The incredible shriking credibility of Obama

President Obama is taking heat from the left, people such as columnist Paul Krugman, for not being tough enough on the opponents of his health care plan and for backing off on the centerpiece, the "public option."

Krugman says

"there’s a point at which realism shades over into weakness, and progressives increasingly feel that the administration is on the wrong side of that line. It seems as if there is nothing Republicans can do that will draw an administration rebuke: Senator Charles E. Grassley feeds the death panel smear, warning that reform will “pull the plug on grandma,” and two days later the White House declares that it’s still committed to working with him."

As usual, Krugman gets it wrong. Obama has tried to rebuke his opponents and people aren't buying it. He is coming off as a tin man, and people aren't buying his sales pitch.

Obama doesn't fill the suit of President. Why would this be a shock to anyone? A person with his limited life experience simply cannot possibly have the field vision to do anything but fail.

Who is advising him? A bunch of hack Chicago machine pols who are driving things as if they were back in the swamp they feel comfortable in.

Obama has overreached big time, and the country is rejecting his agenda. Backing off the public option is not a sellout like Krugman's "progressives" are saying, it is a political failure brought on by the same inexperience and hubris that brought the HillaryCare disaster for Clinton.

Clinton, after that failure and the 1994 rebuke in the mid-term election, dramatically changed course, started triangulating, governed more from the center, and had a successful presidency (if marred by his tawdry scandals.)

What will Obama do? Does he have the skills to change course? If not, he is a one termer pure and simple. The country has never liked his agenda nearly as much as they liked him personally. Now voters are starting to inextricably connect the two. Obama IS his agenda in the voters mind, so they are starting to reject him.

As long as he pushes for Cap & Trade, Pubic Option, and the like, his presidency will continue to sink.

Krugman is and has always been blinded by his ideology. He thinks all Obama has to do is get tough, call out the opponents for their demagoguery, and the nation will be convinced.

No, that won't work. The demagoguery on things like the Death Panels works because there is a thread of truth to it. Everyone knows that government takeover of insurance will lead to rationing decisions by government.

As uncomfortable as people are with health care rationing by insurance companies (which undeniably is the reality,) they are FAR more uncomfortable with having those decisions made by the federal government.

And Obama has been totally unconvincing on this point. He tries to pretend that rationing will not be necessary, and people simply do not buy it.

So his credibility shrinks as people realize he is not telling it straight. He starts compromising, and says that which he once insisted upon was never the centerpiece of his plan. Which of course is a lie, and everybody knows it. Credibility shrinks more.

It is early in his presidency, so he does have time to recover. For Clinton it took an historic election in 1994 that gave Republicans control of both houses for the first time in 40 years before he changed course.

The 2010 election could shape up along similar lines if Obama ignores folks like Krugman and starts realizing that this is a center-right nation that won't tolerate his far left agenda.

The next six months will be interesting indeed.