in my blog, "The Bush Diaries," it never occurred to me to attack him as "UnAmerican," or to suggest that he was working intentionally to destroy this country, as Obama's detractors do. Their hatred seems to know no bounds of reason or common decency. And yet the lies, half-truths and innuendo used by his right-wing opponents seem to faze him not a bit, no more than the attacks that come from the other side of the political spectrum. When he does respond, it is with an even hand, with humor, and entirely lacking in rancor or vindictiveness. He does not allow himself the indulgence of becoming anyone's victim.

I for one appreciate his ability to muster a measured response to everything that besets his presidency, particularly in contrast to the rhetorical excesses and the liberties his current opponents feel free to take with truth. They attribute to him, with apparent impunity, words he never spoke, deeds and intentions he never contemplated, beliefs he never held. That he responds to these attacks with reason and good humor speaks well of him. Another four years in the White House, especially if he gets the support of the more Democratic congress he deserves, will afford him the opportunity to prove the historical importance of his presidency.

"UNAMERICAN"

The front page of yesterday's New York Times carried two pictures of demonstrators with placards. The one on top read "Protect Women's Health." The one below announced that "ObamaCare is UnAmerican." Okay, I can see the part about protecting women's health: that seems like an unobjectionable objective, and one on which we could all, surely, agree--though I suppose some might question whether women's health is at risk. The quibble might be, Why not protect everybody's health?

"ObamaCare is UnAmerican" is another matter, and prompts the question, What could be UnAmerican about seeking to provide health care for those millions of our citizens who have not, until now, enjoyed its benefits? Many of them, indeed, have been specifically excluded from receiving benefits or protection by insurance companies whose interest is exclusively in their bottom line. Many more have been excluded by their inability to afford insurance and by the failure of their employer to provide it for them. Is it UnAmerican to ensure that not the least of us goes unprotected from medical and financial disaster? And not least in consideration of the fact that we all we end up paying for such events anyway, and usually when they have become more troublesome and infinitely more expensive to deal with. Is it UnAmerican to have minimal foresight, even enlightened self-interest at heart?

The placard also prompts a second question: If this is UnAmerican, what, then, is the American approach to health care? Neglect? The free market? One or the other of these. Neglect brings with it all too obvious consequences, including those above: postponement leads only to graver medical problems, the kind that can be addressed only by expensive emergency or acute care--unless we choose simply to let people die, an alternative roundly applauded, as I recall, in one of the Republican debates.

The free market, then; this is the American way. A free market in which insurance companies add their overhead costs to the prospect of already escalating medical expenses and in which, in order to serve their bottom line, they are free to refuse coverage to anyone they choose. In which millions of Americans (the less financially secure, the poor, the unemployed, these, too, are Americans) are left to fend for themselves. In which millions of Americans are constrained, for financial reasons alone, to postpone health care until it becomes a life-threatening emergency, and to deny themselves the benefits of cost-saving preventive care. Is it "American" to be callous about one's fellow citizens? To insist on the more expensive alternative for reasons of pure ideology? Is it American to be so un-smart, so readily submissive to those whose primary purpose is not to provide for their health and welfare, but to make money?

The "UnAmerican" epithet is a weapon most frequently--I might even say exclusively--by partisans on the right. Do lefties resort to calling those who disagree with them "UnAmerican"? Did anyone on the left--no matter how much they may have disliked George W. or disagreed with his policies--think to call him UnAmerican? I search my own conscience for having ever entertained such a thought, still less expressed it. I disagreed with virtually everything he said and did, but I never accused him of saying or doing it with the express intention of harming America. And yet that is what I hear from the right today--and not only from the crazies: I hear it from the mouths of their candidates for President, that Obama's express intention is to run this country into the ground.

I read Tom Friedman's op-ed column, also in yesterday's New York Times, about the political climate in Australia and New Zealand--countries where, it seems, even the right wing is Democratic and where, once debated and passed into law, legislation is not immediately subject to rancorous challenge or repeal. Where, it seems, some measure of sanity still rules. Whither America, I am compelled to wonder, when we are swayed this way and that by such forces of vindictiveness and unreason?