No Fight

David Sirota calls out Barack Obama like no other that I've heard up to this point. He calls him on worrying about being a celebrity rather than a leader.

Specifically, it seems to me that if you went to states like, say, Montana, Iowa and Maine and publicly hammered Sens. Baucus, Grassley and Snowe as obstructionists, there's a decent chance they would fall in line (especially Baucus, who is a Democrat who always worries about losing a primary). At minimum, doing that kind of thing, rather than spending time on national/glam television and courting elite journalists/talk show hosts, gives you a better chance of delivering concrete legislative results, even if it might make you momentarily less of a pop culture celebrity.

Can you imagine a complete barnstorm now? He goes to Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, Iowa and New Mexico, then Maine for a cherry on top, and he has all Senate Finance "Gang of Six" states. He can hammer them right now, prove to everyone that a public option is what we need. If he really wanted to fight for it, he could.

What is he saving this imagined good karma for down the road? He ultimately seems to have no real interest in fighting for a public option. And I don't think anyone knows, or even can know yet, what his motivations are. What's the set up, man? Or is this a panic?