1) Triangulation: Almost always works! Obama pushed off, most notably, against single payer but also against Dems who demand a public option. Didn't emphasize that the public option is itself a fairly centrist solution --as opposed to systems that would deny the private option. ...

2) Rebranding: Virtually none that I could see, despite a lot of talk among commentators (including Keith Hennessey ). No attempt to pretend that this isn't the same bill and being sold as the same bill. ...

3) Orszagism:   Still there, but gets an image makeover. In it's new, airbrushed form , we're told that "our health care problem is our deficit problem" (which it is) but not that Obama's reforms are necessarily  the solution to the deficit problem (which they aren't, even if they'd work--you could also raise taxes or cut spending elsewhere). The content of those long-term structural reforms is redefined along free-lunch, non-grandiose lines: Obama no longer insists that the bill "reduce health-care inflation" or transform the "health care delivery system." Only "waste and abuse" that does "nothing to improve your care" will be targeted. That's a relief! Only "common sense best practices" will be encouraged by the new cost-cutting panel. All building up to the central iffy policy pitch

[W]e've estimated that most of this plan can be paid for by finding savings within the existing health care system

Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan ..

a) Does anyone really believe this--that is, if you define waste and inefficiency as things that don't actually help improve your health, as opposed to things that might improve your health marginally but aren't worth the cost? b) Specifically, does the average Medicare recipient feel that the system that he enjoys is rife with waste, inefficiency, fraud, and abuse? I suspect not. This seems like the greatest point of vulnerability in the speech. ... Faced with the need to choose between a) alarming centrist budget hawks concerned about deficits driven by rising health costs and b) alarming seniors concerned about the measures that might be taken to control rising health costs, Obama chose to pretend the problem didn't exist (though he did throw budget hawks a crude procedural bone--see #9 below). ...

4) "This-is-the-moment-ism: Why, after posing as a practical moderate, go on and on about the need to avoid timidity and do "what the moment calls for" and "history's test." Obama couldn't let a speech slip by without veering into grandiosity--but this very grandiosity undercuts his attempt to appear like a reassuring centrist who wants to disrupt existing arrangements as little as possible. Makes kicking the can "further down the road" suddenly seem vaguely appealing. Instead of "this is really a big deal like 1935 and 1965," why not say "this really isn't such a big deal"? ... In particular, couldn't Obama somehow make the point that a trillion dollars over 10 years isn't such a big deal. He tried, by comparing it to expensive things the Dems didn't like (the Iraq War, tax cuts). More effective would be comparison to effective things the Dems and the voters  do like (i.e.,"that's less than a sixth of the cost of Social Security " or "one fifth as much as Medicare now costs each year"). It's only $100 billion a year, people!

5) Heckling: Effective, I thought, outweighing the disrespect effect. Showed that there was some dissent about Obama's flat assertions about, for example, no coverage for illegal aliens. (The dissent involves whether there is any verification mechanism that will actually stop illegals from getting coverage, whatever the law says .) But then I'm the guy who thought Rick Lazio taught Hillary Clinton a lesson. Brian Williams was clearly upset, but he only has one vote. (I normally ask my mother about issues like this, but she was watching Federer.) ... Assignment:  This can't be the first time a President has been heckled. ... 

6) Specificity: "This exchange will take effect in four years ..." Confident assertions of specifics suggest that Obama is in control and laying down the law. Needed more of these....

7) Kennedy: This section surprisingly effective, given that everyone knew it was coming. I'd prefer an appeal to social equality as opposed to "large heartedness," but then the Kennedys--or at least Teddy--don't precisely stand for social equality, do they? ...

8) "[T]here is something that could make you better, but I just can't afford it." A good description of the need for health care coverage expansion. But why not broaden it into a general principle--that we don't say, as a society, "there is something that could make you better but we can't afford it." Because then it could be used as an argument against rationing in the future? And that would be a problem because.....

9) Veto threat: The clearest veto pledge Obama made was: "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future." Is Obama really going to veto a plan because if nothing is done it will add to the deficit in 15 years? And if so, why? The other problem with this pledge, which he repeated for effect, is that it tethers Obama to the deficit-estimating methods of the CBO , which in turn leads him to endorse a plan for mandatory "spending cuts if the savings we've promised don't materialize." That won't reassure voters worried about, you know, spending cuts, and it doesn't make any policy sense . If the savings don't materialize, why not raise taxes, or cut the HUD budget, or Social Security? Why do the savings have to come from medical care?  But the CBO loves such mandatory fallback cuts, so they're in. ... Keep in mind, these are cuts that go into effect after the administration's plans to pick the low-hanging fruit of "waste" that doesn't impact care have been exhausted. Doesn't that imply that the mandatory spending cuts will come at the expense of care? ... Update: Hennessey seems to think the fallback spending cut plan is an attempt to muscle the CBO  into saying"the bills don’t increase the long-term budget deficit" without doing the things that would make the cuts actually automatic. If that's true, I don't quite understand-- why set up a big fight with the CBO that you might lose, after you've pledged to veto the bill if you lose it? Seems as if CBO holds all the cards in that one, no? ...

 10) How Much Government is Enough?  Just as Obama's winding up, he drifts off into locker dorm room musings about whether "the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little." Why, in a speech that's already too long? We're not debating philosophy. We're fixing the health care problem. ... Ditto the airy discussion of civility that follow, which seemed like a bone thrown to those who wanted a condemnation, but which only got in the way of an effective "I hear you" pitch. ...  6:49 P..M.

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