Not really, but let's pretend he does as Booman argues. I think it would be most helpful to the public option cause if the story played that way. Here is what White House flack Dan Pfeiffer wrote, basically a repeat of his statement to Ambinder on Friday:

President Obama [. . .] supports the public option [. . .] That continues to be the President's position. [. . .] President Obama completely supports [the Senate leadership's] efforts and has full confidence they will succeed and continue the unprecedented progress that is being made in both the House and Senate.

Certainly this makes it tougher for Obama to publically support triggers. That's a good thing. His earlier dithering has done plenty of damage to the public option cause, not just in the Senate, as Jon Cohn reports, but in the House, as Roll Call reports. Hopefully this will stop the bleeding. At least until Obama and his team try to gut the public option again.

Speaking for me only