The New York Times reports:

In a conference call today with Congressional staff, the White House communications director, Dan Pfeiffer, said that President Obama would reiterate his commitment to a comprehensive overhaul of the nation’s health care system in his State of the Union address on Wednesday night. Mr. Pfeiffer said that the president will share “additional details” but that the thrust of his message would be that he remains as resolute and committed to revamping the health care system as he was when he gave a speech to a joint session of Congress in early September.

They gotta be kidding, right? This is not a president who likes to admit error, but it seems rather risky to take this approach. What if everyone laughs? Really, Congress has already declared itself ready to move on. Less than a third of the country likes ObamaCare. And Obama lost his filibuster-proof majority on this issue. So he’s going to say he’s just as committed as ever. Even — especially — if he doesn’t mean it, he shouldn’t say it. It makes him look foolish, detached, and weak. If a president is really committed to something he’s not going to get, then he’s simply irrelevant.

Maybe the White House spin got ahead of itself. Maybe Obama is only going to say health care is real important, and we’ll get to it soon. If not, the self-delusion problem is much worse than we imagined.