Howard Dean: If you oppose ObamaCare, you’re undermining the country

At first blush, I thought his point here was that undermining the president necessarily means undermining America — a stupendously ballsy argument coming from a guy who ran hard against “Bush’s war” in 2004. But no. What’s he’s saying, I think, is that it’s perfectly okay to oppose the president’s policies on the merits; opposing them simply in the interest of harming him politically, however, is verboten insofar as it requires “undermining America” to achieve your cynical self-interested end. Whether there are any lessons for the left in that diktat given their newfound quiescence about Iraq and deficits, I leave for you to judge. I’m more concerned with his supposition that the GOP is trying to kneecap ObamaCare simply to take down The One. Really, Dean-o? Under President McCain, a Republican Congress would be pushing a public option? There aren’t many statist programs I’d rule safely unsupportable by D.C. “conservatives” anymore but universal health care is high on the list. And even assuming a total betrayal, they’d be too petrified by the polls to follow through on it. Not only is Obama’s approval rating at another new low in Gallup today but the Pollster.com average of national polls has him below the water line at 49.9 percent. There are many reasons to oppose this boondoggle, in other words. Jim DeMint’s “Waterloo” rationale is but one star in a giant constellation.

Speaking of those deteriorating polls, though: Was Russ Feingold serious in telling an audience that “nobody is going to bring a bill before Christmas”? Obama can’t afford to have this process drag on that long; the more people have to sit through his tired talking points about how you can keep your insurance, etc, the more aggravated they’ll get and the more support he’ll bleed (especially among seniors). They need to either pass it next month or table it soon and then bring it back later after something happens to boost his poll numbers — although the closer we get to the midterms, the more skittish the Blue Dogs will be. Barry’s running out of options. Click the image to watch.

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