Obama is very good at "the art of the possible." It became clear very early that fully realized health care reform that included a bonafide national system was not acheivable. Obama has always indicated he is an advocate of a public option, and has also made it clear that he was not going to insist on it, realistically assessing that insisting on it would likely result in NO health care reform measure at all.
Kevin, I do not perceive him as having sat on his hands at all on the health care issue. Had he and loberal Democrats insisted on a truly national health care plan, enabling legislation would have had the proverbial snowball's chance in hell to have come to fruition. What he has done, rather masterfully, is make sure the administration has not created reactionary resistance so strong that nothing at all would pass Congress. He also tried very hard to get bi-partisan support, and when it became clear that simply was not going to happen, he and liberals in the Senate did what was necessary to gain the votes of conservative Democrats.
I'm not sure what we are going to end up with when the legislation is finally passed, and I am already not happy with it. But it is a significant step in the right direction, and likely to keep us going in the direction of universal health care.
Our political parties are not analogous to the the Labor and Conservative parties of the UK - in fact- as Peace helped me to understand, what we call political parties are not analogous to the political parties of a parlimentary Democracy.
Our country is very, very deeply divided on any number of issues right now that can not be easily categorized as liberal vs conservative. I don't remember who was being interviewed, but I recently heard some professor of politics on NPR say that over the last 8-10 years, we are more polarized within our country than has occurred since the late 1800's.
The Republican party draws not only conservatives, but also libertarians. The Democrats draw liberals, moderates, and some conservatives, but virtually no libertarians. At least that is what seems to me to be the case. There are many USA fols here who are more politically informed and more politically astute than am I. I'll be interested to read their more informed comments.
What is absolutely clear to me is that the American people, regardless of their social and political philosophies are for the most part very much engaged in emotional thinking right now, and very much into taking positions rather than thinking through what is in their best interests, whether personally or collectively.