By flopping on healthcare, has Obamaa abandoned his base?

John Nichols @ The Nation - President Obama spoke loudly but carried a small stick Wednesday night, when he outlined what's left of his health-care reform agenda in a rare address to a joint session of the Congress.

But for all of its rhetorical flourishes, this was not a too-the-barricades address by a president who was prepared to battle not just the lies about his plan but the compromises that would make universal health care the dream deferred.

When it came to the task of offering the explanations, arguments and details that have been so hard to come by during a frustratingly unfocused debate about how to develop a functional health-care system for a country where tens of millions of Americans have no insurance coverage and tens of millions more are under-insured, Obama remained disturbingly vague. Read more.