Last week, Peggy Noonan wrote:

He should confound everyone, and give a headache to his foes, by bowing to the spirit of 2010 and accepting the Bush tax cuts, top to bottom. It would be electrifying. It would seem responsive, and impress the center. And it would help Mr. Obama seem credible, not ideological or partisan but reasonable and moderate, when he weighs in on taxing and spending in the future.

This is more or less what he did. It did not create a headache for his foes. On the whole, they have been celebrating his embrace of their position. All of this created a problem for Noonan. How could she find a new angle for mocking Obama when he did the “startling” thing she advised him to do? This is how:

The president must have thought that distancing himself from left and right would make him more attractive to the center. But you get credit for going to the center only if you say the centrist position you’ve just embraced is right [bold mine-DL]. If you suggest, as the president did, that the seemingly moderate plan you agreed to is awful and you’ll try to rescind it in two years, you won’t leave the center thinking, “He’s our guy!” You’ll leave them thinking, “Note to self: Remove Obama in two years.”

In other words, it is not enough that Obama capitulate and accept a position he has specifically, publicly rejected on many occasions. He must also pretend that his capitulation is the result of a genuine change of heart. I am reminded of one of the interrogators from an episode of Babylon-5 when he says, “We don’t just want a confession; we want conversion.” It isn’t enough to break Obama. He must also admit that he was wrong all along. If he doesn’t, he doesn’t receive any of the benefits of “startling” and “electrifying” the public by his abject surrender.

She had also said:

This would further damage his relationship with the more leftward part of his base, but that can hardly be made worse [bold mine-DL], and a compromise would leave them angry anyway.

Instantly, after doing what Noonan recommended Obama’s relationship with the left was made worse. Having insisted that capitulating on the tax cuts couldn’t do much to worsen his relationship with the left, Noonan now marvels at the unprecedented spectacle of Obama’s core supporters turning on him:

You’re not supposed to get a serious primary challenge from the people who loved you. But that’s the talk of what may happen with Mr. Obama.

Last week, Obama’s relations with the left were about as bad they could be. This week, they have worsened so much that Noonan has never seen anything like it. Last week, capitulating on tax cuts was Obama’s path to political revival. This week, after he did exactly what Noonan called for, he is in such sorry shape that she has no idea how his political future can be saved:

Some Democrats will try to bring him back. How? Who knows. But that will be a great Democratic drama of 2011: Saving Obama.

Of course, it is no surprise that Obama is in worse shape now by taking the “advice” of Noonan than he was before it.