Obama, who we were led to believe was the paragon of moderation and post-partisanship, is now reduced to strong-arming through Congress his signature agenda item:  a mish-mash of the worst of liberalism’s impulses — infatuation with taxation and regulation and contempt for individual choice — on the narrowest of partisan majorities. Charles Krauthammer observes:

The time for debate is over, declared the nation’s seminar leader in chief. The man who vowed to undo Washington’s wicked ways has directed the Congress to ram Obamacare through, by one vote if necessary, under the parliamentary device of “budget reconciliation.”  The man who ran as a post-partisan is determined to remake a sixth of the U.S. economy despite the absence of support from a single Republican in either house, the first time anything of this size and scope has been enacted by pure party-line vote. Surprised? You can only be disillusioned if you were once illusioned.

There was a running debate as to Obama’s true political nature — hard leftist or reasoned moderate. That has been definitively answered. Some confusion remains, of course, because Obama’s leftism is tempered in a sense by his incompetence. It is not that he doesn’t desire a fundamental reorientation of government and a vast expansion of the public sphere; it’s simply that he has been unable to achieve these things despite tremendous advantages.

Obama has so far been ineffective in selling the American people on his scheme because he has relied on political gamesmanship rather than smart policy. Critics were derided as know-nothings, or worse, as “un-American.” When the opponents proved to be more than he bargained for, he attempted a last gambit — the health-care summit — which fell flat. (“Republicans did so well, in fact, that in his summation, Obama was reduced to suggesting that his health-care reform was indeed popular because when you ask people about individual items [for example, eliminating exclusions for pre-existing conditions or capping individual out-of-pocket payments], they are in favor.”) But the American people are rightly spooked by his scheme’s huge cost  and wary of a deal crafted in a series of backroom deals and to be passed through extraordinary parliamentary maneuvers.

At some point, Nancy Pelosi will need to count her votes. Should she fall short, as many now surmise will be the case, it will be a defeat of enormous magnitude. Obama will then face the consequences of his own extremism and hubris. And should it squeak through, he and fellow Democrats will face the wrath of voters, who will then be asked to administer a defeat sufficiently stunning that ObamaCare can be undone. If there is or was a middle ground, the not-at-all moderate and hardly post-partisan president failed to claim it. Those Democrats not duped by the White House spin have good reason to be very, very nervous. The president is leading their party over a cliff, and there will be many casualties.

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