At FiveThirtyEight.com, separate comments by Nate Silver and Tom Schaller — Nate first:

On the one hand, Obama needed to appeal to liberals — both the 60 or so members of the House who have threatened to vote against a watered-down bill, and the much broader, activist community who has grown wary of what they perceive as a Clintonian president who is too willing to compromise. On the other hand, he needed to appeal to independent voters and their brethren, among whom Obama’s approval ratings and sentiment toward his health care package have fallen significantly. …

I think Obama accomplished both of those things — with some margin to spare. On the one hand, there was no absence of red meat for the liberals. Lies were called out as lies. The Republicans, who seemed to lack an understanding of the theatrics in the room, were at several points made to look petty and stupid. And Obama made the moral case for health care reform, something many liberals — including yours truly — have been urging him to do for a long time.

And Tom:

… The politics of health care have always been about convincing the insured—who by definition are both more powerful and less inclined toward change—and specifically the elderly who are insured, that something needs to be done. This speech was designed to convince the reluctant insured to get behind the White House plan.

I have no doubt the speech can’t hurt this effort. But I wonder just how many of the insured, regardless of age, are persuadable at all—whatever the merits of the plan or the audacity of the speech. …

And frankly, the notion that Americans of the current and previous governing generations care about the government’s fiscal solvency is belied by the fact that most cannot remember the government balancing the budget in their adult lifetimes. They have shown a willingness to let the country spend inefficiently and beyond its means for years, on policies (as Obama pointed out) both domestic and foreign.

The official transcript of the speech refers to Joe Wilson anonymously, as an “audience member.” Which seems fine to me. No need to give Wilson a place in history. In any event, Alex Koppelman notes, Wilson’s “crazed outburst” only made the Republicans look worse than they already do (hard to credit, I know):

By the time the transcript was blasted out electronically to the press, of course, Wilson had already apologized, complete with a phone call to Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff. And Wilson had already been called out on TV and the Internet for his bizarre behavior. …

All that meant that by late evening, the White House could well afford to be magnanimous. The outburst could only have helped convey the impression Obama was aiming for in his speech: that he was the reasonable one, working hard to find a solution to a problem that has bedeviled America for decades, and his opponents were simply not interested in joining the cause. The president seized the initiative in the debate over healthcare back from the Republicans, and may have started to move past the summer’s bickering and into a new fall phase where something productive actually gets done. “I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than to improve it,” Obama promised. “If you misrepresent what’s in this plan, we will call you out. And I will not accept the status quo as a solution. Not this time. Not now.”

Jane Hamsher thinks Obama hit all his marks with the speech itself, but is not so happy about his equivocating language when it came to the public option:

The President did a great job last night on selling the country on the need for health care reform.  He made the moral case, and every metric indicates that people were overwhelmingly moved to support his plan.

That’s the good news for the White House. The not so good news:  the White House has been trying to get out from under the burden of supporting the public option for weeks.  The trouble is, every time they try to do it, the President’s numbers take a huge hit.  And so last night he came out and indicated that a public plan would be a part of his reform package.

[…]

The website is not so quick to commemorate the qualifiers regarding this public plan from last night’s speech:

• “The public option is only a means to that end – and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal.”
• “For example, some have suggested that that the public option go into effect only in those markets where insurance companies are not providing affordable policies.” (triggers)
• “Others propose a co-op or another non-profit entity to administer the plan. These are all constructive ideas worth exploring.”  (co-ops)

The administration’s inability to close the gap between expectations and reality is a boon for progressives members of Congress. Earlier this week, the co-chairs of the Progressive Caucus — Raul Grijalva and Lynn Woolsey — wrote a letter urging the President to mention it in his speech.  I spoke with Rep. Grijalva yesterday, and he reiterated the need for the President to mention it in his speech.  As long as the President keeps expressing his support for a public option, they — and we — can quite rightly say that we’re only insisting on something Obama himself endorses, something he campaigned on.

Of course, the actions of the White House betray quite a different intent.  The deals they have negotiated with health care industry stakeholders do not include a public plan, they don’t believe they can back out of them without triggering a rush of lobbyist money to GOP coffers.  At some point there will be a day of reckoning when the public understands that the public option is gone.  The White House wants to stop their opponents — and let’s face it, progressives who are insisting on the inclusion of a public plan are at this point their opponents — from being able to exploit that gap.  Because every day that goes by the base gets more and more wedded to the promise of a public plan, encouraged by the positive rhetoric of the President himself.  And it becomes that much harder for the White House to extract itself from the double bind they have created without paying a huge political price.

So… even the not so good news is not so bad.

Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. Nancy Pelosi is one smart cookie.

Kathy Kattenburg

PAST CONTRIBUTOR.