First, sadly more Americans are worried about Muslim terrorists breaking into their homes and beheading the and raping their dogs and children then they are about being screwed by their health insurer. It's the basic premise that drives the Town Hells. (i.e. "What problem?")

Second: In the media's eyes it isn't about the health care debate, but about the "message war." The message war is much more telegenic as it has "war" in it, and at least one side is willing to say the type of things that make good front story copy, like "death panels." Doesn't matter if Palin is wrong or even crazy. She is photogenic passed the "legitimate enough to get reported on" test and says things TV likes to report because it gets people to look up from their Arby's roast beef sandwich to watch the commercial while waiting to hear more about the "death panels."

Third. Of course Obama lost the message war. From the start he chose not to join it. Idiots in his administration looked at Clinton 1993 and decided the real problem wasn't Clinton's lack of mandate (and the immediate hatred fomented by his election) or that his unelected and worse despised wife was spearheading the health care debate (in a way the media decided didn't pass the Eleanor Roosevelt test), or that the general public was less concerned about healthcare costs then they are today. No, they decided it was because it was the failure of a Democratic president to understand you can never push your own plan down the throats of such a unified and independent group as a Democratically elected Congress. Just look at what they did to Bush and his 1.5 trillion dollar tax cuts for the rich, the Iraq War and the PATRIOT Act? Don't even try to put anything past these vigilantes of democracy.

Abrogating taking the lead on healthcare he left the Dems in Congress to form the message. The same Dems Rahm Emmanual decided to create at any cost, including recruiting conservatives and hired hacks of lobbyists.

Fourth, when engaged in a message war understand the opposition is always at an advantage. They hold the high ground. "No!" is a quicker and easier message than "Change." Yeah, it worked in the election, but only because it never got past "Change." When you have to describe that "change" that is when things fall apart. "No change" not only gets to stay consistent and short, it gets plenty of ammunition by picking to pieces and misstating the change the "changer" is now forced to put on the table. (i.e. "death panels.")

Fifth. The big mistake is Obama can't tell the difference between a bi-partisan issue and the need for bi-partisan support.

Health care reform is truly a bi-partisan issue. Like rain, it's injustice falls upon the farthest right winger with little or no insurance and a serious medical condition, as the farthest left winger with no less medical conditions. Don't tell Sarah Palin, but there really are liberals with Down Syndrome children.

This is a whole different story than getting the GOP to agree with you. If they have hitched their wagon to preventing any change whatsoever; be it to protect their financial backers, their state companies, or to be Wellington to your General Ney, they are not the same as the people who don't agree with or like you, but still hate their health care predicament and would like someone to fix it.

Sixth, had Obama and Mr. Middle Finger Emmanual considered points 1 through 5, it might have occurred to them that the solution was to create a bi-partisan healthcare proposal with a message that looked neither liberal nor conservative, Democratic nor Republican. Something like, oh, I don't know, how about "I want my Medicare!" As in, "If you are sick of paying someone else's health insurance while worried about your own coverage, and wondered why you couldn't get the same coverage those over 65 get, well how about this. We'll sell you Medicare Insurance at a premium that pays for itself, is cheaper than your current coverage and won't drop you if you get sick." That is all the message they would have needed. Instead of socialism or fascism, or right v. left or whether I, a hard working white bigot would have to pay for some octomom who just swam across the Rio Grande to both have 16 babies and 32 abortions at my expense to scream and whine about. Well, I just want my Medicare.

Had the Obama administration offered a health care proposal that was simple, politically neutral and appealing to mouthbreeders, he would not just have had the benefit of not creating a real proposal on his own, but could have avoided letting the Dem Congress and the oppositional GOP screw it up, at least without incurring the wrath of the people who "Want their Medicare!"

He shouldn't have turned this over to the Dems. He should have crafted this simple proposal and turned it over to the public. We'd have taken care of the rest.