Going To Hell #999: Maybe We're Not

The impact of a presidential win today on presidential power tomorrow.

As soon as I find a video link to President Obama's comments just now on passage of the health-care reform bill, I will put it up and say a little more about his theme and performance. (Hint: I will welcome and thank anyone who can send such a link.) Listening to it in real time, I was struck by the forcefulness of the ending, which was less about the health-care issue itself than about the overall question of how the American political system can deal with largest-scale public challenges. It was as passionate as I have heard this always-"cool" character ever sound on any theme. Update: thanks to reader Jeffrey Schroeder, the link is here, and an embedded player is below. The whole thing is effective, but the part I'm referring to begins just before time 14:00 and runs for the next two minutes. Very last words of the speech are unfortunate, but otherwise...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The question is of interest to me because of the fundamental "Is America going to hell" issue I raised in this article -- and have discussed in a series of reader "going to hell" responses that I was posting last month. Until our "categories" feature is repaired, I can't do a link to the whole series; after the jump, and thanks to reader Joshua Cypess, a list of specific item links.

I have many more responses in the queue, which I'll rev up again soon.  For the moment, one more reader response. This is part of a note sent by a political veteran, now in private business, to his Democratic Congressmen, who has decided not to run for re-election and was one of the "undecideds" until the very end. The note was written just a day before the vote; a day after the vote, it's worth reflecting on this passage. It alludes to the late professor Richard Neustadt, the great theorist of presidential power. From the letter urging the Representative to vote for the bill:

What are the consequences for the country if the President and Congressional Democrats fail on tomorrow's vote? Professor Richard Neustadt did a good job teaching generations of students (including me) that the president's power to accomplish things in the future is always driven by his success or failure in getting things done today. It's terribly unfortunate that we find ourselves in the awful and presumably once-avoidable situation that we do today. It's terrible that the mess in Congress has driven out or otherwise cost us thoughtful Members such as you. But, having said all that, I can't see any good for the country coming from losing the vote tomorrow. I can see a whole lot of harm.  I'm sure you can, too.

It may be galling for you to "reward" the Leadership, the White House, the bill's proponents with your vote. But I hope you'd find it abhorrent to reward the other side.

This Representative finally voted "Aye."
________

Here are links to some previous "going to hell" items. This isn't formatted that well, but I'm not going to take the trouble to clean it up right now. We'll have our Categories again some day!

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/01/on-whether-america-is-going-to-hell/33387/

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/02/going-to-hell-2/35730/

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/02/going-to-hell-2a/35930/

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/02/going-to-hell-3/35757/

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/02/going-to-hell-4/35677/

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/02/going-to-hell-5/35942/

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/02/going-to-hell-6-revenge-of-the-boomers/36031/

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/02/going-to-hell-7-a-different-way-to-choose-the-congress/36295/

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/03/going-to-hell-8-maybe-its-later-than-we-think/36938/