In a reverse of a reverse, President Obama is signalling a willingness to toss the public option under the bus and liberals be damned.
Aides to President Barack Obama are putting the final touches on a new strategy to help Democrats recover from a brutal August recess by specifying what Obama wants to see in a compromise health care deal and directly confronting other trouble spots, West Wing officials tell POLITICO.
The POTUS's strategy is, what else? To give a speech.
President Barack Obama will address a joint session of Congress on health care reform in prime time on Wednesday, Sept. 9, a senior official tells POLITICO.
Unfortunately for Teh One, every time he opens his mouth, his approval numbers drop. More blah blah isn't going to help with this one.
Naturally, the nutroots are enraged that Obama would flip again on this issue, just after they'd brought him back in line.
This makes perfect sense because his problem is that he's been kow-towing to the left so much that he's lost the country, what with all the war crimes investigations, the tax hikes for the rich, the crackdown on the banks, the repeal of "don't ask don't tell" and the thumbing of his nose at the Republicans every chance he gets. Not to mention the plans for full withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan by 2012 and his full blown assault on the health care industry and insistence on a Canadian style health care system. You'd think Obama would have been far, far more cautious so as not to give the Republican freakshow any possible path to demonize them as "far left." It's not like they could just make stuff up and a lot of people in America would believe it, right?
I'm thoroughly convinced that the Left in this country inhabit an alternate universe, since that's the only way to explain B.S. like the above paragraph. Republicans have zero control in Congress, yet liberals seem to be unable to admit that their problem is them, not us. They have a very liberal wing trying to ram through legislation (without reading it, no less), and a percentage of moderates who are dependent on appearing more like Republicans to their constituents back home than like minions of Nancy Pelosi. Top this with a president who is determined to palm the blame for his failures off on others, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Interesting insights from Hot Air:
Bill Clinton didn’t spend six months hawking her records before publicly scolding Sister Souljah on the campaign trail. Barack Obama has spent the last six months, and two years of presidential campaigning before that, pushing the idea of a government-run health plan as a way to supposedly keep the private sector “honest.” Obama can pivot and triangulate all he wants, but the net effect will make him look more dishonest and vacillating, not moderate. He lost moderate months ago with the introduction of ObamaCare and cap-and-trade.
By not offering a bill of his own early on, Obama lost the high ground. He can't gain it back by smacking around his base now, and once he's lost his base, he'll be hard pressed to convince them to come back.
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