I have lately been paying attention to the political news more than usual because I am interested in the healthcare issue.  The more I watched the debates and the antics, the more frustrated and angry I got at the way Obama is discarding democratic majority for bipartisanship on an issue as important as healthcare. 

    At first, like many, I blamed the Republicans for obstructing a reform that could alleviate suffering for millions.  But as I analyzed the situation, the realized that I was wrong in thinking that Republicans are the number one enemy of real "liberal" healthcare reform .  The number one enemy of real healthcare reform is the Obama administration itself, and Republicans are being used by them as much as the progressive Democrats are being fooled by them.  And if you think Obama is a centrist democrat, you would also be wrong.

    My reasoning is based on a simple scenario in game theory that I learned in my first year economic course.  Suppose that on a straight road that spans from left to right, your competitor has built a store somewhere near the right end. Where should you build your store?  The optimum answer is to build your store to the left of and NEXT TO your competitor's store, based on the assumption that consumers will travel the shortest distance to do their shopping.

    This is how the Obama administration has aligned itself: just the left of the Republican Party, in a position that I would call the "Locking-Out the Republican Party Stance."   In this position, Obama gets all the votes of constituents to the left of the Republican Party, leaving them with only the right fringe.  (At this point, I realize that I cannot prove definitively that this is so because the nature of the claim is mostly subjective.  Even if it's simple to do so, I would not attempt to prove it to you, because that is not the point of this blog.  However, the evidences are before you as they are before me via the internet and other sources so you can decide for yourselves if you agree.   For now, just accept that this is my own opinion, and allow me to continue.)  This is basically how Obama won the election, and I am thankful for that, because as bad as things are with Obama, they would be much worse with McCain and Palin running the White House.   The thing about being just to the left of the Republican Party, however, is that it's nowhere near the left end of the American political spectrum.  It's not even in the middle, but in fact, it's somewhere in the right field because the Republican Party is deeply entrenched on the right.  This makes Obama an opportunist, as self-serving as politicians can be, because he has positioned himself in an optimum political stance designed to obtain the maximum number of votes.   He is not an idealist because an idealist would choose a stance that supports his ideology.  For example, a Republican would choose a stance to the right of the political spectrum, while a centrist Democrat would choose the middle ground.  Obama has no grounds for calling himself a Democrat while holding a position that makes him looking like a Republican twin.  He is an opportunist, and progressive Democrats should not consider him their friend.

    You might argue that being opportunistic during an election campaign is not only expected but reasonable, and running a government is different.  This is not the case with Obama.  The Obama administration has been consistent.  Obama said in his campaign speeches that he would not only continue the war in Afghanistan, he would expand it.  He is doing exactly that and I would consider that a play in the right field at the cost of the lives of soldiers and civilians and billions of dollars that Americans can barely afford.  The other play to the right as promised is the passing of billions of dollars of stimulus money to the same people who wrecked the economy in the first place.   Ok, the Obama administration has not been entirely consistent because it has yet to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, but that would be a play in the left field.

    Given how the Obama administration has outsmarted the Republicans, don't believe in their appearance of bipartisan naiveté in the current healthcare debacle. The challenge of an opportunist claiming to be a leftist is that he has to justify to his leftist constituents why he is playing in the right field or risk losing their support. The problem for Obama is that he is cursed with Democratic majority in both the House and the Senate, so he can't say he is being forced to the right.  This is where the policy of bipartisanship comes into play, and it is being sold as somehow the American and adult way of doing politic as opposed to the Bush way.   Instead of leveraging on the political advantage of their party, Obama Democrats chose to form a panel of 3 Democrats and 3 Republicans to craft a healthcare reform bill.  To add insult to injury, they also chose to disregard completely the single payer option from consideration before the negotiation even started.  And now it appears that Obama Democrats are preparing to drop the public option in the apparent attempt to appease the Republicans, claiming that the public option is only a "sliver" of reform.  Is that political naiveté or is that playing the political opportunist game?  Is that bringing real healthcare reform or is that playing politics with the lives and finances of Americans?  To progressive Democrats out there: don't be fooled.  The irony is that the Republican Party thinks it is manipulating the situation.

    Going forward, progressive Democrats need to realize that Obama is not a liberal, and he is definitely not their friend.  They need to realize that the struggle for liberal values did not start with bringing Obama to power.  They need to realize that their struggle has not truly begun.