Help me into some house, Benvolio,
Or I shall faint. A plague o’ both your houses!
They have made worms’ meat of me: I have it,
And soundly too. Your houses!—MERCUTIO, Romeo and Juliet: Act 3, Scene 1
If the president was the “real deal,” he would forcefully declare that it is dead wrong for members of Congress to characterize those opposed to his health care reforms as un-American, just as it was dead wrong to have claimed that anti-Bush protesters were unpatriotic in their objections to the war in Iraq. Thus, he would likely mitigate his declining popularity, but he seems more interested in his relationship with the House Left. Presumably, he won’t invite anyone to portray him as a critic of Democrat leaders. He must be worried about their prospects in next year’s mid-term elections, but, ironically, his allowing them to blunder forward unchecked is precisely what will lose seats for his party.