In his speech President Obama declared, “But when I ran for President I promised I wouldn’t just do what was popular –I would do what was necessary.”  Two kinds of people stand against the tide of popular will.  The first is the courageous person of principle who follows his or her conscience against an errant majority.  The second is the zealot who will use unscrupulous means to achieve a self-righteous vision.   Which one is Barack Obama?

“We have to recognize,” said Obama,” that we face more than a deficit of dollars.  We face a deficit of trust.”  Indeed, the President’s got that right. “To close that credibility gap,” he continued, “we have to take action on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue — to end the outsized influence of lobbyists; to do our work openly; to give our people the government they deserve.”

Unfortunately the “credibility gap” widened during Obama’s speech.  Rather than expressing any regret for cutting a special deal with the pharmaceutical industry (see Robert Reich’s honest assessment here) or special deals for unions, Obama pretended to be against backroom bargains with special interests.  Instead he boasted that — hold the presses — “for the first time in history” his administration posts White House visitors online.  He added that the White House didn’t hire any lobbyists either.   But while lobbyist middlemen may have cooled their heels in the lobby, representatives of corporations like Goldman Sachs walked through the revolving door (see Adele Wick’s piece at CenterMovemet.org, Is Goldman Sachs the New Haliburton).

As for the Massachusetts special election, the President referenced it indirectly:

Washington may think that saying anything about the other side, no matter how false, no matter how malicious, is just part of the game.  But it’s precisely such politics that has stopped either party from helping the American people.  Worse yet, it’s sowing further division among our citizens, further distrust in our government.

So, no, I will not give up on trying to change the tone of politics.  I know it’s an election year.  And after last week, it’s clear that campaign fever has come even earlier than usual.  But we still need to govern.

It is worth noting that Massachusetts Senator-elect Scott Brown never ran a negative advertisement during his campaign.  Brown also favors term limits and clean election laws.  By contrast, the President’s candidate in the contest, Martha Coakley, tried to pound the daylights out of Brown in a vicious barrage of negative advertising in the days just before voters went to the polls.

Polling data show that Brown’s opposition to the Democratic healthcare bills was the single most important issue leading to his surprising victory.  While some Democrats in Congress seem to have received the message from Massachusetts, the President pressed on with his healthcare jihad.

So as temperatures cool, I want everyone to take another look at the plan we’ve proposed.  There’s a reason why many doctors, nurses and health care experts who know our system best consider this approach a vast improvement over the status quo.  But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know.  Let me know.  Let me know.  I am eager to see it.

Here is the President at his most disingenuous.  When he uttered these words, steam must have come pouring out Democratic Senator Ron Wyden’s ears.  Wyden had produced a bipartisan market- and consumer-based healthcare bill that came closer to achieving the President’s stated objectives than any other piece of legislation.  But it was shunned by a White House that apparently insists on state-centered solutions.  For more on Wyden’s bill, see this nice piece at the Huffington Post by Democrat Lanny Davis.

President Obama likes to pretend that no one has offered any reforms except for the ones he supports.  It’s always his bills versus “the status quo.”  He accuses the Republicans of “just saying no to everything.”  In fact the Republicans have several healthcare bills of their own, including one written by a Senator / doctor, Tom Colburn, that also aims at universal coverage.  Here is a summary of Colburn’s bill.   Republican bills sensibly include tort (lawsuit) reform, but Democrats invariably refuse to anger trial lawyers, a constituency that fills their campaign coffers.

President Obama, in a gimmicky effort to address popular rage over the nation’s alarming debt, proposed a discretionary spending freeze after significantly raising discretionary spending for two years.  Meanwhile, the great bulbous mass of federal spending, in entitlements and defense, will continue to grow.  Americans yearn for entitlement reform in order to protect their children from the oncoming train wreck that is the national debt, but the Administration and the Democrat Congress are proposing to exacerbate the problem by paying for their new healthcare bill by robbing Medicare.  This confiscation process they cynically describe as unspecified “cost savings.”

