does Obama not really want to be a leader?

President Obama will lose the left if he loses a vibrant "Public Option"

It's real simple. If President Obama doesn't include a vibrant public option in health care reform, he will lose the left and will never recover. Is that what he wants? Does he want to be a one-term president? Does he want conservatives and teabaggers to control Congress?

I'm sick and tired of hearing his representatives tell me that Congress is writing the bill. He won a mandate to reform health care. John McCain's plans for health care were rejected by Americans. So why is he involved in a kabuki dance with all the weak-kneed Democrats like Blanche Lincoln, DiFi, Ben Nelson, Kent Conrad and all the rest of the corporate Dems? And why does Sen. Grassley matter at all? They don't care about American families and what's been happening to them.

Doesn't his team look at the polls? Americans are willing to be taxed for health care reform. What more does he want? There's a 20-point jump in the belief that the government can run health care, which is amazing. The polls aren't lying so what is President Obama doing?

Protests should be breaking out all over America about health care before it's too late. July 4th would have been a great day to have one.

President Obama wants a bill to sign in October. Great. But it has to be a good bill with a vibrant public option or health care will never be reformed and President Obama will see his popularity rise in Republicanland. I'm sure they'll all turn out to vote for him in 2012. The problem is that nobody else will.

(Crooks and Liars)

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This is all too true, even in regards to other policies.

Everyone voted for Obama for some real change and he is backtracking on many of his promises. He still has a chance to come through for America, but if he doesn't then he is going to throw away this huge amount of mainstream support and is going to disappoint everyone.

Of course, as I have always said, he is just a politician, so he has to be watched just like any other poitician, but it doesn't seem like he wants to capitalize on his own mandate.

We'll see...