So now all of a sudden, he's an effective and able President that fights for his convictions? Who knew? Not from reading the papers prior to today.
LA Times:
What's clear now, however, is that Obama is a president with a combative stubbornness that's not often visible in his cool, above-the-fray public style. And he has demonstrated that a president who picks a goal, adopts a battle plan, and sticks with it is not easy to knock out.
NY Times (David Sanger):
After the bitterest of debates, Mr. Obama proved that he was willing to fight for something that moved him to his core. Skeptics had begun to wonder. But he showed that when he was finally committed to throwing all his political capital onto the table, he could win, if by the narrowest of margins.
One of the better chronicles of different strategies by both parties.
Politico:
It’s hard to overestimate the magnitude of President Barack Obama’s historic victory on health care reform Sunday night — but the win was a split decision for Democrats, not a knockout.
The victory, almost inconceivable a month ago, provides an immense and immediate boost for Obama, who had staked his presidency on an all-out push for reform, and who needs the momentum from the win to have any hope of pushing through two other legislative goals this year, financial regulatory reform and new jobs legislation.
This must be good for John McCain. Somehow.
McClatchy:
For President Barack Obama, success came ugly, months late and without bipartisanship, but it's still a big win of historic proportion.
Obama can take credit for greatly expanding health insurance for the American people and restructuring how it works, on a scale that no president before has been able to achieve.
Historians and political experts said that Sunday's passage of the Democrats' healthcare overhaul by the House of Representatives, together with the Senate's expected passage of its final terms in coming days, rescues Obama from being branded a political loser in only the second year of his presidency, and probably helps limit the Democrats' anticipated losses in November's congressional elections. Only time will tell whether the legislation lives up to the historic accomplishments that Democrats advertised: whether 95 percent of Americans really do get good coverage, whether people really will be able to keep their doctors, whether insurers really will be better regulated, and whether the federal budget deficit really does shrink.
Guardian (Michael Tomasky):
David Frum has written a rather caustic piece that is getting lots of pick up, and for good reason. It's spot-on:
A huge part of the blame for today's disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.
...
This is all inconveniently true. Re the Heritage Foundation, the leading conservative think tank here in town, I think he's talking about at least in part about taxes on high-end plans, which has long been an idea at least as associated with Republicans as with Democrats. You may recall that this was the chief financing mechanism in John McCain's 2008 healthcare proposal.
But suddenly, when Hitler-Stalin-Muslim-Obama proposed it, it became socialism.