In his State of the Union address President Obama was more reassuring on foreign policy.  He powerfully reaffirmed American values.  He promised to hold Iran accountable for its drive to build nuclear weapons.  He reported that there were many more strikes against Al Qaeda in 2009 than there were in 2008.

Obama is an idealist come of age in the Chicago Obama is an idealist come of age in the Chicago style of politics, which may serve him well internationally.  Against the enemies of the United States, an unyielding ruthlessness in service of ideals is often appropriate.  In foreign policy, a silky-smooth presentation that unflinchingly serves self-interests is commendable.  This approach, however, does not befit the politics of a democracy, in which the journey is as important as the destination.

The House Bill is 1990 pages in length. Our Representatives and the public were generously given 72 hours for reading and debate. While this sounds like a lot to do in such a short time, we suppose that our Members in Congress are speed readers, that the print was exceptionally large and /or that they had little else to do except eat, sleep, and fundraise for their next reelection in the allotted period. In any case, with 5/6 of the economy left mostly untouched by the legislation, why worry about details?

As John Dingell, the 83-year-old Michigan Democrat noted, the bill covers 96% of all Americans with health insurance. That 96% figure is obviously a formidable one, since it is nearly identical to the usual US House incumbent reelection rate. Dingle, unlike the vast majority of his fellow octogenarians, will not have to worry about the deep Medicare cuts that are part of the bill. Dingle is on the government plan.

We, too, would be happy to see every American have health insurance, but only if this were a real healthcare “reform” bill that met the President’s objectives of controlling costs and paying for itself. The two issues, by the way, are not unrelated.

Calling this healthcare “reform” is like saying an obese person is “reformed” from overeating if he adds an extra helping of potatoes at every meal. Potatoes are wholesome, but unhelpful if the subject is sitting on the sofa all day long gorging himself on pizza and ice cream. Healthcare is already gobbling up a higher percentage of our GDP than any other economy on the planet and the House healthcare bill will only make this situation worse.

None of the structures driving up health care are changed as a result of House healthcare legislation. The bill does not alter the existing employer-based system, which is expensive and regressive. The “fee-for-service” model also persists, in which consumers are encouraged to consume all the healthcare services their doctors are willing to serve up, and escalating insurance premiums seem to justify every test imaginable. Doctors have no reason not to offer a full buffet of services and tests; they will continue to practice defensive medicine and themselves pay outrageous amounts in medical liability insurance since tort reform is missing from the bill. On top of this we add the potatoes. Now taxpayers are going to subsidize those who cannot on their own buy insurance and current insurance policy holders will pay higher premiums to make sure people with pre-existing conditions can get coverage. These are good components in a reformed system, but deadly in one in which the subject is still grotesquely over-consuming. Pass the gravy please, but don’t send the bill. We are still eating.

The House legislation does have a public option, which seems designed, over time, to kill off private insurance in favor of a single-payer system. Now that would be real reform, and could control costs through a diet of government-imposed rationing. But most of us would rather our doctor told us when we need an MRI, rather than a government bureaucrat. If you think insurance companies are bad, just wait, as they do in Canada, for a government-run system. Fortunately, like an Englishman who can’t get a coronary bypass in time, the public option is as good as dead. The Senate will kill it.

Our Reps justify the public option by saying it is designed to promote “competition” and keep the insurance companies “honest.” For competition, why not remove the insurance companies’ anti-trust exemption and let consumers buy insurance across state boundaries? Or is this strategy too obvious? As to keeping the insurance companies honest,” do they mean “honest” like themselves in the House of Representatives?

