How adaptable is President Obama?

President Clinton got into trouble early in his first term by moving too far to the left (gays in the military, HilleryCare, etc), but was adaptable enough to quickly move back to the center by taking on some conservative causes as his own (welfare reform, etc), thus depriving the Republicans of much of their ammunition. Despite his personal foibles, he managed to have a fairly successful two terms thereafter.

President Obama has allowed his party in Congress to push too far to the left, which is why there is a growing uprising against the health care bill and soaring budget defects. So the question is, will he take command and pull his party, and his administration, back toward the center, or will he let the far left in Congress continue to ignore the voter discontent and ram health care through regardless. Clearly Nancy Pelosi, current leader of the far left in the House, is ignoring the voter discontent, arrogantly assuming that we need her health care plan whether we like it or not. Harry Reid, leader of the Senate, seems to be going along with her, though I don't think he is really as far left as she is.

If President Obama is adaptable enough, he could pull a Clinton and move back to the center. If he adopted some of the many Republican suggestions, such as adding tort reform to the health care bill and supporting importation of drugs from Canada, he might well be able to pass a health care bill with bipartison support. But can he do that, or is he to much of an ideologue to abandon his vision, or is he too weak to stand up to his party in Congress?

Clearly his staff has begun to realize that to the voters, the economy, especially jobs and the growing deficit, is much more important than health care reform, and he has begun to make some rhetorical gestures toward those issues, though so far he has done nothing substantive to address them. The "Middle Class Initiative" he just announced is more image than substance, as is the proposal to freeze the budgets of some agencies for three years (but not the ones consuming most of the budget).

It will be interesting to see if he can be as adaptable as President Clinton was, or whether he is too fixed in his views, or too weak to take on his party in Congress, to make the changes he needs to make.