• health care debate
• presidential rhetoric

Tonight's speech attempted to frame health care as a moral question. This seems to be the fundamental sticking point in the debate, does it not? Is health care a right or a privilege?

There seemed to be true common ground when the president spoke of making it illegal for insurance companies to discontinue care for "pre-existing conditions." But what was most disconcerting was something that Nate Silver pointed out in his live blog of the speech:

Note, though, that many Republicans didn't stand up and clap when Obama said "no one should go broke because they get sick."

This, along with the heckling episodes (see Jim A.'s post below) show what we (rhetors, rhetoricians, citizens, everyone who has a stake in this conversation) are up against. Entrenchment. Anger. And a desire to stick to particular narratives regardless of facts or debate.

When Obama began his speech by explaining the facts on which we can all agree, I immediately thought (a la Lee Corso) "Not so fast, my friend." There seem to be plenty of folks out there who are not willing to grant that health care is a major problem. Are they the fringe? It's difficult to know. Those who are yelling are getting the most news coverage.

Obama's project from the beginning is to find "common ground," but I'm not so sure that he's succeeding. I'm not ready to concede that success in this area is impossible, but there were points during tonight's speech where I thought Obama went to some old tricks that are becoming a bit tired. The most apparent example: he laid out the two extreme ends of the spectrum - single-payer liberals and free market pay-your-own-way conservatives - and then attempted to carve a path in between. However, those watching/listening will note that very few people actually subscribe to these two straw (wo)man positions. In fact, when the president described the extreme conservative position, everyone in the room seemed to be looking around in search of the person who would actually support such a plan.

I'm glad that this speech happened, and I hope that it resets the debate in some way. But going forward, I think we are all going to need to seriously rethink how we find "common ground" in debates such as this one. I don't have a good answer, and I'm not sure if rhetorical theory does either. But the search for middle ways and common grounds may not be our saving grace.

Then again, the Republicans did clap and stand a few times...[shrug]

• Jim Brown's blog
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