Compassionate Intimidation

Jim Wallis, the founder and outspoken representative of the religious left magazine, Sojourners, has proposed a new tactic to advance President Obama’s agenda: intimidation in the guise of compassion. This week, Sojourners is asking its readers and supporters to bombard Rush Limbaugh and other radio talkers with formatted e-mails telling the story of Joshua, a man whose inability to obtain mental healthcare led to his untimely death.

Jim Wallis, the founder and outspoken representative of the religious left magazine, Sojourners, has proposed a new tactic to advance President Obama’s agenda: intimidation in the guise of compassion.

This week, Sojourners is asking its readers and supporters to bombard Rush Limbaugh and other radio talkers with formatted e-mails telling the story of Joshua, a man with severe psychological duress, whose inability to obtain mental healthcare led to his untimely death.

The ploy is meant to send healthcare opponents into fearful recoil. Wallis hopes to force critics of the president’s plan into a psychic dilemma: either submit or else publicly acknowledge that media stereotypes about conservative's lack of compassion are indeed true.

The ploy disregards the truth that conservatives too desire that all individuals have access to healthcare. This debate has never been about access, but always about the means of providing access.

Yet the ploy also contains a powerful truth of its own. If conservatives wish to succeed in combating Obamacare, conservatives will have to demonstrate concern for the care of all Americans. That should not be too difficult - because we do!

Acting on this concern requires more than just good policy however. It requires a conspicuous – even theatrical – self-presentation of conservatives as concerned and caring. It will require us to restore meaning to a phrase long dismissed and derided: compassionate conservatism.