We Come Not To Praise Obamacare

...but to bury it. WaPo's Michael Shear and Shailagh Murray write the Village narrative of Obama "heading to the front lines" fighting a battle he's of course, not supposed to win. (emphasis mine):

But even as Obama returns to full-time campaign mode, he is facing increasing calls to show that his presidency can manage the tough, nitty-gritty of lawmaking by cutting deals with his allies to keep his health care legislation moving in the House and Senate committees.

And this is just the sixth paragraph in. The clucking of tongues, the clutching of pearls, and the unspoken question of "Why can't this man just listen to the Wise Men of Washington?" continue through the rest of the article. Silly President...Presidents aren't supposed to make demands of legislators. You've only been in that office for six months. What do you know? (Of course, Bush made demands for"Congress to send him bills he could sign" all the time, but that's besides the point.)

Conservative Democrats in the House are promising to vote against reform as it now stands, and are preparing two dozen amendments, including measures aimed at lowering the effort's long-term cost. In the Senate, members from both parties are urging the president to break his campaign promise to preserve the tax-free status of health benefits. And a chorus of weary voices from Capitol Hill is urging him to abandon his demand for passage of bills in the House and Senate by Aug. 7.

"I don't think we should be bound by a timetable that isn't realistic," Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), a key swing-vote on health care, told Obama last week as she reminded him that President Lyndon B. Johnson took 1 1/2 years to pass Medicare.

Why, how dare a President tell a Congress of his own party that legislation needs to be done before their summer four-week vacation! The unmitigated gall of the man. Has he no idea how Washington works? Doesn't he understand that he's only a President? Why, the Democrats in charge of Congress would never knuckle under to a Republican President (except for all the dozens of times they did just that on FISA, Iraq, the PATRIOT Act, tax cuts for the rich, yadda yadda) what makes you think they would actually support Obama's agenda?

Obama has not officially budged on the timetable, although he and aides have notably failed to note the August deadline in recent remarks. But Obama is quietly working with conservative, Blue Dog Democrats in the House on an amendment to create an independent panel to govern Medicare reimbursement rates that could help reverse crippling health-care inflation.

Most difficult for Obama is the pressure to accept a tax on health benefits as a way of financing the massive insurance reform he wants.

Ahh, now here's the true thrust of the attack, what the Village thinks Obama SHOULD do. Obama already has a plan to pay for health care...but darn it, it makes rich people pay for it, and rich people are in charge of the damn country. How stupid can a guy get, expecting rich people to pay additional taxes.

Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," White House budget director Peter Orszag would not rule out support for the benefits tax, but he continued to promote Obama's preference for limiting deductions for wealthy taxpayers.

Some Democrats close to the negotiations say they think it is only a matter of time before Obama backs off. One proposal that has emerged would tax insurance companies, as opposed to beneficiaries, and is considered a potential compromise approach that Obama may be able to embrace.

Oh? And exactly where did THIS come from? The Wise Men of Washington, no doubt. After all, they spent most of the Sunday shows today complaining about how America would never accept Obama's surtax on those making over $350,000, like David Brooks did on today's Chris Matthews show:

BROOKS: You know, they made some progress on the Hill, they got a House bill out, they got a Senate bill moving forward. They’re scaring the dickens out of the moderates in their own party, let alone the Republicans. They’re scaring the dickens out of them because the House bill calls for raising the top tax rate to 52 or in some cities, 57%. That’s higher than in France, Spain, Italy…

You know, tax rates on Villagers like David Brooks. So many Americans are worried about the top tax rate (at least according to the Village they are.) Instead, Obama should follow the Village advice and break his promise not to raise taxes on the middle class (which the Village believes the middle class will accept...more.) And of course taxing insurance companies wouldn't turn into another corporate tax loophole that would give the insurance companies free reign to raise health insurance premiums on everybody while pocketing the difference. Why, that would never happen.

After all the Village, conservative Democrats, and the GOP only have the President's best interests at heart. Sure, raising health insurance premiums on all Americans and sparing the tax burden on our wealthiest citizens won't backfire on the President, causing the GOP to attack Democrats savagely across the board in an orgy of fury, causing the GOP to run in 2010 and 2012 on a platform of "roll back the Obama tax" and cause the Village to prattle on about the "Obama health care plan disaster" for years and years, effectively killing any chance at real reform for another generation.

Surely that can't be the plan here.

Right?