What happened to Obama's middle path on health reform?
by Michael Gerson (excerpt)

WASHINGTON POST

Whatever the legislative fate of health reform -- now in the hands of a few besieged House Democrats -- the health reformers have failed in their argument. Their proposal has divided Democrats while uniting Republicans, returned American politics to well-worn ideological ruts, employed legislative tactics that smack of corruption, squandered the president's public standing, lowered public regard for Congress to French revolutionary levels, sucked the oxygen from other agenda items, re-engaged the abortion battle, produced freaks and prodigies of nature such as a Republican senator from Massachusetts, raised questions about the continued governability of America and caused the White House chief of staff to distance himself from the president's ambitions. It is quite an accomplishment.

In retrospect, Obama's greatest achievement during the 2008 campaign was to combine soothing reassurance with a message of transformational change in a single political persona. Governing, however, has required a choice between reassurance and transformation.

Because Obama has chosen liberal transformation, the political outcomes are limited: He can appear radical in victory or weak in defeat. Given his health-reform decisions, it is no longer possible for Obama to be a president both strong and unifying.