Obama's Conundrum

It's going to be an impossible task to balance our budget if we are not tackling rising health care costs.- Barack Obama

http://www.kaisernetwork.org/Daily_Reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=57671

The reason that tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everyone else they were taking on.- Howard Dean

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/53126

If Howard Dean is correct that Obama cannot address burgeoning health care costs through tort reform because he is beholden to the generosity of the trial lawyers that would indicate that Obama is a craven political animal (as if further evidence were necessary).

What other possible reason could account for Obama's failure to even mention tort reform as a possible cost-cutting measure?