FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
The stakes are high when it comes to President Obama's speech on health care to a joint session of Congress tomorrow night. If the president's call to action doesn't get more lawmakers on board and if some kind of health care reform legislation doesn't result, the political damage to Mr. Obama could be significant.
Meanwhile - critics are after the president for what they see as a wide range of missteps in his eight months in office. Some say Mr. Obama made a tactical mistake by putting Congress in charge of the details on a key issue like health care.
But conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer writes that Pres. Obama is in trouble and it's not Congress' fault. He says the president is to blame for an agenda too far to the left for a center-right country.
He says that Mr. Obama misread the election results and that he was not given a mandate to make sweeping changes to the American system, enlarge the government and spend trillions of dollars we don't have. Krauthammer suggests the president is jeopardizing the trust of the people who elected him.
He writes:
"Let's be clear: This is a fall, not a collapse. He's not been repudiated or even defeated. He will likely regroup and pass some version of health insurance reform that will restore some of his clout and popularity. But what has occurred - irreversibly - is this: He's become ordinary. The spell is broken. The charismatic conjurer of 2008 has shed his magic."
In other words, he says President Obama is a "mere mortal," a politician like all the others.
Here’s my question to you: Has President Obama overplayed his hand?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
Paul writes:
What "magic" is right wing columnist talking about? You know what "magic" Obama brings to my life personally? A big dose of "The Real". Here is a president who actually talks to us with some sense and to us, not at us. And you know what? If he were a politician "like the rest", he would not have been the first black man in the White House in a country where the confederate flag is still allowed to be flown.
Albert in Los Angeles writes:
No! Recall when McCain tried to suspend his campaign, postpone a debate and hide under the economic crisis? Obama was correct: to be president you must continue to turn with the world or else it will turn without you. Obama won the debate, the election and the lousy hand left to him by George W. Bush and the Republican Party. Now a Superman must play that hand.
Andy from Hermosa Beach, California writes:
Jack, Obama proved he was a mere mortal when Congress morphed the stimulus and cap and trade from meaningful legislation to pork-laden garbage. Obama can take back his presidency by taking ownership of the health care issue and being clear and concise on what he wants to see in a bill. He needs to take the reins of the debate and not let Congress steer his proposals.
Toye from Bridgeport, Connecticut writes:
On the contrary, Jack, if Obama is able to regroup and get something out of this, it makes him all the more super-human in my books. Let’s be objective here: in a Democratic-controlled Congress, a “mere mortal” would have simply rallied the Blue Dogs and the liberals around his agenda and make it an all-Democrat affair. But that would have been too easy. Instead, Obama pursued the path of more resistance, in the spirit of bipartisanship. Let’s give tribute where one is due.
Bob in Miami writes:
Yes, he overplayed it and on the same issue that tripped up the Clinton administration.
Tom from Philadelphia writes:
No, not really, Pres. Obama was handed a full plate and he’s dealing with it. But while we’re on the subject of too much or too many, you take too many days off. Next year, I’m keeping tally.