This is not Mayor Daley's Chicago!

President Barack Obama has lately been fulminating about people who want to look at the health care situation before being steamrollered into passing a bill. Ideas like forcing people to buy an approved health insurance plan or pay a fine, for example, are giving some of his supporters heart attacks. And the debate between those who insist we must include a "public option" and those who insist we must not include such an option is certain to prevent a broad agreement.

Well, this is the way things work under our Constitution.We have checks and balances to prevent anyone, including a President hell-bent on changing things, from accomplishing anything unless there is a broad consensus. It is not Mayor Daley's Chicago, where Obama got his political start!

And, really, thank God it is this way. We don't put through serious fundamental changes just because a President wants them. There are over 500 members of two houses of Congress that Pres. Obama will have to persuade (or at least persuade a majority of).

President Obama has to learn that he is not Mayor Daley. Even Lyndon Johnson, probably the most shilled President we have ever had at dealing with the Congress, took time getting his program through Congress, and this with a Congress that was trying to do right by the memory of the then-recently-assassinated John F. Kennedy.

Sarah Palin's future (second post by that title!)

Sarah Palin's resignation was, of course, as much of a surprise for me as for everyone else. What does this mean for the future?

In her speech, she said:

...I'll work hard for others who still believe in free enterprise and smaller government; strong national security for our country and support for our troops; energy independence; and for those who will protect freedom and equality and LIFE...

This is pretty important. She is certainly among those who call themselves "pro-life" (which really means "against all abortions," though saying it that way would not sound as good). And on that, she and I differ. But all the other things she mentioned there are mainstream Republican ideas with which I agree, so I can hardly call her the theocrat that I think Mike Huckabee is.

So what I think of Sarah Palin is: She is certainly not my preferred choice for the 2012 presidential nominee. But if she is nominated, and runs against a re-election-seeking Barack Obama, I would certainly vote for her.

And with the troubles that Sen. Ensign and Gov. Sanford have just been going through, she just might be the nominee!