Then, after consulting with his top advisors and the Democratic (only) leaders in Congress, he must emerge with a very clear, precise public option plan. Then he, his closest advisors, his leaders in Congress, together with leaders in the progressive movement must begin a very ambitious, relentless campaign to clearly explain to Americans exactly what the public option is and specifically how it will work. He also should completely abandon his misguided obsession with bipartisanship and tell the Republicans to either get with the process - or just get the out of the way!
After the massive campaign to reach America with the message that they have been waiting for, simply an understandable explanation of the public option, then Congress needs to get back to work; to discuss and debate the various proposals, and then finalize appropriate legislation. If it becomes evident that Democrats cannot prevent a GOP filibuster, then they should study just how the "reconciliation process" could be used, as it has in previous similar instances, and then use that process to bring the matter to an up or down vote. And they will win hands down; they will need no GOP support.
One other major issue on which President Obama may find extremely troublesome for his presidency is his total failure to explain to Americans exactly what our mission and objectives are in the war in Afghanistan. We have now had our troops battling America's current bogeymen, the Taliban, since 2001. And after eight years of fighting, resulting in too many unnecessary deaths of our troops and innocent civilians, reports are coming from our top commander there, General McChrystal, that right now the Taliban have the upper hand. That's bad enough but worse yet is that no one anywhere has ever been told just why we are there - except the same old, worn out reason that we can't let the terrorists attack us again.
If Obama and his military commanders cannot clearly explain to the American public why we must continue to remain and fight in Afghanistan, what the mission is what the objectives are and what the exit strategy is, then it becomes very evident that we have no business being there and we need to bring the troops home. More and more it becomes clear that our only reason for being there involves, not the terrorists, but to protect and promote our interests in that entire region; and that involves several planned pipelines to carry petroleum and natural gas from resource-rich nations through Afghanistan for export to other nations. Might those other nations include our NATO allies, as well as the U.S.?
Afghanistan has now become "Obama's war"; he has doggedly supported it, sent in more troops and shows no signs of changing course. He now could be at that tipping point where it would be a wise and expedient decision to initiate a plan to bring it to an end. Should he miss this chance to exhibit courageous leadership and decision-making, then he will forever be tied to a very costly war that many experts almost unanimously predict will end in total failure.
Either one of these critical issues, or the combination of the two, could spell doom for the Obama administration. Universal health care for all Americans, which has been attempted several times since the Truman administration after World War II, now has its best chance for implementation. America cannot and must not let this great opportunity pass by.
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