Dem. Senator: Obamacare 'Cost Obama a Lot of Credibility as a Leader'

9:46 AM, Apr 19, 2012
By DANIEL HALPER
The Weekly Standard:

Democratic senator Jim Webb, who is retiring after the election, said yesterday morning that Obamacare "cost Obama a lot of credibility as a leader." The Washington Post reports:

President Obama’s new health-care law will be his greatest liability as he attempts to once again win the critical swing state of Virginia, Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) warned Wednesday.

“I’ll be real frank here,” Webb said at a breakfast organized by Bloomberg News. “I think that the manner in which the health-care reform issue was put in front of the Congress, the way that the issue was dealt with by the White House, cost Obama a lot of credibility as a leader.”

Webb voted for the law, but also for more than a dozen GOP-offered amendments to it.

“If you were going to do something of this magnitude, you have to do it with some clarity, with a clear set of objectives from the White House,” added Webb, who opted not to run for a second term this year. “...It should have been done with better direction from the White House.”