Two WaPost liberal op-eders get antsy about Obama

Eugene Robinson decries “healthcare reform” that isn’t, while Robert Kuttner, who wants real populist anger that Obama simply will not “do,” despair of “change” from him. Notes Kuttner:

So where are the liberal protesters? The initiative has passed to the know-nothing right for two big reasons.

One is Obama himself. This president recoils from confrontation, even with those who are out to destroy him. He has had ample opportunities to put himself on the side of popular economic grievances and to connect America's economic troubles to the forces that Roosevelt called "economic royalists." But Obama, whose propensity for consensus is hard-wired, keeps passing up those opportunities.

Even now, he won't make clear that the private insurance industry is the problem. Recent administration statements on the "public" insurance option have been classics of mixed messaging. Obama's economic team is far too cozy with Wall Street, fanning populist suspicions.

Robinson, after wondering what the “essential” element is, if it’s not the public option, has more in Kuttner’s line:

If conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats are successful in nixing a public health insurance option and watering down other reforms, progressive voters have a right to ask why they went to such trouble to elect Democratic majorities and a Democratic president.

Did either one of these gents say that a year or more ago, though?