Last night I caught a bit of Hardball (it was on television at the gym) and Chris Matthews and Chuck Todd agreed that Obama was now strengthened in the health-care debate because he had found a foe/enemy/target/bogeyman in Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C. ). Host and NBC’s top political analyst concurred that Obama is strongest in a campaign environment and when he can contrast himself with some less appealing alternative.

This analysis will probably make Chris Matthews feel better, but it doesn’t actually address the problem the White House faces. No offense to Jim DeMint, but he’s not what’s holding up the passage of health-care legislation. What’s holding up the bill is the goals it aims to achieve are contradictory: spend more money by covering everyone and making sure no one is denied important care, while spending less money by reducing costs. It’s supposed to reduce the amount the country spends on health care while attempting to provide more care on a massive scale. At some point, something’s got to give, and so far, it’s the funding that falls apart the most. The cost-control projections are unfeasible, according to the CBO, and the cost to the government shatters any argument that the changes won’t add to the already-exploding deficit.

No offense to one of my favorite senators, but the problem for Obama isn’t Jim DeMint. The list of real problems is longer and more diverse: 52 Blue Dog Democrats in the House, the bipartisan Gang of Six in the Senate who want a delay, the 50 in the House Progressive Caucus who are threatening to walk if the public option isn’t extensive enough, and the various objections of Sens. Byron Dorgan, Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, etc. Obama’s own health and human services secretary is touting the return of a provision that is a poison pill to the American Medical Association’s current tentative support.

And yet, listen to the Democrats: They act as if they don’t have 60 votes in the Senate and 256 votes in the House. They constantly invoke “the Republicans” as the primary obstacle. It’s a convenient, and partisan, excuse for their own inability to construct a bill that deals with reality. On The Ed Schultz Show (yes, it was a long workout) the host veered between his traditional purple rage at Republicans and occasional incredulity that Democrats were hemmed in — and that they’re not willing to cancel their August recess to get the bill done.