You promised.

[madamesilverspurs]

Opinion
President Obama: Healthcare; you promised.
An open letter reminds the president of the major campaign vow that got him into the White House.
August 27, 2009

I am afraid there has been a misunderstanding since that election in 2008, during which 66,882,230 Americans cast their votes for you. Perhaps one of your trusted advisors has given you bum information. Maybe they told you that we voted for you -- walked, marched, prayed, fund-raised and knocked on doors for you -- because we hoped you would try to reunite the country. Of the total votes cast that long-ago November day, I'm guessing that about 1,575 people wanted you to try to reconcile the toxic bipartisanship that culminated in those Sarah Palin rallies.

The other 66,880,655 of us wanted universal healthcare.

You inherited a country that was in the most desperate shape since the Civil War, or the Depression, and we voted for you to heal the catastrophic wounds Bush inflicted on our country and our world. You said that you were up to that challenge.

We did not vote for you to see if you could get Chuck Grassley or Michael Enzi to date you. The spectacle of you wooing them fills us with horror and even disgust. We recoil as from hot flame at each mention of your new friends. Believe me, I know exactly how painful this can be, how reminiscent of 7th-grade yearning to be popular, because I went through it myself this summer. I did not lower my bar quite as low as you have, but I was sitting on the couch one afternoon, thinking that this adorable guy and I were totally on the same sheet of music -- he had given me absolutely every indication that we were -- and were moving into the kissing stage. Out of nowhere, I thought to ask him if he liked me in the same way I liked him.

He said, in so many words, no.

And Mr. President, that is what the Republicans are saying to you: They are just not that into you, sir.

This may have thrown you for such a loop that you have forgotten why you were elected -- which was to lead your people back to the promises of our founding parents. Many of us no longer recognized our country after eight years of Bush and Cheney, and you gave us your word that you would help restore the great headway we had made on matters of race, equality and plain old social justice.

People, get ready, you said; there's a train a 'coming. And we did get ready. We hit the streets. We roared, whispered, cried, whooped and went door to door, convinced that even if Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had not specifically dreamed of you, his dream of justice and equality and pride might come into being through your vision, your greatness, through the hope that your words gave us, through the change you promised.

He dreamed of a leader like you. Just like you. And something in the deepest part of this country's soul heard.

After eight years of Bush, and then the Palin nomination, we were battered and anguished and punch-drunk. But in rallying behind you, we came back to life, like in Ezekiel when the prophet breathes the spirit of bearing witness and caring onto the dry bones, and those bones come back to life, become living people again, cherished and tended to.

We did not know exactly how you would proceed to restore our beloved Constitution. It seemed beyond redemption, like my kitchen floor did briefly last week after my dog, Bodhi, accidentally ate 24 corn bread muffins. You said you would push back your sleeves and begin, that it would take all of us working harder than we ever had before, but that you would lead. While acknowledging the financial and moral devastation of the last eight years, you said you would start by giving your people healthcare. You would do battle with the conservatives and insurance companies. You said in your beautiful way many times that this was the overarching moral and spiritual issue of our times, and we understood this to mean that you took this to be your Selma, your Little Rock.

I hate to sound like a betrayed 7-year-old, but you said. And we believed you. Now you seem to have abandoned the dream. That is why moderates and liberals and progressives like myself all seem a little tense this summer. It is time to call your spirit back. We will be here to help when you get back from vacation. We want to help you get over the disappointment of Mr. Grassley's cold shoulder, of Mr. Enzi blowing you off, even that nice Olympia Snowe standing you up. We can and will take to the streets again, march and hold peaceful rallies, go door to door, donate to any causes that will help get out the truth of what a public option would mean. But we need you to shake off the dust of the journey and remember the promises of Dr. King, and we need you to lead us toward what is no longer so distant a shore.

Do it for Teddy Kennedy, boss. Do it for the other Kennedys too, for Dr. King, for Big Mama, for the poorest kids you met on the trail, the kids who go to emergency rooms for their healthcare, do it for their mothers and for Michelle. Just do it.

Trusting you, Mr. Obama

Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott's latest book is "Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith."

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

[kenny blankenship]

1. "Bipartisanship": Dems enacting a Repuke agenda.

