In an effort to avoid the Clinton mistake of sending up a piece of “take it or leave it” legislation, the president set out some broad goals and then left it to Congress. But he should have seen what Congress did with the stimulus bill, and taken that as a warning: Sometimes the one thing worse than herding cats is to wait for the cats to herd themselves.

It is one thing to say let’s move forward together and trade ideas back and forth in the early stages of debate—always moving the cats forward—and quite another to wait until different segments announce different approaches as “done deals” and then try to intervene. Rather than selling, you’re haggling, on their turf, no less.

House Democrats want a millionaires’ tax; Senate Democrats aren’t keen for it. The Speaker of the House says the bill must contain a public insurance option; Senate Democrats don’t like it and don’t have the votes to pass it anyway. A key Senate Committee presents a plan which the Congressional Budget Office immediately pronounces far short of what the plan purports to do. And so it goes. And where is the president? Out making speeches about the need for health care reform and the benefits that will bring. The case in general has been made, and won. That’s not where the devil is.