If Barack Obama needs a diagnosis for his agenda’s decline, it’s in this lede, improbably dated “Sept. 1, 2009:”
The Obama plan, which Democrats can “begin to sell” after six months of selling the health care Pinto they created without his strong guidance, will include such things as Obama’s preferred method of payment for the program and “goals” health care reform must meet, including anti-discrimination rules for insurance companies and the levels of insurance subsidies. In a little sop to liberals, he’ll say he kinda digs the public option, but won’t insist upon it. Up to this point, the plan sounds much like every vague speech he’s given on health care since Day One, but one must read a bit further to what the plan’s actually meant to do:
So, Obama sat back while most of the substantive legislative wrangling happened, spouted platitudes from the bully pulpit while a skeptical public imposed its will on his massive majorities, lost his chance at an abbreviated debate and an August vote, and went on vacation when things really got rough only to descend from the Martha’s Vineyard Mountain with tablets inscribed with the more reasonable consensus ideas Congress has been forced to consider since his own ambitious vision tanked so spectacularly. Stand back, look cool, don’t get too involved, wait for things to shake out, adopt eventual consensus as his own idea, claim victory. Yeah, nobody saw this coming, unless of course they had paid attention to his entire career.
