"Health Care Is Obama's Iraq"

Charlie Cook, editor, Cook Political Report. This comes from NationalJournal.com, "Insider Interviews."

Interviewer: If Obama has a communications problem as you suggest, then what should he do to reach out to the American people? Should he try to appear more populist?

[Good Lord, what an in-the-bag question--should he try to appear? Why doesn't Obama just try being who he is and then let the people vote him up or down--but I digress.]

Cook: I sort of reject the notion that there is a communications problem with President Obama. I think it's just fundamental, total miscalculations from the very, very beginning. Of proportions comparable to President George W. Bush's decision to go into Iraq. . . . when unemployment numbers started proving to be much, much tougher and it started becoming more clear that the stimulus package hadn't worked properly, they just kept plowing ahead on health care. And this isn't a communications problem. This is a reality problem. And I think they just made some grave miscalculations and as it became more clear that they had screwed up, they just kept doubling down their bet. And so I think, no, this is one of the biggest miscalculations that we've seen in modern political history.