Michael Goodwinwrites:

The danger for Obama isn’t just that most voters don’t like his health plan. The real danger is that he is digging a trust deficit with ordinary Americans of all political stripes.

With as many as 70% of respondents effectively telling pollsters they don’t believe any of the inflated claims he routinely makes about an overhaul, the President is at risk of permanent damage.

It’s compounded by the fact that he has spoken publicly so often to push his view that he’s no longer welcome in many living rooms. One poll found half the country thinks he’s on television too much, which is a polite way of telling the President to buzz off.

It may be, ironically, that all the fawning coverage and the multiple primetime press conferences offered up by the sycophantic press in the end did more harm than good. While the press can’t be blamed for forgetting that a presidential appearance is a commodity to be used sparingly (only Obama and his team are responsible for that one), it certainly enabled his nonstop blather by dutifully covering every dog-and-pony show and press appearance.

Moreover, while the press often has acted as an early-warning sign for troubled presidential initiatives, the press corp did not perk up until the public was in open rebellion. Only the most tepid questions were raised, and few hard questions about rationing and costs were posed before August. As a result, the White House was largely caught unprepared for the storm of anger and protest that greeted congressional Democrats this month.

None of this is to diminish the responsibility that the president and his advisers bear for the debacle now threatening to consume the presidency. They made the decision to delegate draftsmanship to Congress. They decided to reinvent a health-care system that serves a large majority of Americans very well. They chose to conceal the costs of their plan until the CBO blew the whistle. And Obama personally and repeatedly spun nonsense (e.g., red/blue pills, bending the cost curve by spending more money, a guarantee that Americans could keep their plan while pushing a government option that would chase private insurers from the market). So the fault is the president’s. But his devoted fans in the media certainly helped.