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US President Barack Obama - Source: Reuters -
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"Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages." George
Washington
It was unseasonably warm in the District over the weekend so my
wife Paula and I repaired to our deck. We have quite the view.
Directly south rises the towering Washington Monument, to the
south-east the Capitol Dome. Our exquisite vista would be complete
but for the Washington Hilton, which wrecks our view of the Lincoln
Memorial. That dastardly Hilton does, however, possess its own
piece of presidential history; it was the venue for
John Hinckley's
shooting of Ronald Reagan.
So, nearly perfect then. Paula was reading
Midnight in
the Garden of Good and Evil in readiness for our looming
road trip to Savannah. I figured it would be good preparation in
case we encountered any murderers, transvestites, or southern
lawyers, so Paula was tasked with this vital research, aided by New
Zealand wine, her contribution to our recession. I read
David
McCullough's sumptuous 1776. It's not often a book moves me to
exclaim out loud, but I did, frequently, throughout the afternoon,
as I reveled in Washington's siege of Boston and the impossible
heroism of Henry Knox, whose efforts won the siege without a shot
being fired.
Brooklyn Lager may also have facilitated my periodic outbursts, but
as the sun set I was still gripped by the continental army's defeat
in New York, its long retreat through New Jersey and into
Pennsylvania. And then, when all seemed lost, the embattled
General Washington crossed the Delaware to launch two
spectacular counter-attacks, in Trenton and Princeton, to remind
the British that there would be no capitulation but, rather, a long
war.
The material deprivations endured by Washington's rag-tag army in
1776 were mind-numbing, beyond imagination really, only to
deteriorate even further during the winter of 1777-78 spent at
Valley
Forge. But amidst the despair was one story of heroism that was
almost unbelievable to me. During the siege of Boston the British
were well dug in, with vastly superior troop strength, heavy
artillery, and an open supply line. Washington, in contrast, had an
army of volunteers, virtually no gun powder, and little prospect of
breaking the stalemate. Henry Knox offered Washington an
implausible solution; he'd make a 600-mile return journey to
faraway Lake Chamberlain (in upstate New York) to retrieve canons
from Fort Ticonderoga, abandoned first by the French in 1759, then
later by the British in 1775.
With 120,000 pounds worth of canons, Knox and his men pulled the
fort's bounty across freezing lakes, snow-filled valleys and
mountain passes with inclines like roofs. They made four perilous
crossings of the Hudson River, but Knox kept pushing forward. Just
as the worst of the New England winter was descending, and
Washington was despairing of his deteriorating situation, fearing a
British attack once the inevitable ice passage solidified, Knox and
his canons arrived.
The junior officer Henry Knox, who was only in his mid-twenties,
had delivered a miracle, and Washington knew exactly what do to
with it. Under the stealth of night, in one night, the newly
acquired heavy artillery was mounted on Dorchester Heights, right
over the city of Boston. The next morning the British commander
General Howe couldn't believe his eyes, but immediately recognized
his predicament - the stalemate had been broken - and so ordered
the British army's general retreat from Boston. Washington's rabble
army of undisciplined patriots had just defeated the unparelled
military discipline and might of the British forces.
Mine is a curious way of introducing Obama's progress with his
historic healthcare reform campaign, but it has also assumed the
quality of a siege, of a change-resistant congress. Eight
presidents have pledged to reform health care. Eight presidents
have failed. The 220-215 vote in the House in favour of reform
means that three more votes (two in the Senate and another in the
House) are still required before the president can sign a
transformative healthcare bill into law.
I don't think it overstates the difficulty of Obama's domestic
political context to say that his presidency is now tied to
achieving reform. The legislative process is entirely like a siege,
and just like General Washington President Obama has to tolerate
some of his own army defecting as they place their narrow
self-interest ahead of the national one. House Majority Leader
Nancy Pelosi lost 40 of her Democrats in the weekend's vote.
Obama's margin for error is small.
The Senate today was implored by Bill Clinton to pass its own bill,
and quickly, so that a combined bill can then be hammered out
between House and Senate leaders, before then facing one final vote
in each chamber. The news of Bubba's entreaty is mixed, with senior
Democrats fearing they can't meet Obama's Christmas deadline.
Senator Lieberman, a Democrat-now-independent, but who still
caucuses with his former party, is threatening to perform the role
of
Benedict
Arnold by preventing Senate Democrats from exercising their
filibuster-proof majority.
The potential for disaster therefore remains huge and the risk to
Obama's presidency if he fails is high. Obama needs heavy
artillery, something of the magnitude of the ex-presidents standing
alongside him to say that the status quo cannot endure. With 45
million uninsured Americans, Obama must make the final argument a
moral one. And if not the ex-presidents, which includes two
Republicans after all, then Obama needs a hugely bi-partisan
gathering of statesman and women to break the siege, to further
isolate the Republicans as part of the problem, and to stiffen up
his side.
Perseverance and spirit have guided Obama's strategy for health
care reform, next to civil rights the most intractable legislative
dilemma his country has faced. But while the stalemate remains the
president badly, badly needs a Henry Knox.
