Chait breaks the blogger code and picks up the phone:
The Democrats biggest worry right now, I have been reliably informed (Yes — reporting! I try not to make a habit of it), is that they think health care has just taken too much time. The want to pivot to an economic message. Writing a new, even smaller health care bill takes a lot of time…There are only two options on health care: Something that involves passing the Senate bill through the House, and nothing. There's no fantasy moderate bipartisan alternative. Once Congress gets that through its head, I think — I don't know but I think — they'll make the obvious choice.
So let this process play out. Let Obama use SOTU to argue that nothing is not an option and if the Republicans prove they really do want nothing, then the argument for passing the Senate bill gets stronger. But doing this now, greeting public anxiety with contempt, would be dreadful politics.
It would destroy Obama's commitment to open dialogue and respect for the process, which has already been battered by some of the necessary sausage making to get a final deal. It would make Obama look like a brutally partisan president. That would break Obama's presidency.
I see no reason why Obama should not put the GOP on the spot now and ask them how they would solve the problems we face. One aspect of this is health insurance reform; the other is tackling the debt. Put them together in the SOTU and demand action.
The truth is: Obama has the better argument. He's right in understanding that the sheer tasks of government have made it hard for him to press this message day after day after day as the Democrats negotiated with themselves endlessly. So let the impact of Massachusetts sink in, expose the nihilism of the opposition, take the black eye as a necessary evil in such a turbulent time … and fight on.
The Dish 