MICHAEL BARONE: Government by faculty lounge subject to repeal.

President Obama went up to Capitol Hill Wednesday to counsel congressional Democrats on how to save Obamacare. Or at least that’s how his visit was billed.

But to judge from the responses of some of the Democrats, his advice was typical of the approach he’s taken to legislation in his eight years as president. Which is to say, disengaged, above the fray, detached from any detailed discussion of how legislation actually works.

He was “very nostalgic,” said Louise Slaughter, ranking Democrat on the House Rules Committee. But, she added, he left it up to Hill Democrats to come up with a strategy to protect Obamacare.

This is in line with the standoffish relations Obama has had with members of Congress, even with Democrats who are inclined to be and capable of being helpful. Schmoozing with those he gives the impression of regarding as his inferiors has not been his style.

Nor has he ever seemed interested in the content of laws, even his trademark healthcare legislation. His February 2010 decision to move forward on Obamacare despite the election of Republican Sen. Scott Brown in Massachusetts meant accepting a bill with multiple flaws, many of them glaringly visible after passage.

But policy just wasn’t his thing. And isn’t now. At the Hill meeting Obama, according to Massachusetts Democrat Bill Keating, was “basically saying let’s not get down into policy language.” The key word there may be “down.”

Indeed.