I now shall chew no whale before it's time.

Just remember one thing – I love everywhale

Now it's time for Obama to try to save this faltering ship.

“September will reveal whether Obama is a multi-dimensional player to be respected or just an overpaid showboat.”

In fact, September 9 , when he addresses Congress. Go down with lib Dems and DemCare, or…?

(though it's a risky situation, and he may just be a showboat or figurehead again)

(and that's giving him and his words the benefit of the doubt beforehand)

Not much of a claim to success, Elrod, because virtually any spending would do as much. We could simply have paid the billions to Donald “Shovel-Ready” Trump. He might have built more real estate and created construction jobs, or a fleet of yachts and created shipyard jobs. He might have put a few million in CDs, freeing the bank to loan that money out and ultimately funding jobs. Even taking 700 billion dollars into the backyard and burning it would create a few jobs for bonfire organizers.

Note, too — not just work avoidance, but also blame-diverting “lightning rods”

He's wasting them by aligning himself with the lib Dems, rather than wisely opposing them.

The question then becomes, as it has now, exactly what kind of politician and person is he, really?

* * *

“Achieving universal coverage does not require a public option.”

More fundamentally, reform of the existing system never has required a public option.

It's fallen on blind eyes (or what it says about the brains connected to those eyes), but it's obvious.

One of innumerable examples:

[note final paragraph]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c46ee230-8cf2-11de-a5...

And just look at who is most militantly and irrationally insistent on the public option! Issue closed.

How bad will the reaction be among these people if (using a contemporary DC-Land phrase) the correct thing is done by Dems about not only health care but everything else, and they “press the reset button”?

Thanks for the response. A few more points:

1) The problem with your analysis is that the proposed bills are not even getting the support of all Democrats, much less anyone from the GOP. If one can't get the moderate members of one's own party on board, then it should not surprise anyone that the no one from the opposition will support it either. The reality is that the Democrats don't need the GOP. They simply need a bill the moderates in their party will support. Independents are a lot closer in ideology to moderate Democrats than liberal Democrats. The liberal wing of the party only shoots itself in the foot when it tries to make claims about moderates being bought by insurance company interests. Most independents can see right through that. Additionally, cost control is a bigger issue for independents than is universal coverage, yet the bills under consideration have little in the way of cost control and won't even be deficit neutral.

Secondly, the goal is, supposedly, universal coverage. Achieving universal coverage does not require a public option. That the liberal wing of the party is so focused on the public option portion that it is, IMO, alienating many independents. A public option is not as popular with independents as liberals would like to believe.

This is what happens when a President delegates formulation of a health-care bill to an ideological minority. That was Obama's political mistake.

2) You need to consider perception and expectations management. The White House simply did not meet expectations on the economy, effects of the stimulus, etc.

I think many of his political problems were avoidable. Regardless, it's not has if his Presidency has been crippled and there is plenty of opportunity for him to recover. The first thing he needs to do is take control of the health-care debate.

dunno-moire,
Let me take your responses one by one:
1) Iranian elections – He did not “ignore” it at all. In fact, he tread quite carefully there; nearly all Iran watchers – and Iranian Americans themselves – agree that Obama's relative hands-off approach was exactly right. In the short term Khamanei and co. cracked down hard. But nobody in highly nationalistic Iran believes that the protesters were tools of America. And for that reason, the Iranian regime has lost considerable legitimacy at home. Had Obama more forcefully intervened the Iranian people would have more unanimously backed the crack down.

2) Focusing on everything BUT the economy? Do you remember the stimulus bill? How about “cash for clunkers?” How about the auto bailout? You can disagree with these and other measures to fix the economy, but you can't argue that he's been focusing on matters other than the economy.

3) On Iran nukes – What Andy said above.

4) The stimulus bill HAS put many people to work (sorry if you are not among them). I'm looking out my window at a major public works project under construction – a civic arts center – funded partly by ARRA. I see dozens of workers whose jobs exist because of the stimulus. Our Republican Congressman made sure this piece of “pork” was funded too. And, yes, one man's useful, jobs-creating project is another man's pork.

5) No gains in the green economy? I think the cap-and-trade bill, imperfect as it is, qualifies as a pretty significant advance in the green economy. And the stimulus bill that you deride as pork included billions for weatherization and other green initiatives.

