Health Care

It’s amazing how deeply we Americans disdain the political process,
the gradual gathering of support for a plan of action, the slow work of
building consensus, the need to appear evenhanded and fair while at the
same time, trying to expedite a bill that can actually get passed.
National reform is painstaking, very un-sexy, and you don’t get to say
“Go ahead, make my day” very often.

To achieve national reform, the president must deploy a mixture of
sticks and carrots, of fear and friendship. He must selectively extend
the promise of support or the threat of opposition to more than 500
elected individuals who don’t see the world the way he does. If he
steps over his opponents, he’s accused of bullying and risks alienating
their supporters. If he’s too conciliatory, his allies accuse him of
watering down reform.

Obama wants health reform. Everyone except Republican leadership
wants health reform. But the president pretty much has to build it one
congressman at a time. The best he can do is make a clear case for a
public health insurance option and hope people listen to the facts. His
allies say that it’s time the president practiced a bit of arm twisting
and instilled serious party loyalty. They’ll point out that the
Bush-led White House did not brook dissent from rank and file
Republicans. I’d respond that if Obama were a Republican, he’d have
vilified his opponents months ago, calling them unpatriotic, immoral, a
threat to national security, and associating them with terrorists.
That’s not his style, and it never will be.

We have a President who expresses himself quite well, and hopes
people listen. Will that be enough? We’ll see.

Mike Platz

Memphis

Yesterday (Thursday, Aug 27th), I heard Tim Spencer on Rock 103
announce: “Ted Kennedy has now been sober for 36 hours.”

I just wanted to let Spencer and the station owners, and especially
the sponsors of Rock 103 know these are the last words I will ever
hear Spencer or anyone else at Rock 103 speak. Adios to a landmark on
Memphis radio, you’re dead to me.

Jeff Crook

Olive Branch, Mississippi

Rose and Calipari

To John Branston’s comments on Derrick Rose (City Beat, August 27th
issue), I say Amen. It’s all very fine to protect Rose’s name as the
student involved and not make him part of the university’s response to
this fiasco. But now Derrick Rose is an adult and a millionaire and he
should be made to face the music. I have no doubt that the guiltiest
parties in this mess are Rose and John Calipari, and they are gonna
walk away clean, and with more money than most of us have ever dreamed
of.

Health care reform may keep me up at night, and the economy may gray
my hair while my business struggles, but, dammit, Tiger basketball has
given me pleasure for decades, and I hate what happened to our magical
season at the hands of a couple of win-at-all-costs, show-me-the-money
schnooks.

Corey Mesler

Memphis

Mean Liberals

In his column (Editor’s Note, August 27th issue), Bruce VanWyngarden
complained about e-mails that he received from people who did not like
a previous editorial that he wrote about his encounter with “rabid
conservatives” on the beach during his recent vacation in Florida. He
then proceeded to call conservatives the “alternative universe of angry
Americans” who “represent the past,” worship guns, use simplistic
slogans to shut down debate, “call the President a socialist, a
fascist, a Nazi,” are intolerant of others and their beliefs, and
represent a “shrinking slice of the electorate.” This is, of course,
nonsense.

I have had the sticker supporting a conservative candidate “keyed”
along with the paint on my car, apparently by someone who did not agree
with my political philosophy. I have read articles and watched
television programs where journalists slanted stories to misrepresent,
mischaracterize, and denigrate conservatives and conservative values. I
have seen leftist demonstrators attempt to stop conservatives from
expressing their views by chanting simplistic slogans like “No Blood
For Oil,” cowardly throwing pies and other objects at conservative
speakers, and calling President Bush a fascist and a Nazi. Did
VanWyngarden think that the right would not adopt the tactics of the
left, especially when they seemed to work so well during the last
election?

I do not support the use of these tactics by anyone, but things are
unlikely to change as American politics have always been venomous. So
VanWyngarden will probably need to develop a thicker skin regarding his
e-mail problem.

Gary Webb

Memphis