Obama’s uncivil claims fall short

Published 8:39 pm Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Civility isn’t a lost cause. It’s vital to our national conversation. That’s why we feel it’s important to call out our leaders when they cross the line.

One of the first rules of civility is not ascribing to your opponent the very worst motives imaginable. In fact, that’s a logical fallacy — instead of debating your opponent’s ideas and wrestling with his arguments, you simply say he’s taking that position because he’s an evil person.

That’s what President Obama did on Saturday, in his weekly radio address. People who disagree with his Affordable Care Act don’t simply hold opposing beliefs, he seemed to say — they want Americans to suffer.

That’s no exaggeration.

“There’s also a group of Republicans in Congress working hard to confuse people, and making empty promises that they’ll either shut down the health care law, or, if they don’t get their way, they’ll shut down the government,” Obama said. “Think about that. They’re actually having a debate between hurting Americans who will no longer be denied affordable care just because they’ve been sick — and harming the economy and millions of Americans in the process.”

And Obama take it — and makes it — personal.

“A lot of Republicans seem to believe that if they can gum up the works and make this law fail, they’ll somehow be sticking it to me,” he said. “But they’d just be sticking it to you.”

There are three points to make here. First, Obama is clearly misrepresenting Republican opposition to Obamacare. The GOP’s opposition is based on differing philosophies, not a blind, angry resistance to any change whatsoever.

“We support common-sense reforms that will lower costs, ensure quality health care that Americans deserve, and end lawsuit abuse,” the party says on the Republican National Committee website. “We oppose government-run health care, which won’t protect the physician-patient relationship, won’t promote competition, and won’t promote health care quality and choice.”

There are Republican members of Congress who want to defund Obamacare — in no small part because the Obama administration acknowledges it’s not ready for its public rollout. But the GOP hasn’t linked Obamacare to the coming budget debate (the source of the “government shutdown” claim Obama made on Saturday).

“The problem is, the bill that would shut down the government wouldn’t shut down Obamacare,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell notes. “Most of it is permanent law and not affected by that.”

Also, Obama and his supporters seem to forget that congressional opposition is something every president faces. Congress is stubborn — that’s its nature. Obama is taking it personally, and wants Americans to take it personally, but it’s not. Big spending programs, especially, call for slow and deliberative processes. That’s how the framers of the Constitution meant for it to work.

But Obama’s main point crosses the line. Republicans are “having a debate” about how best to “hurt Americans”?

Obama’s claims are the worst kind of argumentation. They’re campaign rhetoric designed to damage his opponents, not advance the discussion.

We all deserve better.