Then: Senator Obama on April 25, 2005, speaking about President Bush's effort to privatize Social Security:

"I mean, the fact of the matter is, is the president has been on his 60-day tour, and everywhere he goes the numbers just get worse. The American people have essentially voted on this proposal and really what you have is a situation now where I think that the president and the Republican Congress are going to need to figure out a way to save face and -- and step back a little bit. And if -- if they let go of their egos -- listen, I've been on the other side of this where -- particularly with my wife. (laughter) Where I've gotten in an argument and then at some point in the argument it dawns on me, you know what, I'm wrong on this one and it's -- it's -- it's irritating, it's frustrating. You don't want to admit it, and so to the extent that we can provide the president with a graceful mechanism to -- to say we're sorry, Dear, then I think that would be -- that would be helpful."

Now:  Approval of President Obama's health care proposals is at 37%. He's toured the country and given dozens of speeches about health care over the last year and, to borrow Obama's own words, "everywhere he goes the numbers just get worse."

Yet instead of taking his own advice from 2005 and finding a graceful way to pull the plug, the President insists that the real problem is that the public doesn't understand his proposals, that his biggest mistake last year wasn't explaining them well enough, and he insists on pushing forward and "punching" something through.

UPDATE: Megan McArdle catches the New York Times in an equally embarrasing "then vs. now" moment regarding Bush's Social Security effort in 2005 and Obama's health care push this year.

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