The health care debate was raging on at full steam and if there is something everyone can agree on it is that the debate is far from settled. It is without question that Barak Obama has drawn his line in the sand on this issue, and it seems that he will push forward on it until it is either won or lost outright. The story behind the story however, is that two seemingly unrelated stories have conspired to derail the debate. I contend that it is the President himself who allowed that to happen, if only by an unfortunate and uncharacteristic off-the-cuff answer.
The first story is the prime-time press conference held by the President to bolster support for his health care reform initiative. There isn’t much of a story here, outside what we all know, but to say that Obama likes his prime-time press conferences. Stretching things a little bit, one could say that there is a story in that resistance to health care reform at large is forcing him to be more aggressive in his push for it. Either way, this article isn’t about judging health care reform, or prime-time press conferences.
The second story is that of a Harvard Professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr., who was arrested at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The professor is an African American, and there is a chorus of people saying that the arrest was racially driven. There are plenty of places to read the facts as well as opinions on both sides, and just like the President’s prime-time press conference, I’m not going to judge the merits of that case. What is important to know for our purposes is that it happened, and the story is not done being told yet.
This leads us to last night, when the President set out to convince the American public that health care reform was the most important issue of this generation. In putting this conference together and running it during prime-time, the intent was clearly to set the debate as the number-one story of the day. Obama wanted this to be “the” story, “the” debate, and that decision was a smart one; how better to ensure pressure on Congress than to make it the focus of a 24 hour news cycle?
Agree with the President or not, up until the last few minutes he was headed down the right track. However, when it was time for the last question things took a decidedly bad turn, although I’m not sure anyone including Obama realized it until today. In short, the reporter asked the President to comment on the arrest of the Harvard Professor, and the President started making a characteristically intelligent, balanced and thoughtful statement. He then concluded his statement by saying that the Cambridge police had acted stupidly, and here, at best, he unraveled his own plan (at worst he damaged the whole debate).
There are several problems with Obama making a comment on the matter, not the least of which is that by his own admission he didn’t have all of the facts. Add to that an indictment of a town’s police department by the executive branch of the country and things get a little hairy. There will be a lot written on this matter, and I’ll say right now that I expect a good portion of the media to find a way to defend Obama. That said, the veracity of the comments is not the concern of this article.
By insinuating himself into the national conversation about the professor’s arrest, Obama undermined the purpose of his press conference, to keep the media focused on health care, and therefore drive congress to action. Instead, the media and by extension water cooler conversations nation-wide will be talking about Cambridge, Massachusetts. Perhaps we will all get lucky and an open and honest conversation about race in America will take place as well, which can only help us. But, one way or another, Congress is free to pack its bags for the recess without concern of pressure from the public, and that too can only help us.
