House Republicans are calling attention to this bit of news from Roll Call: “House Democrats’ health care bill has been delayed indefinitely as leaders continue negotiations with fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats.”

A president can’t avoid foreign trips, and the G8 summit, meeting with the pope, and summit with the Russians were all important priorities. But a White House’s most valuable resource is the time and attention of the president; he can’t be in two places at once. So while his time this week was largely eaten by foreign affairs, he was not able to deliver the “have patience, folks” speech that Biden did in Ohio yesterday, or to call the Blue Dogs on the Hill and gently nudge them towards his vision on health-care legislation. I had noted last week that one of the problems for Obama on health care was that he had contradictory goals and hadn’t yet given any hint of which goals were the highest priorities; the difficulty in prioritizing applies to the entire Obama agenda. If you juggle too many plates at once, sooner or later one or more comes crashing to the floor.