Three years ago, Norwell High School social studies teacher Julie Fox commemorated 9/11 by asking her students to write journal entries recounting where they were when the planes hit and how they felt at that moment. But now, Fox tells the Boston Globe, too few students remember the day. So Fox spends class time explaining the basics of what happened on 9/11 and why. “It’s almost like teaching the Civil War,” she said.
High School students are not the only ones for whom 9/11 is becoming a distant memory. According to the Washington Post, 70% of Democrats say the war in Afghanistan has not been worth its costs (compared to 70% of Republicans who say the war is still worth fighting). Council on Foreign Relations Fellow Stephen Biddle explains: “Surely a big piece of the declining poll numbers for support for Afghanistan is that the public does not yet see the connection between Afghanistan and al-Qaida today.”
Responding to their leftist base, opposition to the effort in Afghanistan is growing. among liberals in Congress. Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), co-chair of the 82-member Congressional Progressive Caucus, said her group is unified in wanting to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporters yesterday: “I don’t think there’s a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan in the country or the Congress.”
One would think that President Obama would take the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks as an opportunity to educate Americans about the link between the fight in Afghanistan and the still very real threat posed by al-Qaida today. No such luck. Instead, President Obama has chosen to use 9/11 to promote his own domestic policy agenda. In a letter celebrating 9/11 as a “National Day of Service and Rememberance” President Obama writes:
We are building a new foundation for growth and prosperity, but we cannot succeed without your help. We can rebuild out schools, but we need mentors and tutors to guide our students. We can modernize our health system, but we need volunteers to care for the sick and assist others in leading healthier lives. We can invest in clean energy, but we need people to maintain energy efficiency in their homes and help create a green economy.
School construction? Health care reform? Green jobs? These are all important areas of public policy debate, but what do they have to do with keeping us safe from those who wish to inflict a second 9/11 on the American people? Debra Burlingame, whose brother was the pilot of the American Airlines jet that crashed into the Pentagon told the Associated Press: “When I first heard about it, I was concerned. I fear, I greatly fear, at some point we’ll transition to turning it into Earth Day where we go and plant trees and the remembrance part will become smaller and smaller and smaller.”
Thanks to President Obama’s www.serve.gov, that is exactly what is happening. In Oklahoma students will pull weeds, plant flowers, paint benches, and plant a tree. In Minnesota, 100 volunteers will assemble Energy Efficiency Outreach Bags. And in South Carolina AmeriCorps members will serve in a variety of projects, including garden beautification, food and clothing collections, and working with homeless and hungry people.
True volunteerism strengthens civil society. But federal government involvement undermines, not strengthens, true public service. Instead of coordinating garden beautifications, the federal government should honor the memory of the tragedy of 9/11 by focusing on policies that will make sure it never happens again.
Quick Hits:
- According to Gallup, Americans continue to give the Republican Party a slight edge over the Democratic Party — 49% vs. 42% — in their perceptions of which party will better protect the United States from international terrorism .
- After a recording of a conference call revealed that National Endowment for the Arts Communications Director Yosi Sargent suggested artists work to further President Obama’s legislative agenda, Sargent has been “reassigned” with the agency. No details on his new assignment are known.
- Viewership for President Obama’s health care address was down 38.6% from his first joint session address in February, and Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance” drew more viewers than any of the big three networks.
- According to Rasmussen Reports, more Americans still oppose Obamacare (53%) than support it (44%).
- According to McClatchy New Service, President Obama will not be able to pay for his $900 billion health care plan without raising more taxes.
The headlines are encouraging: The AP reports, “White House appears ready to drop ‘public option’.” Politico reads, “White House backs away from public health care option.” And the front page of USA Today says, “Obama may drop public option in health care.” These headers all stem from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ comment on CNN Sunday Morning that the public option “is not the essential element” of President Barack Obama’s health care plan. But by Sunday night the White House was already walking back Sebelius’ statement.
An anonymous administration official told The Atlantic that Sebelius “misspoke” and White House health reform communications director Linda Douglass released a statement explaining: “Nothing has changed. The president has always said that what is essential is that health-insurance reform must lower costs, ensure that there are affordable options for all Americans and it must increase choice and competition in the health-insurance market. He believes the public option is the best way to achieve those goals.”
Obama’s allies on the left are equally emphatic about the non-death of the public option. Democracy for America head Howard Dean told the Washington Post, “I don’t think this bill is worth passing without a public option.” And Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told CNN, “It would be very, very difficult [to pass Obama's plan] without the public option.” But Democrats in the Senate are singing a slightly different story. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) told Fox News Sunday that “there never have been” enough votes for a public option in the Senate, and that continuing to fight for it would be “just a wasted effort.”
But that does not mean that Americans fighting against government-run health care are out of the woods yet. Conrad insists that the Senate could pass health reform that includes health insurance co-operatives. Co-operatives do have a long and proud tradition in many sectors of the U.S. economy, but details matter. Conrad says these health co-ops will not be “government-run and government-controlled” but instead “membership-run and membership controlled.” But others in Conrad’s caucus have a starkly different co-op goal. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is pushing a vision of co-ops that are: 1) run by the government, preferably the federal government; 2) funded or subsidized by the government; or 3) includes plans chosen by the government.
If the language that comes out of the Senate looks anything like what Schumer is proposing, then there is no real difference between co-ops and the public plan. If, on the other hand, the Senate produces something that; 1) is not funded by the federal government 2) is not “government-run and government-controlled”; but instead 3) is “membership-run and membership controlled” then co-ops would be acceptable.
Of course, the public plan is just one of the more objectionable parts of Obama’s health care plan. The individual and employer mandates, the expansion and federalization of Medicaid, the creation of a new health czar, not to mention the trillion dollar cost of the new plan, are all still intact. If, as Sebelius insists, the White House wants health reform to increase “choice and competition” than there are a number of conservative alternatives in the House and Senate that do just that by pursuing health reform through a “patient-centered” approach. The White House’s rhetoric is rapidly moving away from an expert/government-centered approach to health care and towards a more market/consumer model. Let’s hope their actions start matching their words.
Quick Hits:
- According to Gallup, 57% of Americans say President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package is having no impact on the economy or making it worse. Even more —60% — doubt that the stimulus plan will help the economy in the years ahead.
- Without the benefit of trillion-dollar stimulus packages, France and Germany reported an unexpected uptick in economic growth for the second quarter this year.
- General Motors workers are bracing to say goodbye to California’s last automobile factory.
- Another prominent Democrat, Sen. James Webb (D-VA), visited another dictatorship, Burma, and secured the release of another U.S. citizen.
- The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says under Canada’s country’s health-care system patients are getting less than optimal care and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.