“Quite comfortable” with being a one-term president

That’s Robert Gibbs on Obama’s willingness to “make (tough) decisions” on health care reform or anything else that comes up that demands it, shucks darn it all.  Video here.

Well, I’m quite comfortable with Obama being a one-term president, too.  Actually I’d have been even more comfortable with him staying a vapid Illinois senator.  I think I’d have been best of all with him remaining a thug cog in the Chicago intimidation political machine.

But, wishes, fishes, &c.

Jonah Goldberg has some interesting thoughts on The Corner:

1) Doesn’t this seem like a tacit concession that health care would in fact be “Obama’s Waterloo” after all?

2) How popular can his agenda be, if it will cost him reelection to get it passed?

3) How can he have a mandate for change if enacting it is so unpopular? Why is it so unpopular if he ran on this agenda? Is it all the fault of those racist, fascist, Brooks Brothers-suit-wearing huns?

4) I’m sure we will hear a great deal about how this proves what a great leader Obama is (and if I were a liberal, I might even agree!). But when Bush defied the polls, it was proof he was “out of touch” and in denial.

5) Does Obama think his agenda might cost him reelection because the American people are too stupid to understand it, or because he’s not up to the job of explaining it?

Comments 2) and 3) are two sides of the same thing, and to me, the most glaringly omitted thought in most of what passes for news coverage of this debate.  If Obama is selling something the American people want, why is the whole thing so damned contentious?

Doesn’t this badly undermine the absurd claims that all of this outrage is manufactured?  Or would the White House have us believe that an “astroturf” effort is actually capable of driving Obama from office in three years?

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