As for Andy's list, here's my response:

1) Pelosi, Reid and the liberal committee chairs are obviously not the most popular people in the world. But would the pushback really be any less if the bill was designed by Max Baucus or Mike Ross? The Republicans decided for deep ideological and political reasons to oppose anything the Democrats put forward. A truly left-wing bill would have been HR676, which calls for single-payer and has the backing of nearly 100 Congressmen. HR3200 is an attempted compromise between the various Democratic factions and, potentially, moderate Republicans.

2) The unemployment estimates often cited as “too rosy” were theoretical scenarios advanced by Christina Romer. But even if they were wrong, that became obvious almost immediately. And the take-away was that we were in worse shape than some thought. The answer would mean MORE stimulus and intervention, not less.

3) The Afghanistan strategy seems to be up in the air right now so I'll hold off on commenting. I believe McChrystal is supposed to release his official recommendations today, in fact.

None of this is to say that Obama has been mistake-free. I'm just saying that many of the political problems he faces were unavoidable given the enormity of the tasks facing the nation, and the deep ideological divisions in the electorate over how to pursue them.

During the campaign many swooned over the personal qualities, hardly unexpected in today's America, and looked past the absence of substantive governmental accomplishment. Many of those voted for him. Now, those same voters are being forced to confront the effectiveness of his governing ablity.

The record, objectively, isn't that good. His shortcomings in legislative accomplishment are evident in his delegating key policy proposals to a Congress dominated by hard core partisans. The Executive Branch remains badly understaffed seven months into office…even Hillary is complaining about staffing shortages. He was blind sided by critics of health reform; failed to stand up to the left on the pork-filled stimulus bill; failed to stand up to Congress generally on the Continuing Resolution with its nearly 2000 earmarks, and appears to be punting on issues like the “new green economy”.

He looks, honestly, like he is still working on the learning curve. Policy differences aside, the light resume on the governance side is beginning to show, and it is beginning to be reflected in the polls.

The score (i.e., polling numbers) require him to now show if he's got the guts to go to the glass himself as well as show himself to be capable of playing D.

September will reveal whether Obama is a multi-dimensional player to be respected or just an overpaid showboat.

To be fair, the President (and even Bush before him) made significant overtures to Iran. The problem is that Iran, so far, has ignored them. Iran's internal political instability probably means they will be unable to seriously engage us for the near future. The situation is similar for North Korea. North Korea decided to escalate and kill the six-party talks. The US is not unwilling to talk/negotiate with them.

Anyone who has studied voting behavior will tell you that there is no correlation between being non-partisan (usually called “independent) and being non-ideological (or “moderate”). Time and again, the so-called independent voters have shown that they are as partisan as those who actually register as partisans. So the loss of support among “independent voters” is likely reflecting those who lean towards the Republican Party responding to the PR from that party.

It is also possible that the President has lost some support among those on the left-hand side of the political scale because he is trying to govern from the middle. As it has become clear that the Republicans are not going to cut a deal, no matter how far it is moved to the right, liberals have been angered that some of these deals have even been considered. The thing is that there is no where else for them to go – no one expects the American Socialist Party to suddenly start getting converts. So they may be disenchanted, but they'll support the President because it's all they have.

But, regardless, it doesn't impact the President's ability to govern from the middle. The biggest impediment to governing from the middle comes from the comparable strength of the Blue Dog Dems and Progressive Caucus in the House. Neither can do anything without the other, and they are miles apart. That is simply a reflection of their respective House districts.

Fair question. First, and most importantly, I think he's mishandled the health-care issue. I think it was a mistake to delegate the legislation to Congress which put it in the hands a few very liberal politicians who control the key committees. Pushback was inevitable.

Secondly is his handling of the economy. The estimates put out by the WH on the effects of the stimulus and other measures were completely wrong. Unemployment and other indicators are a lot worse than the what he said would be the case.

Third is Afghanistan where he delegated strategy to his Generals. As a military man myself, the new strategy seems at odds with the limited objectives the President declared at the beginning of the year. The new strategy requires a decade-long commitment (at least) of US blood and treasure.

Those are the three big ones IMO.

His economic program seems to be working, he's lowered taxes, the budget crisis he inherited and he hasn't really pushed for a specific health care plan yet.