We Know What To Do Just Not How To Do It

From Newsweek's review of Taylor Branch's new book on his Bill Clinton tapes taken during Clinton's presidency:
"...Clinton tells Branch that the embargo on Cuba is a 'foolish, pandering failure' but seems unable to do anything to lift it, while the ruling Assad dynasty in Damascus apparently has access to the State Department and the White House at all times. There is daily concern about the volatility of Israeli politics and the spread of irritating yet apparently somehow unstoppable Jewish "settlements..."

From Karen Tumulty at Time interviewing former Republican Senate majority leader Bill Frist (TN):
"...Were he still in the Senate, "I would end up voting for it[health care reform]," he said. "As leader, I would take heat for it. ... That's what leadership is all about...

Frist also faults some in his own party for injecting alarmism into the debate. "Clearly, the death panels and public plan arguments have been overblown," he says. Frist noted that Republicans themselves voted for a Medicare prescription drug bill that would have established a version of a public plan--with the government negotiating directly with drug companies--if private-sector competition had failed to materialize. That is similar to the approach that Republican Senator Olympia Snowe is taking with her amendment to establish a public option with a "trigger."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/216052

While Frist believes that the bill will pass, he worries that the Obama Administration and Congress have not given enough attention to what happens next: the implementation. The first few years are likely to be rough, he predicts. States will be struggling to set up new marketplaces for insurance coverage, their medicaid rolls will grow, taxes will go up, and consumers will not yet see the benefits. "The Republicans will go wild," using the start-up difficulties as a tool for fundraising and for making their case in the next election... "
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/10/02/bill-frist-on-health-bill-id-vote-for-it/

TW: It is all very easy when out-of-power. Clinton states the obvious (and recall these were comments when he was still in office) on things like Cuba and Israel but could do little to shift policy. Frist sounds imminently reasonable on health care but I strongly doubt he would have stated the above had he still been in office. The solutions are not always the difficult part (AfPak is a likely exception). Getting democratic institutions to implement them is a different story. Why is that? Competing parochial interests (wanna lose several Florida house seats, open up Cuba), dysfunctional institutions (perpetual campaigning, what about actually governing for a bit) and a hundred other reasons.