The first thing Obama did - the day after the election and before he persuaded Emmanuel to come be his CofS (remember, he had to publicly kiss Rahm's behind to get him to take the job) - was tell Reid to not strip Lieberman of his committee chair and seniority.  This was Obama's green light to every tinpot in the Senate to ostruct anything and everything in sight when they thought it could have some conceivable benefit to their personal political positions.  So, being senators, they took the invitation.

I recall warning then that this was not "forgiveness" of Lieberman, but rather "ratification" of his conduct and that it would come to a bad end.  I even recall predicting Obama's presidency would come acropper because of it, before he even was inaugurated.  No matter.  

Then, let's look at HCR.  Setting aside for the moment asking whether Obama should have gone first to HCR (I'll come back to it later), if Obama was really interested in transformative change that would have used market mechanisms to fix health care and insurance, there was a very simple bill already set up and ready to go on Teddy Kennedy's desk.  You remember it.  It would have made Medicare available to anyone, at normal Medicare premium cost.  people could have still stayed with their private insurance, if they wanted to.  Do you think for a minute that the insurance companies would have been able to engage in their chicanery (which they continue to do and will forever - they're insurance companies, after all) and make the huge profits they continue to make in the face of Medicare being a player in the market?  No.  

But that simple solution satisfied neither Obama's corporate sponsors, nor Rahm's wheeling-dealing, nor the ConLaw professor's apparent love for both eleven-dimensional chess and complicated multiphasic balancing tests devised and applied only after extended discussions with the stakeholders (none of them average voters screwed by the insurers, FWIW)  and deep, meaningful arguments over bending cost curves and utilization ratios.  Or, to be short about it, Obama loves and needs the intellectual j/o action, so that's what we get.

So, Teddy's simple solution went to the grave with him.

Note, too, that taking up the extended HCR debate provided the Republicans with a couple more things.  First, it gave them a chance to get their breath.  Instead of programs being presented to hire people, put them to work and keep them in their houses - all in contrast to the screwing the Republicans gave America in the run-up to and during the Bush Depression, Obama gave them the opportunity to get back in the rhetorical game. Since the Rethugs were not in power, they could let their crazy flag fly and, predictably, did.  Letting them get their rhetoric running in opposition to a multi-month legislative process ceded the initiative without so much as a fight.

Shoot, Obama even blew the opportunity to brand (with a hot, searing branding iron) the Republicans' foreheads with the fault for the economy.  This is the Bush Depression.  Has been and will be.  "Hoover" was an epithet for thirty years or more after he was run out of office - his entire remaining life - and he dragged the Republicans down with him.  

So, Obama let the Republicans move the frame toward themselves after giving them the initiative.

Then, he failed to capitalize on the mass of populist anger and the very hope he nurtured during the campaign..  He coddled the banksters who'd been behind and profited most handsomely from their crimes in he financial meltdown (are you telling me Bernie Madoff was the only crook on Wall Street?  Please.) and turned his back - beginning the day he stopped taking questions on the transition/WH website (after the voters demanded answers on torture) - on the people who voted for him.  In such a context of popular discontent, it was inevitable that someone would get a hold of it and put it to use.  Given the anger and hate residing at the heart of so many Republican policies, it was inevitable that they would grab hold of it in a heartbeat.  And they did.

Back to the HCR debacle.  It came out, pretty early on, that Rahm had made a backroom deal with the drug companies.  This deal, you'll remember, was that they'd provide some $80 million in advertising to support Democratic (Blue Dog) candidates in the coming mid-term cycle and go along with the HCR bill, in return for which the drug companies would profit handsomely from the actual text of the bill.  The bill provided, in sum, that the price of drugs would not go down.  Genius Rahm didn't account for five Republicans on the Supreme Court, who'd indicated by the end of June they were up to something with the Citizens United case.  When they issued their order directing reargument, I saw it as a clear marker to their fellow Republicans not on the bench that help was on the way.  And it was.  Last winter, when the Supremes decided corporations are people and cannot be limited by mere campaign finance laws, they not only negated the value (to the Dems) of Rahm's deal, but also facilitated things like Fox News donating a cool million to the Republican Gove