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In November of 2008, President Barack Obama was swept into office with a significant majority of the voting public supporting his platform of reasonable governance, transparency, and separation of powers. Immediately after being elected, he filled top positions with extremely qualified, intellectually honest, and thoughtful administrators. They represented a wide range of interests, a wide range of positions, and a wealth of experience.
To the office of Secretary of State, he appointed long time adversary but to-the-bone Democrat Hillary Clinton.
To the office of Secretary of the Treasure, he appointed a technocrat in Tim Geitner.
His Secretary of Defense, he retained a deferential bureaucrat Robert Gates.
And to the Department of Labor, Hilda Solis, a forceful progressive.
The names were not new, but the philosophy was. No longer was the country going to be run from an ideological and doctrinal perspective, where "team playing" was more important than making progress. The cabinet is now an advisory body, not an echo chamber to remind the emperor of his beautiful robes.
There is discourse, debate, and indeed progress. The halls of Foggy Bottom are no longer cowed by the Department of Defense, and the low level executives that actually run the government are no longer being steam rolled by a nigh-apocalyptic great leader.
The President reads. The President listens. The President acts.
I find it so telling that the very things we fought for - the return to constitutional government, meaningful federalism, and a separation of powers are not being noted. The Congress does not act on the desires of one because it is (within the caucus at least) functioning as it is supposed to.
It is the Republicans that are fighting tooth and nail to hamstring the opposition, not for philosophical reasons or issues of governance, but to achieve an obvious political agenda. They want power, and they are trying to do that by forcing the Democratic hand into surrendering what they have for so long fought for: honesty, transparency, and rationality.
When in 2008 President Obama was elected, there was a collective exhalation of liberty across this country. The Congress would no longer be in the pocket of the executive, and the slow decline into authoritarianism that all democracies eventually suffer was delayed. Imagine for a moment if Giuliani had won the Presidency. Imagine then how the power of the President would be different.
We have returned, fellow Democrats, to a place where the Cabinet can speak, the Congress can investigate, and the people can fight.
Before us is the most sweeping piece of social legislation in decades.
It must start with a snowflake before it can an avalanche that will revolutionize the Democratic agenda.
Progress proceeds in two ways: some progress it iterative, tedious, slow, and frustrating. The other are the paradigm shifts. These change the very structure of society.
They are both progress and they both move us forward. One precedes the other
The enemy of progress must not be progress.
I love Democrats and Democracy. Let us not assume that because is it slow, it will not change the world.
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