What is going on?

I’m not (quite) ready to give up on the government-run insurance option, health care reform in general or Barack Obama. But I wonder how long our supposed leaders are going to try our patience.

There are interesting debunking documents on the web patiently explaining point by point how the tinfoil-hatter/birther/gun-toters are making up shit and then tossing the giant BMs at Fox News for an echo effect. Who cares? We know this. This is not news.

What is sorely lacking is not common sense or decent reform proposals, but rather a strategy to combat the wackosphere. It’s about setting the terms of the debate.

The Obama approach to date seems to be to treat those who circulate at his town hall meetings packing heat as distinguished professors of health economics whose views must be aired and to which calm responses must be issued—whether or not anyone is listening to them.

He’s like a Monty Python figure tied to the stake and discussing fine points of theology with the Inquisitor holding a book of matches.

The stance is consistent with Obama’s insistence on repeatedly extending the hand of bipartisanship to the Republican minority, which then repeatedly proceeds to hack off a few fingers.

All the same, it is not yet clear who is going to come out of this exercise triumphant. The short-term consensus is that Obama is getting his butt kicked, and it’s hard to see how he’s going to turn this ferocious trashing to his favor. If he does, he’s a genius.

On the other hand, maybe he’s a sellout and just a fancy shill for the big money boys.

Given the biped affinity for strong leadership, there’s something uninspired and repellantly wimpy about a president who seems to backpedal on every aspect of his reform policy and whose aides leak harsh attacks not on the people who want them dead but on ‘the left of the left’, i.e. the concerned citizens who got out on the street last year and put them into office.

Nevertheless, I reserve judgment on the strategy because the results are not yet in. They will be soon.