The day has started off on a scary and weird foot. This morning, Obama has summoned Douglas Elmendorf, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, to the White House.
Clearly, Obama meeting with the leaders of various industries, as he has, is not all that unusual. However, summoning Mr. Elmendorf is extremely inappropriate and highly suspicious.
Mr. Elmendorf is the director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). This is an independent agency that reports directly and only to congress. It was created to be free of political influence and to present congress with a truly objective perspective. This is how the CBO describes their role on their webpage (http://www.cbo.gov/aboutcbo/budgetprocess.shtml):
CBO assists the House and Senate Budget Committees, and the Congress more generally, by preparing reports and analyses. In accordance with the CBO's mandate to provide objective and impartial analysis, CBO's reports contain no policy recommendations.
On July 16th, Mr. Elmendorf testified before the Senate Budget Committee about the healthcare legislation currently proposed in the House (you know, the plan that Obama has been talking about nonstop for weeks). He was there to offer a little perspective and objective analysis of the bill. And, it wasn’t good for the president’s plan.
During the testimony he explained that this legislation did not offer "the sort of fundamental changes" that would reign in the costs of healthcare. He went further saying:
"the changes that we have looked at so far do not represent the sort of fundamental change, the order of magnitude that would be necessary, to offset the direct increase in federal health costs that would result from the insurance coverage proposals."
His words had a rippling effect causing Democrats to begin rethinking their support for the president’s plan, especially among the more moderate Democrats. His words justified the complaints of the Republicans. Clearly, Elmendorf is a critic of the president’s plan; an extremely legitimate and valid source of dissent.
How did the president handle Mr. Elmendorf’s analysis? He breaks protocol and summons him to the Oval Office on the morning before he delivers a significant address to the nation on the very issue that Elmendorf criticized! Hmm, I wonder: did the invitation come with a dead fish wrapped in newspaper from Emanuel?
Ok, lets sum this up: The president proposed a massive overhaul of healthcare. The director of the CBO, an objective oversight agency, explained before congress that the plan will not and cannot achieve its goals. Elected officials and the general public accept this analysis and start rethinking the plan. In the wake of the president losing support, he schedules yet another press conference/televised national address in a intense PR blitz to defend his legislation (which, according to his own admission in a conference call with liberal bloggers, he has not read in its entirety). On the morning of the address, the lone objective, non-political voice of dissent is summoned to the room with no corners, the Oval Office.
Wow, this sounds a tad Stalinesque.
Nowadays, people throw around words like: fascism, socialism, authoritarianism. Lets loose the “isms” and go with a far more simple definition for the direction Obama is stirring America, shall we?
Nathan Sharansky wrote in The Case for Democracy:
“Can someone within that society walk into the town square and say what they want without fear of being punished for his or her views? If so, then that society is a free society. If not, it is a fear society.”
American has always been the very definition of a “free society”. We are a nation that was founded by men who stood in the town squares challenging their king at the top of their lungs. Freedom is in our bones; it is the bloodline of our country. Our political system is built on the idea of debate, dissent and arguments. Difference of opinion is a concept celebrated throughout the Constitution.
Today, Obama seems to have taken us another step closer to a "fear society". Don't disagree, or we are coming for ya!
Tyrannical rulers silence their opposition, not American presidents.
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