Supporters in the House say their legislation is paid for. Some of the money, they say, will come from taxes on small businesses and the super-rich. Obama has always said that he plans to tax the rich and the Chamber of Commerce was recently added to the White House enemies list, so these taxes must seem appropriate, never mind the ongoing recession. The White House deal with the drug companies means that the United States government will not be able to negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices, but we will get free TV ads from them promoting the final Democratic healthcare bill, so that’s something. Another $10 billion is going to be paid for by shifting some financial responsibilities for existing Medicare programs to the States; perhaps some former Enron accountants have found jobs working for the Democrats. In an even more impressive display of creating accounting, several hundred million dollars of savings will be found and eliminated in Medicare “waste.” President Obama said there would be no new taxes on the middle class, so instead there is undiscovered and unspecified “waste” in Medicare waiting to be cut out like a bad gall bladder. Now that’s a relief, because for moment there, it looked like this $1,200,000,000,000 legislation was going to be expensive and that the President was unserious.

In virtually all of the major legislative areas – fiscal stimulus, healthcare reform, and carbon-emissions reduction – President Obama picked the path Congressional Democrats liked best, allowing them to take the lead. Did he ever really consider that little-used post-partisan footpath in the center, the one that his campaign for President suggested he might take? It would have required the President to blaze the trail himself, and although a difficult journey, the view from the top could have been magnificent.

Now let us engage in a little imagination and counterfactual history. Instead of the pork-laden stimulus bill written by Congress, which dribbles out spending rather than giving the economy the necessary jolt, suppose the President had taken the lead by creating a more potent stimulus that was “green” and fiscally responsible. The total sum authorized was a staggering $787 billion, which is $2,556 for every man, woman and child living in the United States. What if all of this money had been given to Americans individuals, families and businesses to improve the energy efficiency of their homes and work places?

Imagine every house on the block installing new energy-efficient furnaces in the North, air conditioning systems in the South, thermopane windows, insulation, storm doors, fluorescent lighting, etc. Many of the negative effects of the depressed home building market would immediately end. Nearly everyone in the building trades would now have work. Manufacturers who produce energy-efficient products would have to add night shifts to keep up with demand. Importers and retailers selling such products would also see their business increase. The goal of a quick boost to the economy would have been met.

Such a program would have a powerful multiplier effect beyond that created by the short-term stimulus. Consider the economic power behind vast numbers of American households and businesses saving hundreds of dollars each year on reduced energy costs. A “green” stimulus would continue to pay dividends for the economy many years into the future.

The reductions in carbon emissions resulting from this radical conservation program embodied in the green stimulus would obviously be enormous, but the progress need not stop here. In outlying years, after the economy had recovered, the green stimulus could have been tied to and paid for by a gas tax and oil import fee. This tax reform would not only have made the green stimulus fiscally responsible, but as we suggest here , gas taxes and an oil import tariff would serve numerous public policy goals, including a reduction in American dependence on foreign oil which in turn would promote national security.

The green stimulus and carbon taxes would preclude the need for the convoluted “cap and trade” legislation currently slogging its way through Congress. Similar measures have not worked well in Europe, and the American version is full of goodies for politically connected utility companies.

On healthcare, Democratic Senator Ron Wyden had already cleared a path to all of the President’s stated objectives. Suppose the President had followed Wyden’s lead. According to the Lewin healthcare policy group, the Wyden – Bennett bill would have covered 99% of all Americans with healthcare equal to that which government employees receive. Odious practices like denying patients coverage with pre-existing conditions would be banned. The Congressional Budget Office’s preliminary calculations forecast the fiscally responsible Wyden-Bennett bill to be deficit neutral by 2014. Because the Wyden-Bennett bill would move the United States to a more competitive consumer-based (as opposed to employer-based or government-based) system, Wyden’s proposal had attracted Republican sponsors, including members of the Senate Republican leadership. Here was an out-of-the-box bipartisan healthcare solution begging for the President’s embrace. Instead, Obama walked the other way (For more, see here and here)

Had Obama chosen to lead along the center path, he would have encountered the resistance of many special interests, including various industries, trade and labor organizations that incumbent Democrats think they need to keep their precious offices. But as a result of doing business as usual, public approval of Congress is at an all-time low, and the President himself is slipping in the polls. Do they really not see that all of the pandering to special interests is in equal parts bad politics and bad policy? The results of Tuesday’s gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey are likely an omen of things to come (Republicans characteristically shot themselves in the foot in the special House election in NY, but that is another story).

