Blitzkrieg.

President Obama signed a series of tax breaks and spending plans designed to spur the still sputtering economy yesterday. He is at the moment making a push to get his immigration reform plan through Congress. He is also working feverishly to get his health care reform bill signed into law. Education and banking reform are on the table. So are the issues of energy and the environment. Many other issues, domestic and foreign are on Obama's list. I think the country could use some time off. The country might benefit if it can go a few days without reading about Obama or Washington on the front page. At least it might be able to relax and catch its breath.

But it won't. Obama insists on keeping the government moving at a frantic pace. The problem is, Congress doesn't move at a frantic pace. It can't. It was designed to move at a slow and tedious pace. It was intended to be a bottle neck in which policy would be studied, sifted, and discussed. This was so that the federal government would not act out of passion and urgency, but out of deliberation and reason. It was acknowledged that, because of this, legislation would move at a slow pace. The benefit was that it helped ensure that only legislation that was well considered, thought through, and deemed legitimately beneficial and acceptable to the majority of Americans would be enacted. The system was designed to inhibit the ambitions of impatient and opportunistic men. In other words, it was designed to prevent just what is going on now.

Granted, the government has only very rarely been able to live up to the designs and expectations of the Founders. Nevertheless, even if the only benefit the system provides is to slow Congress down and force debate, it is worth the cost. Passion and urgency have never resulted in good policy. Laws and policies enacted in the midst of zeal are an ill fit for times of calm. The time it takes to craft, consider, debate, and pass legislation allows time for public reflection. The technological advances since the time of the Founders allows the public to participate and be aware of what is going on in Washington to an extent unimaginable to the Founders. The result is an increase in information available to voters and the opening of new avenues for participation. But, even with technology, the process of deliberation still takes time. When the issue is as large and complex as health care reform, still more time may be required.

Legislation as large and complex as the health care bill before Congress requires a huge amount of attention and concentration for it to be even begun to be understood. It is an extraordinarily complex bill that is not understood in its entirety even by those voting on it, let alone those who will have to live by it. This makes the urgency claimed needed by the administration to pass it all the more disturbing. They are asking the public to trust that the government knows what it is doing and that any problems in the bill will eventually be worked out to public satisfaction.

Most groups who support it understand only those parts of it that affect them. The rest of the bill they are content to leave to others to weigh and examine. As for the public at large, they are left to decide the matter on the basis of whether it is simply good or bad for them. Even then, the public often relies upon what others tell them about how it will affect them. More often than not, they rely on their gut. In any event, I suppose it doesn't matter what the voters think at this point. They are not voting on the issue. Obama and Congress do not trust them to vote. That is why Washington is in such a hurry to get the bill passed before the fall elections. They are preparing a feast and they don't want the children in the kitchen while they are trying to cook.

The passion, zeal, and frustration on the part of those trying to push health care through is not well thought out. Amendments and alterations are being made on the fly. The many rules and procedures that have been criticized and found so frustrating to those pushing to get the legislation passed were put there to keep one side from acting rashly or beating the other into submission or irrelevancy. It is certain that when the Democrats find themselves in the same position at some point in the future, they will rely on the very maneuvers and procedures they are now condemning. Chances are with the precedent that is now being set, they will have less success than the Republicans have achieved.

The need for national health care has been explained may times. The urgency has yet to be explained satisfactorily. It could simply be the awareness that familiarity breeds contempt. If the bill lingers too long in Washington, the people will weary of it. A strange fear considering the broad support for it claimed by the administration. It could also be a calculation on the part of the administration that if they keep enough things moving, flashing, and beeping, the public will be unable to concentrate.

Obama and his administration are perfecting a new form of political warfare: the legislative blitzkrieg. Republicans cannot defend everything at once. The presidency is a much more agile institution than the Congress. If the administration can move aggressively and quickly on enough fronts, it can disorient and divide its slower moving opponent and prevent organized resistance. When a break through is achieved, it is to be exploited. Pockets of resistance can be cleaned up after the victory is won. The essence of the blitzkrieg is to keep your opponents off balance and not allow them the time to regroup and reorganize. The urgency behind the push for national health care is being used for the same effect. There is no need for health care reform to be passed this month or next. There is no need for it to be passed this year. But the administration knows that resistance will harden in time, not soften. That is why it is trying to seize the moment and striking with such fury. With the increasingly gloomy forecast for Democrats in the Fall, it is unlikely they will ever get this close to victory again.

Yet, what is becoming unclear is just who the administration's opponent is. Is it the Republicans? Or is it time?