RochesterConservative.com

By Brad Templeman
examiner.com

President Obama is about to accomplish what many previous Democratic presidents have tried to do, and failed. At least that’s what the White House spin would be, and it will largely be echoed throughout the Democratic Party. No, they will say, the health care reform bill won’t have a public option, but it will extend coverage to millions of people and provide a framework to build on for the future. You would expect the liberals who put him in office to be thrilled. They’re not.

Here are a couple of highlights from the liberal blogosphere:

Taylor Marsh (Huffington Post):

Pres. Obama is desperate for “a win” on health care (and everyone, especially Joe Lieberman, knows it), because he took for granted that it would be easy to get it done. Naive doesn’t even come close to the President’s miscalculation, but that’s what happens when you stand too long looking into the reflecting pool.

Dan Riehl (RiehlWorldView):

Several times the legislative bodies called out for leadership. But there was never any – not even once. Does he want a public option, or does he not want it? You couldn’t even answer that question today with any genuine conviction other than perhaps, well he’ll give it up if it means getting a bill.

From a hallmark agenda item to a bill, just any bill will do? That’s failure writ large. And the failure is Obama’s and no one else’s to own, even if he’ll try to massage the message, or slink away from it, somehow.

And any bill he does get will prove to be a disaster, more likely to anger both the Right and his Left base than it is likely to make anyone happy at all. If there’s any one word to sum up Obama’s first year, even if he does get a bill, any bill – it’s failure. And Barack Obama is the failure’s name.

Jane Hamsher (FireDogLake):

Instead, President Obama cut sweetheart deals with medical industry stakeholders (let’s stop pretending that Rahm doesn’t work for him) and insisted that all the power in the Democratic Congress be given to its most conservative members to deliver on it. Joe Lieberman didn’t get here by himself — the day Harry Reid said reconciliation was “off the table,” Joe had the keys to the kingdom.

The “public option” was a way to keep as much money as possible from being channeled into the “too big to fail” insurance companies, who continue to merge and consolidate and will use it to lobby to further empower themselves. It was a strike against a “shock doctrine” effort to mandate payment to private companies, and preemptively privatizes the system.

The list of Obama’s transgressions against his base continues to grow: sending more troops to Afghanistan, possibly asking Congress for authority to indefinitely hold detainees at the “new” Guantanamo and losing the public option.

I’m not surprised that he has disappointed many of the people who once supported him (it always happens), but this level of enmity so soon into his term is surprising. In order to win the nomination in 2008 and overcome the Clinton machine, Obama had to build up the hype to ridiculous levels. There was not nearly as much expected from Bill Clinton or George W. Bush from their supporters (especially in the first year) when they were elected. It culminated in Obama’s famous June 2008 “rise of the oceans” speech where he claimed the Democratic nomination:

The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment—this was the time—when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

I think that many liberals who are disappointed at least expected that if he lost the public option he would go down swinging (although some probably thought he would achieve all of his campaign pledges easily). By 2012, he might think he has plenty of progressive achievements: regulating carbon through the EPA, quasi-universal health care, closing Guantanamo. The left might look at all of that and see: failure to get cap and trade passed, a giant health insurance industry giveaway and simply moving Guantanamo to a different location.

If troops are not being removed from Afghanistan by late 2011, I would not be shocked to see a primary challenge from a liberal hero untainted by the Obama White House (Alan Grayson and Howard Dean come to mind). Meanwhile, of course, Obama will be derided as a socialist by every Republican candidate. Obama is still a very adept politician and excellent campaigner, but his political team has to be very concerned by the growing disappointment at the grassroots level.