Voters don't care about bipartisanship. Self-described "centrists" like David Broder care about it. Oddly though, it only works one way for the Broders and other beltway bipartisan fetishists -Dems are told to cave continuously to a right wing that moves ever closer to corporate dictatorship in domestic policy, ever closer to Fascism in foreign policy. When Repukes are in power Dems are supposed to cave. When Democrats are in power Dems are supposed to cave.

Voters don't punish lack of bipartisanship. They punish FAILURE. The Pukes got punished for their failure. They had 8 years of the most compliant bipartisan assistance the country had ever seen but their policies led to collapse, so they're gone. Now we're told we have to push their agenda for them even though the voters sent them packing. If we fall for this there'll be much more punishment and waves of change to come.

[Clio the Leo]

2. I wonder if Anne has read "The Audacity of Hope" ....

.... certainly doesn't sound like it.

And anyone who SERIOUSLY thinks he will NOT get health care reform done because of bipartisan efforts doesn't understand the man they voted for.

We have have a long way to go until 9/15 ......... and miles to go before we sleep.

[truedelphi]

3. The only way that President Obama could fulfill his campaign promises

To his campaign Big Money donors and to not lose face with the average voter was for him to do this "act" of pretending to be all about bipartisianship.

Plus nothing he has done demonstrates any type of real bipartisianship - wherein he would seek out various points of view. It is one thing to seek out the views of every nut job in the nation. (And to acquiesce to them.) It is quite another to reach out in a rational and real bipartisianship manner. I mean, has Obama met with Code Pink yet? Or Dennis Kucinich and Lynn Woolsey and Maxine Waters and DeFazio yet?

The President did not even allow his former personal physicisan to attend meetings!! So what chance does the average person have with this new Administration?

As someone much smarter than me has pointed out in their blog, his entire Cabinet and all his appointments are about Big Corporations. There has been no room for anyone NOT CONNECTED with Big Industry. We have the Monsanto appointments of Velsick as the head of Agriculture and also Mike Taylor as the new head of the FDA.

Yesterday on DU someone mentioned that Obama is like Ghandi because Ghandi was considered stupid and naive. But Ghandi did not have Rahm or Geithner as his personal buddies! If Ghandi had been close to people like those two, he surely would have aided and assisted the British Empire as they kept the people of India from using their own salt. Rather than setting up the liberation of his nation.

Obama is just further enslaving the average working person.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

4. "As someone much smarter than me has pointed out in their blog..."

I reckon that you didn't exactly narrow the possibilities of whom it might be with that line.

[FrenchieCat]

5. So much past tense in these analysis and letters,

till it ain't even funny.

Too bad that the premature ones in determining where we will end up with
are as much part of the problem, IMO....., i.e., self fullfilling prophecies.

[Cha]

6. That's right and he's doing it..Yay President Obama..

thanking you for winning and being who you are.:patriot::fistbump::patriot:

[zulchzulu]

7. This just in! Barack Obama is not an autocratic monarch!

Is something wrong with Anne Lamott? Does she think Obama is a king that decrees laws at will and with a magic wand?

Hey Anne... there's this thing called Congress. Then there's this thing called the Senate. Inside these little building are things called committees. And these committees have these things called bills and proposals.

Look! They have pens and paper! They have to make five bills into one! And then add amendments and crap and then have it go through Congress and the Senate!

Oh wait, Barack Obama is putting on a King's crown! Yippee!!!

:crazy:

This whiney blabber really pisses me off.

[treestar]

10. I know. A politician's promises can't be for results, only for what he/she

will work toward and support.

[zulchzulu]

12. So if a baseball team is losing 3 to 1 in the third inning, assume they lost the next ten games

That could be seen as "logic" for some.

[Phx_Dem]

8. I guess I missed the vote in which health care was defeated.

Dumb ass.

[FrenchieCat]

9. I hope to see Anne Lamott at some townhalls!......

after all, Obama did say on November 4th, 2008
...."This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change.”

Hope Ms. Lamott actually understands that her role is to do more than to watch the train, just wait and hope, and write an open letter to the President about what he didn't do, should do, and how it will make her feel otherwise. She's the one who seems to have abandoned the dream as soon as it got a little bit hard. She should have been out there, and not waited for the President's 7 day vacation to end. See....that's what is sad. :(

[Teaser]

11. This is some stupid shit

Annie Lamott, basically saying that she can't handle the fact that there's been no news all summer, so let's blame Obama for it somehow.

What a whinging ball of fail she is.