Taking One for the
Country
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN June 30, 2012
IN my mind, there are
two lessons from the Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 decision to support President
Obama’s health care plan: 1) how starved the country is for leadership that
puts the nation’s interest before partisan politics, which is exactly what
Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. did; and 2) the virtue of audacity in politics
and thinking big. Let’s look at both.
It was not surprising
to hear liberals extolling the legal creativity and courage of Chief Justice
Roberts in finding a way to greenlight Obama’s Affordable Care Act. But there
is something deeper reflected in that praise, and it even touched some
conservatives. It’s the feeling that it has been so long since a national
leader “surprised” us. It’s the feeling that it has been so long since a
national leader ripped up the polls and not only acted out of political
character but did so truly for the good of the country — as Chief Justice
Roberts seemingly did.
I know that this was a
complex legal decision. But I think it was inspired by a simple noble
leadership impulse at a critical juncture in our history — to preserve the legitimacy
and integrity of the Supreme Court as being above politics. We can’t always
describe this kind of leadership, but we know it when we see it and so many
Americans appreciate it.
This is still a
moderate, center-left/center-right country, and all you have to do is get out
of Washington to discover how many people hunger for leaders who will take a
risk, put the country’s interests before party and come together for rational
compromises. Why do we all jump up and applaud at N.B.A. or N.F.L. games when they
introduce wounded Iraq or Afghan war veterans in the stands? It’s because the
U.S. military embodies everything we find missing today in our hyperpartisan
public life. The military has become, as the Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel
once put it, “the last repository of civic idealism and sacrifice for the sake
of the common good.”
Indeed, I found myself
applauding for Chief Justice Roberts the same way I did for Al Gore when he
gracefully bowed to the will of the Supreme Court in the 2000 election and the
same way I do for those wounded warriors — and for the same reason: They each,
in their own way, took one for the country.
To put it another way,
Roberts undertook an act of statesmanship for the national good by being
willing to anger his own “constituency” on a very big question. But he also did
what judges should do: leave the big political questions to the politicians.
The equivalent act of statesmanship on the part of our politicians now would be
doing what Roberts deferred to them as their responsibility: decide the big,
hard questions, with compromises, for the national good. Otherwise, we’re
doomed to a tug of war on the deck of the Titanic, no matter what health care
plan we have.
I see no sign of Mitt
Romney being ready for such a “Roberts moment.” I still have hope for Obama.
He’s entitled to a victory lap for daring to go big — ignoring his advisers —
to bring health care to the whole country. It’s a huge achievement.
But he needs to go
just as big on the economy if he wants the Affordable Care Act to be something
we can actually afford. That requires economic growth. Yet Obama’s campaign has
been all small-ball wedge issues, trying to satisfy enough micro-constituencies
to get 50.1 percent of the vote.
Listen to the broad
reaction to Roberts. Look at the powerful wave he has unleashed for big,
centrist, statesmanlike leadership. That all tells me that people are also
hungry for a big plan from the president to fix the economy, one that will bite
and challenge both parties at the scale we need, fairly share the burdens and
won’t just be about “balancing the budget,” but about making America great
again.
The opportunity for
such a plan is hiding in plain sight. America today is poised for a great
renewal.
Our newfound natural
gas bounty can give us long-term access to cheap, cleaner energy and, combined
with advances in robotics and software, is already bringing blue-collar
manufacturing back to America. Web-enabled cellphones and tablets are creating
vast new possibilities to bring high-quality, low-cost education to every
community college and public school so people can afford to acquire the skills
to learn 21st-century jobs. Cloud computing is giving anyone with a creative
spark cheap, powerful tools to start a company with very little money. And
dramatically low interest rates mean we can borrow to build new infrastructure
— and make money.
“We are at a
transformational moment in terms of our potential as a country, and we have two
candidates playing rope-a-dope,” said David Rothkopf, author of “Power, Inc.”
If we can just get a
few big things right today — a Simpson-Bowles-like grand bargain on spending
and tax reform that unleashes entrepreneurship, a deal on immigration that
allows the most energetic and smartest immigrants to enrich our country and a
plan on energy that allows us to tap all these new sources in environmentally
safe ways — no one could touch us as a country. Connect the dots for people,
Mr. President — be the guy taking the risk to offer that big plan for American
renewal, and Romney will never be able to touch you.
