But is she really putting her speakership at risk, as Redstate’s post Speaker Pelosi Stands Firm on the Public Option, Essentially Tells the White House to Go Pound Sand asserts?

That moment in The Great Obamacare War arrived yesterday, when the Speaker of the House stood firm on the public option, essentially telling the White House to go pound sand.

In effect, Speaker Pelosi just called in an air-strike on her own position.

This is not going to be pretty.

It will likely cost her the Speakership. After the 2010 elections.

Read more »

Matt Frei’s commentary on the BBC News website, titled Washington diary: Obama’s slump, is so full of BS I don’t even know where to begin. Granted, it’s an opinion piece, but millions of people around the world watch or listen to BBC News every day, and the line between reporting opinions and facts is increasingly blurred, especially at the BBC.

Let’s skip by the “redefining the relationship with the rest of the world” – after all, it looks like Gitmo won’t be closed anytime soon and Iran hasn’t backed down on its nuclear threat. Instead, let’s start with Frei’s supposed neighbor, “Republican Dave”, who voted for Obama because “he could not stomach the thought of Sarah Palin being one heartbeat away from the Oval Office”. How big a factor in President Obama’s election were voters like Dave? According to CNN, 9% of self-identified Republicans voted for Obama. Referring to President Obama, Frei states: “It is the wobbly Obama Republicans – like my friend Dave – that he really needs to worry about.”
Read more »

Will Obama be impeached or forced to resign before the 2012 elections? Howard Portnoy’s post in Hot Air, titled Can Obama Save His Presidency? suggests just that:

The fate of the Obama presidency is, I believe, a fait accompli. The question now is not how it will end — but when. I for one am growing increasingly skeptical that he can survive a complete four-year term without the American people or himself at some point crying “Enough!”

Surely even the most relaxed definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors” doesn’t cover having a far left -wing agenda, so impeachment is a non-starter. As for resignation, Portnoy’s analysis implies that it wouldn’t even occur to President Obama:

Obama was born into a radical political world view fostered by both his natural parents and, in the absence of any parent after his mother’s death, reinforced by Frank Marshall Davis, a black activist and champion of identity politics. When he came to Chicago as a young adult, Obama sought out and found the same sorts of people, from Wright and Pfleger to William Ayers.

How surprising then should it be that, for Obama, socialism is the norm — the gold standard according to which he sets his political compass and by which he attempts, however futilely, to plot America’s future course. It is his socialist philosophy that informs and infects his policies and his understanding of the job of President.

Jennifer Rubin in Commentary suspects that Obama is being told what he wants to hear:

I suspect that so long as there are allies and advisers whispering in his ear that all he needs is some rhetorical tweaking, we won’t see anything approaching a substantive revision of his agenda. If the president doesn’t correct course, the voters may do it for him in 2010. But for now, don’t get your hopes up for a swing to the center. After all, Obama is being told, and no doubt believes, that the mantle of liberalism has been passed to him from Ted Kennedy. He won’t give it up—unless the voters force him to.

Obama would never resign under any circumstance, even with an increasingly likely repudiation in 2010 elections. The more reasonable question to ask is if Obama’s actions and policies will limit his presidency to a single-term. Make no mistake – he will be the Democratic candidate in 2012. The next presidential election is 38 months away, and something – perhaps a foreign-policy win – will occur to improve his standing in the polls. Combine this with some rhetorical moderation in 2010-2011, and talk of a single-term presidency will evaporate.

Besides, can you imagine Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi as President?

The nonsurprising factoid in the latest Rassmussen poll is that 57% Would Like to Replace Entire Congress. In addition to the headline two interesting trends are highlighted in the release.

First trend- Increasingly partisan approval ratings.

…the number of Democrats who would vote to keep the entire Congress has grown from 25% last fall to 43% today. In fact, a modest plurality of Democrats would now vote to keep the legislators. Last fall, a plurality of Democrats were ready to throw them all out…While Democrats have become more supportive of the legislators, voters not affiliated with either major party have moved in the opposite direction. Today, 70% of those not affiliated with either major party would vote to replace all of the elected politicians in the House and Senate.

According to Rassmussen Republican voters are disenchanted with congresspeople from their party, but this situation remains unchanged.

Second trend – An increasing mistrust of Congresspeople’s motivations and their true concern for constituents.

Just 14% give Congress good or excellent review for their overall performance, while only 16% believe it’s Very Likely that Congress will address the most important problems facing our nation. Seventy-five percent (75%) say members of Congress are more interested in their own careers than they are in helping people.

Ballooning deficit projections, the intransigence of Speaker Pelosi and others about health care reform’s public option, and the Democrats’ (such as Carol Shea-Porter) handling of the so-called town hall meetings have cost House members dearly:

…most voters say they understand the health care legislation better than Congress. Just 22% think the legislature has a good understanding of the issue. Three-out-of-four (74%) trust their own economic judgment more than Congress’.

For a democratic congressperson, increased partisanship combined with broad-based “throw the bums out” discontent has to be a nightmare. On the one hand, there’s the pressure to conform to the party line; on the other, there’s the risk of losing re-election. The few who represent “safe” seats can afford to back the President, but the remainder who support the public option will – at the least – have to prove to independent constituents that they understand the legislation and have solid reasons for backing it. Best guess is that most of them have a lot of work to do to convince voters to return them to Washington, and the ones who rode the anti-Bush wave (like Rep Shea-Porter) will be the most vulnerable.

That’s the opinion of Former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, according to the Washington Times. Apparently the updated 10 year budget projections, while trending towards the CBO’s $9.1 Trillion deficit estimate, selectively include and exclude the impacts of proposed legislation:

Holtz-Eakin said that said the Obama administration wrongly assumes it will receive $640 billion in revenue from the creation of a cap-and-trade system for polluters, which would rely on the passage of an energy reform bill that many Democrats oppose, plus another $200 billion from a controversial proposal to tax international businesses. The Obama administration is also counting on the idea that health care reform will not increase the deficit, which some believe is impossible.

What’s more stunning about this? Counting in contributions from Cap and Trade, or trying to pass off projections that the proposed health care reform package will actually lower the budget deficit? A public option that extends benefits to uninsured Americans while creating a massive new bureaucracy is simply unaffordable. Targeted incentives to make health insurance more affordable combined with meaningful tort reform would be more practical and lead to more probable deficit reductions over the longer term.

* Update: Take it away, Greta:

(Youtube video h/t to Below the Beltway)

The latest Daily Presidential Tracking Poll – Rasmussen Reports™ is out and it’s more of the same for President Obama:

Gateway Pundit has a pretty good list of reasons why. Time for the leading practitioner of Hopenchange to alter his approach to governing and hope for an improvement. The White House has to be in a bind – continue with its key policy initiatives and risk increasing widespread public disapproval and a lessening of the Democratic grip on Congress, or lighten up and alienate the most vocal portion of Obama’s political base. Of course, one has to ask the question – who else would they vote for anyway?

My fellow conservatives will gloat, but as I’ve warned before, low presidential polling numbers create security and political risks. Besides, Republicans haven’t been able to take widespread advantage of this situation, although if the upcoming Virginia gubernatorial election is any indication this may be changing.