Yesterday's CitizenTube/YouTube interview with President Obama is up:
Transcript here.
Some excerpts and thoughts on it below.
He answered questions on health care reform, help for small business, financial reform, help for homeowners, privatization, clean energy, net neutrality, the cost of higher education, the goals of education, combating terrorism, Guantanamo, Darfur, nuclear energy, and clean coal technology.
While I didn't agree with all his answers, and thought some of them were tired boilerplate, for the most part he did a great job not just answering questions but educating on some of the complexities inherent in the issues.
I thought his answer to a question about privatization of the U.S. Postal Service was good, pointing out that it was important to look beyond the simple anti-government answers to the hidden costs of privatization:
There are examples where privatization makes sense, where people can do things much more efficiently. But oftentimes what you see is companies want to buy those parts of a government-run op that are profitable, and they don't want to do anything else.
So, for example, the U.S. Postal Service, everybody would love to have that high-end part of the business that FedEx and UPS are already in, business to business you make a lot of money. But do they want to deliver that postcard to a remote area somewhere in rural America that is a money loser? Well, the U.S. Post Office provides universal service. Those companies would not want to provide universal service. So you've got to make sure that you look carefully at what privatization proposals are out there.
His answer on net neutrality was one of unambiguous support:
I'm a big believer in net neutrality. I campaigned on this. I continue to be a strong supporter of it. My FCC Chairman, Julius Genachowski, has indicated that he shares the view that we've got to keep the Internet open; that we don't want to create a bunch of gateways that prevent somebody who doesn't have a lot of money but has a good idea from being able to start their next YouTube or their next Google on the Internet. So this is something we're committed to.
We're getting pushback, obviously, from some of the bigger carriers who would like to be able to charge more fees and extract more money from wealthier customers. But we think that runs counter to the whole spirit of openness that has made the Internet such a powerful engine for not only economic growth, but also for the generation of ideas and creativity.
I'm not convinced that clean coal technology is the way to go, but he made a good point in its favor:
With respect to clean coal technology, it is not possible at this point to completely eliminate coal from the menu of our energy options. And if we are ever going to deal with climate change in a serious way, where we know China and India are going to be greatly reliant on coal, we've got to start developing clean coal technologies that can sequester the harmful emissions, because otherwise -- countries like China and India are not going to stop using coal -- we'll still have those same problems but we won't have the technology to make sure that it doesn't harm the environment over the long term.
So I know that there's some skepticism about whether there is such a thing as clean coal technology. What is true is right now that we don't have all the technology to prevent greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants, but the technology is close and it makes sense for us to make that investment now, not only because it will be good for America but it will also ultimately be good internationally. We can license and export that technology in ways that help other countries use a better form of energy that's going to be helpful to the climate change issue.
One thing I thought he really blew was the chance to explain the unprecedented Republican obstruction on everything, from the most midlevel appointment to the big bills. Instead he came out with this groaner:
So we had this enormous opportunity, but the way the rules work in the United States Senate, you've got to have 60 votes for everything.
Aaaargh!
Seeing the tack the Republicans have taken over the past year of straight-up obstructionism - not even being concerned about whether their answers make sense or completely contradict what they said yesterday - it's crazymaking to see the polls saying they might just win back the House in November.
Watching this president who is so reasonable, so rational, so focused on doing what he thinks is good policy, so trusting in the ultimate good sense of the American people, and comparing it to the storm of insanity, dishonesty, demonization, glorification of selfishness and just outright snake-oil hucksterism from the other side, all I can say is that I hope his patient theory of change is correct, and that he's going to do a whole lot more fighting for it the way he's done in the past week.
There's a lot of ground that's been lost not just in the past three decades, but in the last year alone, with full-on Bircher paranoia out of the Republican closet and driving their every move. I wish I believed that rationality and good-faith compromise really are the way to go to break the angry populist fever on the right that's seeping into the middle, instead of fighting fire with fire. The one campaign promise I never believed from him, that he wanted to change the country's political culture, is the one he seems most dead set on clinging to, almost beyond reason.