THIS DOESN’T SOUND LIKE CONFIDENCE:

President Obama mounted a frontal assault on the insurance industry on Saturday, accusing it of using “deceptive and dishonest ads” to derail his health care legislation and threatening to strip the industry of its longstanding exemption from federal antitrust laws. In unusually harsh terms, Mr. Obama cast insurance companies as obstacles to change interested only in preserving their own “profits and bonuses” and willing to “bend the truth or break it” to stop his drive to remake the nation’s health care system. The president used his weekly radio and Internet address to challenge industry assertions that legislation will drive up premiums.

Shrill. Desperate. Bullying. But mostly desperate. Meanwhile, speaking of “deceptive and dishonest,” what about this?

UPDATE: Reader Andrew Linder emails: “I think the question someone ought to ask Obama is whether there is anyone, anywhere who disagrees with his plan but is not ‘dishonest and deceptive’. Is such a thing even possible in Obama-world? “