Obama's strategic failures on health care

Again, something I've blogged on quite a bit: the politics of health care reform-- most notably, here and here and here...

Here, some good points from Kim Strassel in the WSJ...

These mistakes are so basic that the cynic in me wants to know whether the Dems knew this would fail from the beginning and wanted to propose something as a cover-their-tails maneuver. Nahh....

Democrats won everything in last year’s election. You wouldn’t know it from the way President Barack Obama [and the Democratic Congress] is blaming the GOP for his flagging health agenda....The party of the left owns the White House, a filibuster-proof Senate, and a 70-seat House majority....You can’t blame the GOP when you own every Washington institution....

The president is a skilled politician and orator, but the real test of a new administration is whether it can shepherd a high-stakes bill through Congress. In retrospect, the mistakes are growing clear....

• Living in the short term: The administration thought it was clever back in February, using its $787 billion “stimulus” as an excuse to pass all manner of non-stimulating spending. But the bill sent deficits soaring, forcing those numbers to the center of today’s health debate and unnerving Democratic deficit hawks....

• Unleashing Congress: Not wanting to repeat Hillary Clinton’s mistaken attempt to micromanage Congress, the administration took the equally dangerous path of no management at all. Left to wild impulses, Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman and Ted Kennedy took the most radical of Mr. Obama’s proposals (a public option entitlement) as a starting point, and ran left with new mandates, income tax surcharges, and business penalties....

• False deadlines: Mr. Obama is right to worry this project is a race against time and falling poll numbers. But the administration’s unwavering demand for bills before recess led to the gridlock it hoped to avoid....