How Obama made himself irrelevant to the health care debate

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When Obama decided to throw the public option under the bus it was as bad a political miscalculation as he could make. Because what seemed to slip his mind is that its congress that is going to decide what is in the bill and not him.

With Nancy Pelosi and most in the Democratic House and some in the Senate making it clear there wont be a bill that does not contain a public option,  and with people like Howard Dean going on television and saying the public option is "indispensable" they have made it clear both to the country and to Obama that it doesn't matter what Obama says or does anymore.

Obama has tried to dismiss the obvious repudiation by congress by saying everyone just misundestood him. Shades of James Dean in "Rebel Without a Cause". He is misunderstood.

The only one who misunderstood and badly miscalculated was Obama. And this is what happens when you dont have a set of convictions or a core. You just blow which ever way you think the political winds are blowing. The problem is Obama couldn't read the wind direction either.

To show how preposterous Obama's assertion that everyone misunderstood him is, Obama himself said the public option was only a "sliver" of healthcare reform. A sliver.

That brought responses from Howard Dean that the public option was "indespensible", Nancy Pelosi and others called it "the centerpiece of healthcare reform" and other Democrats in congress said there would be no bill without a public option. So much for being misunderstood.

Obama's mishandling and being AWOL as commander-in-chief of the fight for healthcare reform is being reflected in the significant slip in his job approval rating with only 49% approving of how he is handling his job.

Realizing this Obama has tried to put himself back into the debate by backing off backing off and saying that he still supports the public option. He sent Kathy Seibelus out to try and undo the damage by having her say she thinks a public option will be part of the bill.

But it's too late. What Obama has managed to do is almost impossible. He has alienated himself from both sides of the healthcare reform issue. He was the target of most of the screamers at the town hall meetings with  Obama-Hitler signs,  and the target of Republicans who were out to stop healthcare reform as a way of destroying him politically.

 By signaling he was ready to throw in the towel on the public option, Obama played into the Republicans hands and then by reversing his reversal and then denying there was a reversal which almost everyone knows is nonsense, he has made his word virtually irrelevant. Etched in sand.Which for anyone who has followed Obama's political career is not new.

Nothing Obama says now will matter. Obama left it up to congress to do all the heavy lifting without him and they will continue to do just that and forge and pass this bill without Obama. He has shown no leadership at all either to the country or to congress, and even now when he could tell the Senate not to waste their time with a bill that doesn't have a public option, he just remains mealy mouthed.

Democrats in  the House have said there will be no healthcare bill without a public option. They are not going to throw the centerpiece of the reform bill under the bus  as Obama was prepared to do, despite his denials and assertions that the whole world just misunderstood him.

Obama would save everyone a lot of time if actually made a decision on the public option and tell the senate that its non-negotiable. Olympia Snow has said that in the negotiations going on with the Gang of Six, the public option isn't even on the table and so a senate bill wont include it. Which means that there will be a log jam with the House bill. While Obama tries to figure out what to say next.

If Obama was any kind of a leader at all ( which to date he hasnt shown) he would tell those on the Senate Finance committee not to waste their time, that a public option has to be in the bill.  Period.  The Democrats in the Senate have the votes to push through a bill without Republican support and Obama should have thrown down that marker a long time ago. But that would mean acting like a president instead of Billy Mays.

Obama has created the worst of all political worlds for himself. If healthcare reform passes with the public option Obama will get no credit for it now or historically and deservedly so.

As for his and his press secretary's absurd assumption that nothing he said signified a change in his position, its a bottle of snake oil no one is swallowing. To hear Obama's side , it was the news media that over reacted to what he said and that everyone got it wrong.

Everyone? Even the Republicans?

 After Obama's statement that the public option was just a "sliver" of the entire bill and healthcare reform could go on without it this is what Reuters reported:

Republicans were pleased by signs there might be a shift on the issue.

"I am heartened by what the secretary of health and human services said yesterday, that she doesn't think necessarily that a government takeover of health care is a necessary component," Representative Eric Cantor, the second-ranking House Republican, said in a CNBC interview.

 The insurance industry also was pleased and shares of health-insurance companies rose.

 The S&P Managed Health Care index .GSPHMO of large U.S. health insurers increased 2.6 percent. UnitedHealth Group Inc (UNH.N) shares rose 1.5 percent, WellPoint Inc (WLP.N) jumped 2.9 percent, Aetna Inc (AET.N) increased 4.8 percent, and Coventry Health Care (CVH.N) rose 4.4 percent."

With his approval ratings plummeting as people lose confidence in everything he has to say, its time for Obama to either act like a president, throw down some non-negotiable markers, forget bi-partianship and see that the bill in both houses gets pushed through.

If he cant manage that he would do everyone a favor if he would get out of the way,  let congress do their job and, unless he has something new and specific to say, some line in the sand or a marker or directive, he should just be quiet.