Like I told you the other day: It’s all about the O. Isn’t it always?

Grassley said he spoke with a Democratic House member last week who shared Obama’s bleak reaction during a private meeting to reports that some factions of House Democrats were lining up to stall or even take down the overhaul unless leaders made major changes.

“Let’s just lay everything on the table,” Grassley said. “A Democrat congressman last week told me after a conversation with the president that the president had trouble in the House of Representatives, and it wasn’t going to pass if there weren’t some changes made … and the president says, ‘You’re going to destroy my presidency.'”

Consider this a complete vindication of DeMint’s point, which Obama pretended to take such offense at, that if the GOP defeats ObamaCare “it will be his Waterloo, it will break him…” Evidently The One couldn’t agree more, and with good reason. If he can’t deliver on his centerpiece policy goal with bulletproof majorities in Congress, not only will it haunt him in 2012 but he’ll have to reconsider the public’s appetite for the whole Hopenchange/Great Society agenda. Failure wouldn’t destroy his presidency so much as it would destroy his presidency as he imagined it; he’d have to remake himself as a sort of Clintonian centrist and become the “pragmatist” all those thoughtful conservatives like David Brooks and Christopher Buckley promised us he’d be before he was sworn in and started pushing 13-digit deficits.

Here’s Krauthammer from last night’s “Special Report” explaining the stakes and why, in the end, Obama will swallow whatever watered-down crap Congress hands him. Hint: It’s all about the O.