But Wednesday night, the children’s hour will be over, and the president’s real audience – the American public – will be eager to take Mr. Obama’s measure. This will be a crucial test of the teleprompter. The usual platitudes, empty eloquence and a reworking of earlier great moments in presidential grandiloquence won’t cut it. Congress will be waiting for genuine specifics about how he expects to “reform” health care, and the public will be waiting with more than a little skepticism…

Having finally flayed the bones of George W. Bush into a handful of dust, the White House, unable to persuade and convince, in desperation turns its contempt on the American public. The president’s press spokesman Monday derided the parents’ protest as “an ‘Animal House’ food fight.” This sounds less like strategy than surrender. Mr. Obama was educated at Yale Law School, but a professor at Grinder Switch A&M could have told him that no matter how tempted he may be, a lawyer never insults the jury. The jury gets the last word.