Over at the American Spectator blog, Quin assesses the reports that the Obama administration’s response to Scott Brown’s win will be an even more aggressive and combative stance…

1) It won’t work.

2) Obama will make himself so unpopular by doubling down that he will find himself at absolute political war with a solid majority of the country.

3) He will try to use executive orders, regulatory/bureaucratic edicts, and a corrupt Justice Department to force through leftist changes in all sorts of areas of daily life. In short, he will become more openly authoritarian. This means we are in for some rocky times. This man is playing for keeps, and he is not a small ‘r’ republican at heart. He is an Alinskyite. Power is everything to him. All who believe in limited government must gird up our loins, because (sorry for the cliches) Barack Obama will not go gentle into that good night.

My take…

1. Quin’s right; it won’t work. We have a quote from Barney Frank which pretty much surrenders on Obamacare:

“I have two reactions to the election in Massachusetts. One, I am disappointed. Two, I feel strongly that the Democratic majority in Congress must respect the process and make no effort to bypass the electoral results. If Martha Coakley had won, I believe we could have worked out a reasonable compromise between the House and Senate health care bills. But since Scott Brown has won and the Republicans now have 41 votes in the Senate, that approach is no longer appropriate. I am hopeful that some Republican Senators will be willing to discuss a revised version of health care reform because I do not think that the country would be well-served by the health care status quo. But our respect for democratic procedures must rule out any effort to pass a health care bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened. Going forward, I hope there will be a serious effort to change the Senate rule which means that 59 votes are not enough to pass major legislation, but those are the rules by which the health care bill was considered, and it would be wrong to change them in the middle of the process.”

That sounds like capitulation. Couple it with Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA), who addresses the same question Frank does of whether to screw around with seating Brown in hopes of pulling a deal together on Obamacare first:

“In many ways the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process. It is vital that we restore the respect of the American people in our system of government and in our leaders. To that end, I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated.”

Webb doesn’t say it, and he doesn’t have to, but to wait until Brown is seated is akin to bailing out on a plan which will now be filibustered to death. He’s bailing on Obama just like Frank is.

Obamacare is now dead just like Cap And Trade is dead.

On Quin’s No. 2, he is completely correct that if the Obama administration doesn’t read its history and begin to tack to the center the same way Bill Clinton did under Dick Morris’ advice then underwater approval ratings which make George W. Bush look like George Washington are in store. What is at least possible, however, is that heads are about to start rolling at the White House and Obama’s team is about to break up. You simply can’t fail in such a colossal manner, have it become obvious in so stark a manner as was laid out by Brown’s victory in Massachusetts tonight and pretend that things aren’t falling apart badly. If Rahm Emanuel, Robert Gibbs and/or David Axelrod all get squashed in the potential putsch at the White House, don’t be surprised.

And with new people quite possibly would come a new approach. Should Obama change horses, look for more Robert Gateses and less Valerie Jarretts.

As to his No. 3, Quin is probably right on the money. When Cap And Trade went into the Senate toilet, the Obama response was to squelch carbon emissions by EPA regulatory fiat. Bad legislation so far appears to be the carrot for this crowd, and something even worse is the stick. We will see the stick – or at least we will unless my theory of an overhaul of the White House is correct.

Either way, the current center cannot hold. Without a major change in direction, this White House might well destroy the Democrat Party as a viable national entity by the end of this year. But while Clinton was famous for his personal charisma, resourcefulness and chameleonlike ability to turn on a dime, Obama has shown no such versatility; he’s a more rigid ideologue with no experience in responding to adversity, and his immaturity as a leader does not appear to be in the process of abating.

It’s still a very fluid situation, but Quin’s prediction of a stormy future for the president and the country he leads looks very reasonable and will likely come true without a major shift. If no heads roll at the White House in the next two weeks, the smart money wouldn’t be against his predictions.