Even at this still-early point in the journey through the Obama presidency, it is not hard to imagine what might have been. The middle way, which eschews special interest politics, and comports with market incentives, would have achieved many progressive goals. Some political leader someday will wisely choose that seldom-trodden center path, and with the nation, will be richly and rightly rewarded.

The major goal of McCrystal’s strategy is to focus on protecting the Afghan people. Insurgencies are to local populations what fish are to water. They live in villages, towns and cities, and without the sustenance they receive from these places, they die off  for  lack of money, food, material and recruits. Whether in the case of Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan, the lesson is the same. Security forces must not be based in remote garrisons. Instead they need to locate themselves in the population centers to deny resources to the insurgency and provide security for the people, thereby winning over the local allies  and gaining valuable human intelligence about the enemy. It is here, among the Afghan people, where the war will be won or lost.

The process of protecting the Afghans in the cities, towns and villages is troop-intensive; hence the call for additional forces. It is also more dangerous because it moves our soldiers out of protected garrisons and onto the streets where they are more vulnerable. To maximize the safety of the troops, larger numbers are preferable.

McCrystal also understands that ultimately the war against the Taliban will be won by the Afghans. In his report to the President, however, McCrystal warns:

Ideally the ANSF (Afghan National Security Force) must lead this fight, but they will not have enough capability in the near term given the insurgency’s growth rate. In the near term, coalition forces must provide a bridge capability to protect critical segments of the population. The status quo will lead to failure if we wait for the ANSF to grow.

McCrystal further appreciates that the Afghan security forces cannot be fully trained at safe barracks in Kabul. They must be out working shoulder to shoulder with American forces as partners throughout the contested parts of Afghanistan. Not only will they learn how to be good soldiers from their American counterparts, but they can in turn provide valuable insights when the joint Afghan-American forces must unravel culturally complicated local issues.

Along with the need to get US soldiers out protecting the people and training Afghan soldiers and police, McCrystal repeatedly hits on a couple of other themes in his report. One is time. He believes that the twelve months beginning this past September 1st are critical due to the momentum the Taliban are currently gaining on the ground. “We must act now,” warns McCrystal, “to reverse negative trends and demonstrate progress.” If we don’t, America “risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.”

Along with protecting population centers, better training for the Afghan security forces, and seizing the military initiative soon, McCrystal points to a last and particularly challenging goal. He writes, “The weakness of state institutions, malign actions of power brokers, widespread corruption, and abuse of power by various officials, and ISAF’s (the International Security Assistance Force) own errors, have given Afghans little reason to support their government.” Therefore, another of McCrystal’s goals is to “prioritize responsive and accountable governance.” McCrystal does not explain how a foreign entity accomplishes this goal in an allegedly sovereign nation, but the general makes it clear that the American military will protect the Afghan people from all threats and predators, even if they are government bureaucrats or warlords associated with the government in Kabul (For an example of how US and Afghan forces combated corruption in one particular town, and how the McCrystal approach would work in practice, see this story by an American military officer who served in Afghanistan )

During McCrystal’s video conference with President Obama, the subject of Afghanistan’s badly flawed recent elections surely came up. The perception that President Karzai stole the election will further undermine the mission in Afghanistan. It is not hard to imagine McCrystal speaking forcefully on this subject. Reports of the election fraud are also said to be a major reason that the Obama Administration is reevaluating its level of commitment to Afghanistan.

