As I write this, I'm watching legendary journalist Bill Moyers put the current US health care debate in 100 years of political context. He is flaunting the popular wisdom that President Barack Obama's plans for health care reform are at risk because of lilly-livered Democrats, evil corporate Republicans and an agglomeration of special interests including, but by no means limited to, physicians, pharmaceutical companies and the insurance juggernaut.
There is no doubt that these forces have conspired to derail Obama's single most significant policy initiative to date. They have much to lose if he is successful. They have trotted out all manner of canards, scare tactics and blatant lies to bolster their case. They have fed the delusion that many Americans suffer that theirs is the best health care system in the world. Yes, true. As long as you overlook minor annoyances such as the number of un- and under-insured; the lack of portability in the system; infant mortality rates; and - oh yes - the World Health Organization. (Note to smug, self-satisfied Canadians: our track record on this last measure is only marginally better.)
One of the points that Moyers made - one that really resonated with me - was the idea that the US is the only Western-style democracy that fails to see proper health care as a fundamental human right, unrelated to economic means. We'll leave for now the broader question of whether the US is actually a true democracy, even though that very question may be at play in this issue.
Obama is a sharp cookie. He cut his political teeth battling the Democratic machine of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and his cohorts - surely one of the most advanced, and quite possibly corrupt, operations of its kind outside of New Orleans. Obama is an educated, experienced politician who could not possibly have set himself in this battle without taking into account all of the possible outcomes.
Right?
Well, maybe. There was a time when I believed, as did others I'm sure, that he and his supporters had vastly underestimated the Republican smear machine - the same crew that gave us the Swift Boat attacks, which sunk John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. But lately, I've been nursing a slightly different theory.
Perhaps - just perhaps - Obama is smarter than some of us think. What if he knows that no one really pays serious attention to politics over the summer. Certainly there's been no lack of noise on the topic. But perhaps - just perhaps - that's also part of the strategy.
Sometimes, in politics, the best way to win a fight is to let your opponents exhaust themselves - to prove their arguments so fatuously full of hot air that common sense simply needs to wait them out. Of course there's a whole industry built on the quick response, and normally, I would subscribe to it, especially in case such as this one. It would hold that you don't let your opponents define the debate. You fight back, and you fight at the same level as your opponent because every victory - however small - is a point in your favour.
But Obama is barely eight months into his presidency. He can afford to take the long view here. He can afford to take his lumps in the court of public opinion, because he knows that - at its root - health care is not a social program but an economic driver. A healthy workforce is a productive workforce, and if there's one thing Americans are craving right now, it is a healthy economy.
So in my mind, it's no accident that Obama has chosen to address a joint session of Congress next week. Yes, it's true that it's the day after Congress returns from its summer recess. But Obama could easily have commandeered the agenda before this if he had wanted. He could have asked the US networks for air time. He could have launched a massive advertising blitz. He could have had every Democrat in the House and the Senate (or at least those who support him) out stumping for the cause at every barbecue, county fair and demolition derby in the country.
For heaven's sake, he could have done what he did during the 2008 Presidential campaign and gone all social media on us.
But he did none of those things. He spent much of the summer - and his considerable political capital - apparently squandering a once-in-a-generation chance to make his country a better place. Not since the civil rights battle of the 1960s has the US faced the prospect of such seismic change.
Obama campaigned on the theme of change - generational change, racial change, social change. For him not to see this one change as his legacy is unimaginable.
So I'm not counting him out yet. I think he may have a plan. A game plan. It had better work.
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