Health Care BS

Yesterday, WaPo blogger Ezra Klein whined about the absence of presidential leadership on the public option. He seems actually surprised that Obama is voting “present”:

This has been a complete and utter failure of White House leadership.

Well, maybe the reason for this “utter failure” is that Obama & Co. have more pressing priorities. And what could be more pressing than “reform”? Planning the One’s 2012 reelection campaign:

President Barack Obama’s top advisers are quietly laying the groundwork for the 2012 reelection campaign, which is likely to be run out of Chicago and managed by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, according to Democrats familiar with the discussions.

And this isn’t just low-level White House staffers. While claiming to be focused on health reform and the 2010 midterms, Obama and his top advisors have been working on what they truly care about:

Obama has given every sign of planning to run again, and wants the next campaign to resemble the highly successful 2008 effort … David Plouffe, the Obama for America campaign manager, described by one friend as “the father of all this,” will be a central player in the reelect.

This is obviously why high-profile Dems like Steny Hoyer are abandoning ship on Obamacare and a variety of others have offered only tepid endorsements of Obama’s “new” reform plan. 

This is also why we shouldn’t take the “nuclear option” bluff seriously. Congressional Democrats aren’t going down with the ship when the captain has already jumped in the life boat.