What weakens the argument that Yglesias is making are the instances where the president has inserted himself, has brought pressure to bear and has obtained the results he wanted.

You should also have noted that presidential leadership either takes the reality of political polarization and puts it to use, or the president's failure to use it results in his being rolled over and smashed by it.  In so many words, this can be called the "Bully pulpit" - the president can set the terms of the debate and frame it, then use the inevitable polarization to effect his agenda.  

It's also Rule #1 in the book called "Power" - i.e., "Use it.  Not using power is as good as not having power, and will result in power accruing to someone else."

I have long since come to the conclusion that Obama is not some simpering weakling inside coward-bully outside (that would be Rahm, FWIW).  Rather, he is doing and getting exactly what he wants.  

Remember, one of Obama's closest friends pre-WH was Rahm - that was one of the reasons we were given to sweeten his appointment as CofS in the first place.  In politics, it's rare to have friends of divergent philosophy, and it usually only comes after many years in office, once you've been through the wars and seen how they come out.  Obama and Rahm can be said to have exactly the same philosophy, more so because despite all Rahm's screwups during the HCR Via Dolorosa, Obama never gave any public thought to firing him. And Rahm is nothing if not a corporatist.

But let's look at the rest of it.  We have had revealed to us over the last 18 months or so just how thoroughly Obama is a corporate whore.  If things were truly bad, wouldn't Corporate America and its owners want a change?  But Corporate America is making record profits and doing so with even less employees.  Why would they want any change to that?  We have seen there is no change on the horizon and surely little to none has come already. Two conclusions can be drawn from this:  Corporate America and by extension Obama like things the way they are just fine.  Those things they don't like, get changed.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, Obama and Rahm and Corporate America are just fine with a narrow Democratic majority or even a Democratic minority in one or both houses of Congress.  That way, the Blue Dogs (effectively founded and headed by Rahm since some of you may have forgotten) will hold the balance of power in Congress.  Do the math:  If things are 210 Rep- 210 Dem, the the 15 Blue Dogs in the middle determine what does and does not get done.  Even 8 of them would decide the outcome, in that example.  We've already seen all the effort spent in getting one senator to change their vote to msake 60 - it will happen in the House.  (NB:  note also that every Dem candidate supported by Obama in a primaried election has been either a Blue Dog, or a DINO like Specter.  EVer wonder why?) We've seen that in operation over the last two years in the Senate.  Nominess who would have shaken things up (Dawn Johnsen first among them) get hung out to dry on the rack of Blue Dog opposition - actually not even explicit opposition but rather just a "we don't have the votes", even when there were 60 Democrats in the Senate.  Does anyone here really think Ben Nelson would go off the reservation as often and as flagrantly as he has without the tacit approval and perhaps encouragement of the White House?  Address it from the other direction:  Do you think Ben Nelson would continue going off the Democratic reservation after receiving a call from Obama (or Rahm or a staffer) sayng "Don't ever do that again" with the "or else" implicit?

Nope.  Barry's getting exactly what he and his corporate masters want.  Stability.  Gridlock.  No rollback of the gains - reorienting and gaming the system, especially - Corporate America made in the Bush years.  Profitability.  The one thing which threatens those states is a strong Democratic majority, because they want change.  And Corporate America, ossified and tied up in massive debt and without any real talent left (all the talent went into the degenerate gamblers' houses of Wall Street) cannot adapt to change.  They know it, and demand no change.

So, the WH does what it can - a lot, BTW - to effect that:  depress enthusiasm in the Dem base, present and push truly awful corporate whore candidates and wreck the candidacies of non-whore candidates, and generally destroy the grassroots (50 State strategy, anyone?  That bought it within days of the last election.) in favor of a top-down command politics.

Oh, and they even made sure to omit reconciliation so that can't be used next year like it was to finally get HCR.

Nope.  They're getting what they want in the WH, and why should they care.  Obama will never have to buy lunch again and he is sure to make gobs of money writing awful books or sitting on boards ofdirectors or investing in real estate with a billionaire buddy (like Bill Clinton did).

The GOP hates Latinos...