Washington is abuzz over the latest pronouncement from Charlie Cook, celebrated editor of the Cook Political Report.<\/p>\n
Last week, Mr. Cook announced in his online newsletter<\/a> that polling data \u201cconfirm anecdotal evidence, and our own view, that the [political] situation this summer has slipped completely out of control for President Obama and Congressional Democrats.\u201d \u00a0Poll after poll, he noted, shows the President\u2019s approval rating at levels that are astonishingly low, considering the newness of his administration and the immense victory he and his party won just ten months ago.<\/p>\n But Mr. Cook and this city are a step behind. \u00a0The great danger for Team Obama is no longer dismal polling numbers. \u00a0Washington is only now acknowledging what should have been evident for weeks, that the President\u2019s continued championing of the deeply unpopular health care overhaul is dragging down opinion about him and how he is handling his job. \u00a0No, the new, new danger is that Mr. Obama could be moving towards a much more profound setback \u2013 a collapse of public trust in his Administration.<\/p>\n The misstep this time (there have been so many in the last three months) came as the White House pivoted away from the \u201cpublic option\u201d in it health care take overhaul package. \u00a0The President\u2019s men talked about replacing the dropped plan with medical cooperatives. \u00a0Totally different from the old \u201cpublic option\u201d, they assured the country.<\/p>\n Within an afternoon, analysts had caught on<\/a> that the new cooperatives were the public option in disguise. \u00a0Washington\u2019s Golden Rule is, he who has the\u00a0gold makes the rules. \u00a0The coops would be public entities that would control Federal health care dollars just the way the public option had been intended to do. \u00a0As columnist Rich Lowry wrote about this and similar health overhaul ruses, \u201cHow stupid do they think we are?\u201d (http:\/\/tiny.cc\/NSSVQ<\/a><\/strong>)<\/p>\n This subterfuge came on the heels of the Administration trying to paint critics of its health plan as ideologues and ignoramuses. \u00a0But again and again, respected public intellectuals endorsed the charges of the supposedly unlettered, unwashed ideologues showing up at congressional town hall meetings.<\/p>\n For example, the Administration has insisted that health care overhaul has nothing to do with rationing. \u00a0But then, even as the media focused on former Alaska governor Sarah Palin\u2019s \u201cdeath panel\u201d charges, with Administration supporters crying fowl, Martin Feldstein wrote in last Wednesday\u2019s Wall Street Journal<\/em> (http:\/\/tiny.cc\/jRO8V<\/a><\/strong>) that \u201cObamaCare is all about rationing.\u201d Dr. Feldstein is many things: Harvard professor of economics, former chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, president emeritus of the National Bureau of Economic Research. \u00a0Unlettered, unwashed and ideological are not among them.<\/p>\n Feldstein wasn\u2019t alone. \u00a0A few days before, Nobel economics laureate Gary Becker had argued on line (http:\/\/tiny.cc\/Nc1BK<\/a><\/strong>) of the public option, \u201cthe experiences of other government-run operations strongly indicate that whatever Congress says in these bills, such an option will cause far more harm than good.\u201d<\/p>\n