So we finally have a new health care bill. Yay, I guess.

It certainly took long enough, and I cannot help but feel that it wasted a lot of time. I know health care is an important topic, but so are many other things: poverty, nutrition (i.e. our incredibly high obesity rate), gay marriage, abortion, the legalization of marijuana and, oh yes, the two wars we’re fighting right now. Let’s not forget about that.

I suppose the problem is that these are all important issues and to focus exclusively on any one of them is to make the others seem shafted. So Obama was willing to fight this one out to the very end; does that mean he cares more about health care than Iraq? Probably not, but the fact remains that he chose health care first. It’s possible he thought he would just “get it out of the way” before moving on to the “really serious” issues. If so, he was sorely mistaken about how long it would take. He has now wasted over a year and has only three years left. Can he actually accomplish everything else on his agenda before his time is up?

Or will everything else become a year-long ordeal as well?

Here’s a question: because Obama fought for this for so long until he won, what would have happened if the bill hadn’t passed? Would he have battled until the end of his presidency? If that were the case, could he possibly have expected to get reelected?

Certainly not. Lyndon Johnson allowed all his dreams and plans for the “Great Society” to go down the tubes because of his stubbornness regarding Vietnam. Might something similar happen here? It remains to be seen.

It’s interesting, though, if you think about it. Here I am complaining about how uncompromising Obama is, and yet the thing we complain about the most when it comes to politicians is how they compromise too much. So why do I feel compelled to criticize him now? Maybe it’s because I am aware that what he’s doing here isn’t making him any more popular, and I’m simply reacting in accord with public opinion. For to do anything else would be to acknowledge that Obama is special, the one man in the government who genuinely cares about making the country a better place, rather than just another politician, which, I have a feeling, is exactly what he is.

So if we (safely) assume that Obama is just another politician, who really cares more about getting reelected and securing his place in the history books than actually improving the lives of the people, then we really have no choice but to conclude his refusal to back down was stupid and potentially dangerous, because if it hadn’t worked, it would have spelled R-U-I-N for both Obama and his precious plans. Of course, it did work, and the success of the new bill could potentially secure his poll numbers while he readies his next project, so maybe it wasn’t such a bonehead move after all.

In the end, the results are all that matter.

Trey Treviño is a sophomore CTV major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].