It is no overstatement to say that a, if not the, defining moment in Barack Obama’s presidency will come when he addresses the joint session of congress next Wednesday. While the topic will be health care reform the real subject will be one word- spine. This will be the moment when Obama stares congress and the country in the eye and tells us all in unavoidably clear and uncertain terms exactly what it is he stands for, if indeed he stands for anything (and anything short of clear and uncertain will indeed be very clear and certain). Up to this point, while some Obama Love backlash was inevitable, with tens of thousands of lawless military contractors still roaming unchecked in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bagram Air Force Base functionally serving as the new Gitmo, drones still killing civilians, and our national debates on energy, the economy and health care now totally dominated by the demented screams of the lunatic fringe, “yes we can” has turned into “What the F**K?”

Politics, of course, like life in general, is not fair. It is a rough sport that never shies away from bald faced lies and shameless naked whoring. Idealists from both sides of the spectrum, from soppy, love everyone lefties to purist anti-government conservatives either sell out and learn how to survive on the mean streets and K Street Markets or they get chewed up and spit out. It is a terribly discouraging sign, however, that the Obama White House seems truly surprised by the strength of the vitriol that has been spewed their way. Did he really think governing was going to be like a grad seminar where everyone rests their forefingers against their cheeks and nods gently while they endlessly discuss nuanced concepts and came together in the end on a useless shared definition of post-modernism? Did Rahm Emanuel really think Obama was some kind of Obe Wan Kenobi figure who was going to magically make a progressive agenda real?

Rightly or wrongly, fairly or unfairly, the word is out on the street that Obama is really just a big pussy who can be rolled. Sure he got a few things through in the first hundred days when Stevie Wonder’s voice could still be heard echoing through the Mall, but the new savior quarterback who took the field to the deafening cheers of the American people has now fumbled and fumbled badly and the stadium has gone silent. His once mighty ground organization that so many thought would redefine political power in favor of the people and the grass roots over special interests proved no match for corporate astroturf. It is now a confused, dispirited and shrinking flock unable to do much more than stage impotent protests in San Francisco or L.A. of the embarrassing sort we’ve all been ignoring for decades.

And so it comes down to next Wednesday for Obama to tell us all what he is made of. Will he stand up and say “THIS is what I want” and fight for it, twist arms for it, and find a way as FDR made Social Security, or LBJ made Medicare or Reagan made deregulation happen? Or, as was reported today from a White House source, is his blood in the Republican water to the extent that he is basically willing to give up anything just to get anything he can call “a deal.” Is he, as he now appears, the new kid who so wants so desperately to be liked that he’ll just give away his lunch money before even being hit up for it? If he is, he will not only be a one-term disaster, but he will effectively take the hopes and dreams of progressives, Democrats, and just basically decent Americans with him. Actually, it will be a lot worse than even that.