Even if his strategy is adopted, McCrystal stresses that victory in Afghanistan is not assured, but without a new strategy and without additional forces, defeat is likely. In a final section outlining the risks of the new strategy, McCrystal points to the possibility of insufficient ability or political will on the part of the Afghan government, successful insurgent adaptations and improvements, and interventions by other outside actors.

But first on McCyrstal’s list of risk factors is “loss of coalition political will.” That political will seems to be wavering at the White House, and has already collapsed in US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. In Washington an ominous and previously unthinkable question lately hangs in the air. Is the United States government really ready to accept a return of the Taliban? As these fanatical Islamist allies of Al Qaeda’s advance in Afghanistan, General McCrystal waits for the answer.

Much has been said about Barack Obama’s “first class” temperament and intellect. Such judgments are at this time incomplete and premature. Only now is this President being tested in foreign policy, and the very aspects of Obama the man that are most admired may prove to be his downfall as President when it comes to Afghanistan.

In temperament, Obama’s personal history shows how he accommodates and melds various points of view into consensus. If he leads at all, he advocates for that consensus, or cajoles quietly behind the scenes. His skill and reflex, honed as a community organizer, is to bring people together and facilitate compromise.

But the carefully calculated average of everyone’s heartfelt opinion will not lead to victory in Afghanistan. Half way measures will recreate the experience in Vietnam, with all the incrementalism and rules of engagement established from afar that get in the way of defeating the enemy.

Obama’s intellect may also not be his friend at this juncture. His recent and not-yet-earned Nobel Peace Prize will only reinforce his own sense that he, himself, can comprehend the military situation in Afghanistan. Obama and his advisers are sitting around the Situation Room table discussing the books about Vietnam they have recently read as if they are part of a graduate school seminar. One doubts that Obama, the former law professor, would ever consider Generals Patraeus and McCrystal capable of legal judgment after reading a couple of law books. The beginning of wisdom is knowing what one does not know. Obama has yet to demonstrate this kind of essential wisdom necessarily found in all successful executives. He must trust his subordinates, especially the ones that he himself put in place for their expertise; he must trust them even when they tell him what he does not want to hear.

Ronald Reagan, in many ways the intellectual opposite of Obama, comes to mind by contrast. Faith was Reagan’s guide, and while faith in God was part of Reagan’s being, his faith also included a simple and fervent belief in America, its people and its institutions. Reagan trusted people to do their jobs. Usually this faith served him well. Reagan instinctively understood that the meddling of politicians more often than not gets in the way of success.

Barack Obama’s background, unlike Reagan’s, naturally makes him skeptical of America’s institutions. On the mean streets of Chicago Obama lived and worked with America’s greatest failure every day: the social and economic dysfunction that is our legacy of slavery and racism. In the neighborhood church, Obama’s relationship to the Reverend Wright and his extremist message remain difficult to comprehend. Safe to say, however, that someone sitting in a pew in that church week after week lacks Reagan’s ingrained faith in America or its mission in the world. Just how much Obama imbibed in the Reverend Wright’s toxic Gospel is still an uncomfortable question for many Americans.

No one knows for sure how much of that lack of faith in America resides in the President’s conscience. Obama has tellingly noted that people see in him what they want to see. His words are at once powerful and illusive. Though Reagan was the actor, it is Obama who wears the mask. He hails the goodness in America, but does he believe in the goodness of America? Does he trust our military leaders to get it right in Afghanistan, or does he think he knows better? Was all the campaign talk about Afghanistan being the “war of necessity” merely a political ploy to bolster his hawkish credentials against Hillary of the midnight telephone call, and McCain the undisputed war hero?

Now President Obama stands at the crossroads with the immensity of history weighing on his back. The political games are over. At last Obama must choose, and make no mistake; the consequences of his choice are potentially catastrophic. The President now must find in himself the wisdom that comes with an element of humility, the trust he needs to rely on his general’s expertise, and the leadership that can rise out of a genuine faith in United States.

(First in a three part series: At the Crossroads in Afghanistan)