[In light of news that Obama is headed to Massachusetts after all, it's only right that I update this piece:

Democratic officials disclosed the president's plans Friday on condition of anonimity because they were not authorized to pre-empt a White House announcement.

"If Scott Brown wins, it'll kill the health bill," Democrat Barney Frank, D-Mass., said, underscoring the stakes of Tuesday's special election.

Well, if this roll of the dice fails for Obama and Brown ends up winning anyway, most of us that care will scarcely be able to stop the tear-inspiring belly laugh that will surely ensue.

The rest of us need to send him more money. Good Luck Scott-give 'em hell...who needs Bambi when you have Rudy? Those other guys aren't so tough.]

Original post below the fold…

President Obama has become skittish, it would seem, given his unexpected *new* routine of losing/failing every time he tries. So much so, he is leaving Coakley out to dry on her own in Massachusetts:

Coming off stinging election losses in Virginia and New Jersey — not to mention Copenhagen, where he failed to win the 2016 Olympics for his hometown of Chicago — President Obama is staying away from what could become another painful loss.

Even though the campaign of Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has been making quiet entreaties, the president has no plans to visit her in the last week of the special election to fill the Senate seat once held by the late Edward M. Kennedy.

“It’s not on our schedule to go to next week,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said matter-of-factly.

With Mrs. Coakley flagging in the polls and Republican Scott Brown closing fast — one recent polls puts him 2 points ahead — Mr. Obama has decided to keep his fingerprints off a race that would be an embarrassment for Democrats should they lose, given that Mr. Obama won the state in 2008 by a 27 point margin.

I think it’s fair to say that the President, needing every vote he can find to pass healthcare, has resigned himself to the reality he might lose that agenda item anyway and is becoming increasingly more worried about salvaging the rest of his term and his re-election chances in 2012. What else would explain his “deer in the headlights” attitude about a state that has sent 2 Democrats to the US Senate for as far back as any of us can remember?

It seems to me, sitting out here in the cheap seats, that our fearful leader has far too much time left in his tenure on Pennsylvania Avenue to flush the whole kaboodle (and whatever might be left of his political capital) over one seat at the Liberal table.

Funny how he’s starting to throw his colleagues under the bus now, even BEFORE they are relevant.