By: James Taranto
The latest effort to psychoanalyze President Obama comes from Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of the Washington Post. Hiatt offers “a theory about why President Obama is having a tough political time right now: He doesn’t seem all that happy being president.”
But Hiatt gets it backward. Obama isn’t having political difficulty because he’s unhappy; he’s unhappy because he’s having political difficulty. Or, as the president himself put it in an Ohio ObamaCare speech yesterday:
The American people want to know if it’s still possible for Washington to look out for their interests and their future. They are waiting for us to act. They are waiting for us to lead. And as long as I hold this office, I intend to provide that leadership. I don’t know about the politics. But I know what’s right.
He knows what’s right. And he cares so much about the American people that he is determined to do what is right, whether we want it done to us or not. Yet he keeps coming up against delays and obstructions. Where’s the fairness in that? If he’s omniscient and benevolent, doesn’t he deserve to be omnipotent too?
You can see why this is frustrating for the president. No one doubts what needs to be done for the people–no one, that is, except the people. They tell anyone who’ll listen that ObamaCare scares them to death. They even voted a Republican into the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts!
An Independent Women’s Voice poll of voters in 35 “key swing districts,” all represented by Democrats, finds that 60% think Congress should scrap ObamaCare and either start over or give up entirely. A plurality say they’d be more likely to support their congressman if he voted for ObamaCare in November and against it now.