I’m In April 7, 2011March 24, 2017 CBRX Two months ago: “Guru thinks it could be $5 within a year, so I bought a bunch yesterday at $2.55. Guru is often but not always right. So only with money you can truly afford to lose.” Last night, with CBRX closing at $4.10 in after-hours trading, Guru writes: “The data they presented look great.” PROCHIEVE, he thinks, will cut health care costs for some premature births. And it “reduced the incidence of respiratory distress syndrome by 60% – a huge finding, as this is a major source of morbidity and mortality among pre-term babies.” So despite the allure of a 60% two-month gain, I’m in no rush to sell. HE’S IN — RELUCTANTLY Ralph M.: “I’ll vote for Obama in 2012. What choice do I have? Yes, the GOP deserves all the bashing we can deliver. Especially, the new flim flam man, Paul Ryan. But good God, that doesn’t mean Alan Simpson and Erksine Bowles are a happy compromise. And you can’t bash Reagan and then ignore what Obama himself said during the campaign: I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. They felt like with all the excesses of the 60s and the 70s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think he tapped into what people were already feeling. Which is we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing. “Is there an implied criticism of Reagan in there somewhere that I missed?” ☞ I think his analysis of Reagan is accurate. I don’t think Senator Obama was saying he voted for Reagan himself or that he thought the path Reagan put us on has led us to a good place. And I also think it was not a bad idea, running for President, to show folks who did vote for Reagan (perhaps they thought the 70% top tax bracket was too high?) that you understand why they did and have some level of respect for their concerns. I think the President has been incredibly effective, given the necessity for 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate and the reality of an opposition party truly – and openly – dedicated to his failure. Which is why I’m in – 110%. HE’S NOT Abe: “Faced with grasping Republicans and scavenging Democrats, it matters little to the oligarchs that control them and hold them in thrall. I was taught to renounce evil and fight it in all of its forms. I will not now and never have voted for the ‘lesser’ of two evils. I will write myself in before I follow these folks into the pit of despair they offer. Go out and look up the song ‘Mercy Now’ on you tube and listen carefully.” ☞ Love the song, but (it won’t surprise you to know) I don’t see Obama as evil, I see him as a hero. A leader of exceptional intelligence, level-headedness, dignity, and determination. Fighting to provide health insurance to everyone in that song (for example), not to take it away. (Under the new Paul Ryan plan to privatize Medicare, “A typical 65-year-old with a private health-insurance plan covering standard Medicare benefits,” Time quotes the CBO, “could be liable for 61% of his or her total health care costs in 2022.”) I don’t think of Abraham Lincoln as having been evil, either, even though he took three years to free the slaves, and then only some of them. By requiring the perfect rather than the possible, we squander the opportunity to do good. The perfect is the enemy of the good. And, as it’s often said, all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men – like Abe – to do nothing. Which is why, I say again, I’m in – 110%. RALPH AGAIN Ralph M.: “Look, I’m not a fire-breathing Chomskyite out on the left fringe, I am just a liberal. And I have to say that many of us liberals are very suspicious of President Obama, not because he isn’t up against the craziest party of modern times, but because it’s never clear just what it is he would want to see happen if he weren’t up against recalcitrant wingnuts.” ☞ If so, we need to communicate better. (And, yes, I do think we need to communicate better.) But to a lot of us, it IS pretty clear what he would like to see happen. For example, he said that, if we were starting from scratch, he would want a single-payer health insurance system. That’s a clear statement. (Equally clear is that we were not starting from scratch.) He also clearly favored the public option. But, again, you really, really, really need 60 Senate votes to pass laws – and the other party would not allow a public option. He wanted to see the wealthy pay more tax on their investment income in order to provide health insurance to 30+ million uninsured without adding to the deficit – and got that. He wanted to see Guantanamo closed – but on that one, he couldn’t get more than 6 Senate votes. He wanted to save the American auto industry – and did, at what may ultimately be a profit to the American taxpayer. He wanted to avert a Depression, and did. He wants innovation and infrastructure and an educational race to the top – an emphasis on smart investments to rejuvenate our economy for the challenges ahead. He wanted a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and wanted Elizabeth Warren to shape it – and got them. And credit card reform. And more affordable college loans, cutting out the financial intermediary. And got them. He wanted the victims of the BP oil spill to get compensated without having to wait years and incur legal fees. He wanted to sign the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law. And to end combat operations in Iraq. And only to go into Libya with the support of virtually the entire world. And got all that done. He wanted to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell – and did. He wanted two more women on the Supreme Court – Justices likely to vote against corporate-skewed decisions like Citizens United, that he openly (and clearly) deplored. And on and on. If the President could do anything he wanted, I think he’d do almost all the things you’d like to see done. Starting with campaign finance reform. think it’s actually not all that hard to know what the President would like to get done if he didn’t face an opposition party openly dedicated to assuring his failure. To my mind, he’s doing a phenomenal job and deserves our enthusiastic support. If only we had known how high the stakes were when (with all due respect to those who believe George W. Bush gave us peace and prosperity and raised our stature in the world) we didn’t fight quite hard enough for Al Gore. We can’t let that happen again, which is why I’m in – 110%.