Dear Mr. President,

I realize that you came into office under unprecedented conditions. The economy teetered on total collapse, two long-running wars were destroying both our military personnel and our military capability and the Bush administration had committed numerous crimes, including torture and waging aggressive war.

The large margin by which you were elected and the concomitant election of many more Democrats to Congress reflected an understanding by the public that the dire situation in which the country found itself was a result of the failed policies of Republicans. Why is it, then, that many of your most important decisions and policies after taking office have reflected Republican values more than Democratic values?

On the issue of Bush administration crimes, just before taking office, you made it clear that it was your intention to "look forward, not back" and that you did not wish to "criminalize policy differences". Since then, you have stood idly while your Department of Justice has taken multiple, active steps to cover up Bush administration crimes and to promote a theory of executive branch criminal immunity that is stunning in its breadth. Pundits from inside the Beltway have praised you for this, saying that you are being "pragmatic" and preserving a chance for passage of your legislative agenda. After all, they said, if you were to prosecute Bush administration officials for their crimes, the Republicans would prevent the passage of any legislation.

When you promoted Stanley McChrystal, you chose a man strongly suspected to have committed multiple war crimes to head the military effort in Afghanistan. After being selected for a Nobel Peace Prize, you then announced an escalation of the war in Afghanistan and a concurrent escalation of activities in Pakistan. The same week that new revelations of McChrystal’s involvement in illegal covert activities in Pakistan came out, you asked him to appear in Congressional hearings to increase support for the escalation plan. The very strategy being employed in Afghanistan has been shown to be the primary driving force for recruitment of radical extremists who wish to attack us. Ironically, the pundits are praising this "pragmatic" war escalation undertaken to make us safe.

Your financial team is riddled with personnel from Goldman Sachs, one of the primary "too big to fail" entities whose unmitigated greed nearly collapsed the world economy. No significant reform of the financial markets is possible while your current economic team is in place. Again, the pundits say your economic policies are "pragmatic" because the financial Masters of the Universe might just take their toys and go home if we impose any rules on them.

As I write this, it appears likely that your "pragmatic" approach to health care reform is likely to result in a Senate bill that will either eliminate or eviscerate the public option. Such pragmatism is praised by the pundits as the way to get over the 60 vote "requirement" to pass legislation in the Senate.

That word "pragmatic" comes out every time you do something that is the opposite of what was expected by many of us who worked hard on your campaign and voted for the change you promised to bring. I want to concentrate on the word just a bit. The conventional definition, as given in Merriam-Webster, is "relating to matters of fact or practical affairs". That is, the pundits are praising you for dealing with the situation as it exists and doing what is practical or achievable. However, that is only a portion of the Merriam-Webster definition. The phrase quoted above is followed by "often to the exclusion of intellectual or artistic matters : practical as opposed to idealistic". That is where you lose me. I voted for you on ideals. You campaigned on ideals. Ideals at one time were the strength of our country. Your movement from ideals to the practical leave our country with the same problems you were elected to solve.

It is vital to keep in mind that Republican policies ruined our country’s standing in the international community when we engaged in torture and aggressive war. Republican policies nearly ruined the world economy through the gutting of financial regulation. Republicans enacted multiple, huge tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, resulting in crippling government deficits. But here is the important part: they don’t care. Faced with the impact of their failed policies, Republicans refuse to acknowledge their errors or to take responsibility for the harm they have done. There is no advantage in trying to engage them in the massive task ahead of getting our country back on track.

Before I move on to policy advice, I want to go back to the definition of "pragmatic". There is an alternate definition given at Dictionary.com that I wish you had adopted: "treating historical phenomena with special reference to their causes, antecedent conditions, and results." Your actions to date have completely ignored the causes of the problems you face, so, as a result, you have put our country in peril of a new financial meltdown and continued attacks from radical extremists.

Here are a few suggestions on how to achieve this alternate version of "pragmatic" in key policy areas:

1. Political: Republicans caused the problems and will not change, so "nuke ‘em". Invoke the "nuclear option" in the Senate and eliminate the filibuster. Only then can true reform happen during your term in office. This would allow follow-up actions such as Medicare for all to achieve true health care reform. The health insurance companies are the problem. Eliminating them eliminates the problem.

Real political reform also comes from removing the power of money and lobbyists. All national elections need to be publicly funded. When elected officials do not need to raise ridiculous amounts of money to remain in office, they will be free to concentrate on the good of the country. It should be possible to eliminate lobbying without stifling free speech. Let interest groups raise all the money they want (with full transparency of funding sources) to promote any message they want in the media. However, only allow individual citizens or individual businesspeople to meet with elected officials. Interest groups should not write legislation.

2. Foreign: End the wars, now. Bring the troops home. Engage the UN and the Arab League to provide peacekeeping forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Take a portion (25%, maybe?) of the funds now being spent on the wars and provide it to independent non-profits for true humanitarian assistance for food, housing, hospitals, schools, water, electricity and jobs.

Really stop torture and provide immediate hearings for all current detainees. Shut down the black site prisons.

Join the International Criminal Court. Hire attorneys for top Bush administration officials (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Addington, Yoo, Gonzales, Rice, etc.) and turn them over to the ICC for prosecution.

The safety of our country will be enhanced dramatically when it is clear that the US is not at war with Islam and that we take seriously the crimes that have been committed.

3. Economic: Remove Geithner, Bernanke and many other former Wall Street executives from the financial team. Bring in people like Krugman, Stiglitz and Baker. Restore Glass-Steagall and make debt purchasers, rather than sellers, pay the debt ratings agencies for their services. Regulate derivatives. Restore additional market safeguards that were dismantled through Republican policies. Restore real anti-trust regulations and unwind the "too big to fail" firms. Restore a tax scheme similar to that in place during the time Krugman calls "The Great Compression".

In summary, then, I urge you to look at the actions you have taken so far as President. You have been "pragmatic" in the sense of "practical" when you were elected to be "pragmatic" in the sense of "treating causes". The actions I have suggested are huge and they are dramatic, but they address the root causes of the problems the country now faces. The "practical" responses you have undertaken so far have done nothing to address those causes and in many cases even make them worse.

That leaves us to deal with the results of your decisions. By not addressing the root causes of the problems, our country is at risk for another financial crisis while we also continue to take actions that foment terrorist attacks and decrease our reputation abroad. My fear is that such a course will make you a one-term president who will be followed by a Republican fascist dictatorship that is elected on a platform of false populism developed in response to economic crises and terrorist attacks.

It is not too late to change course. If health care reform legislation dies in the Senate, as it appears it might, you will have all the justification you need for eliminating the filibuster. Will you have the pragmatism to move our country back toward its ideals while dealing with the root causes of its problems?

Update: Oh, look. Here’s that word again. From a Reuters article on Obama and his human rights record as he prepares to accept the Nobel Peace Prize:

"He has created a false choice between having to speak out forcefully on human rights or being pragmatic and getting results on other issues," Amnesty International USA Executive Director Larry Cox told Reuters in an interview.

I rest my case.