“SWIFT BOATING” MEANS TO TELL THE TRUTH, WHICH ISN’T USUALLY HER BAG. How Elizabeth Warren Just ‘Swift Boated’ Herself On Health Care.

The past several weeks have seen Warren turn her biggest strength—her wonky, “I’ve got a plan for that” persona—into a weakness. On November 1, she released her first health-care plan, replete with multiple documents highlighting supposed savings under a single-payer health-care system, and her plan for raising revenue to pay for such a system without raising taxes on the middle class.

Warren’s first plan drew mockery from her fellow Democratic candidates and conservative commentators alike for its unrealistic gimmicks and assumptions. Most notably, Warren’s plan failed to concede what one of her own advisors implicitly admitted: That an $8.8 trillion “employer contribution” would ultimately come out of the pockets of the middle class. Meanwhile, her opponents continued to hammer Warren for wanting to strip away the existing insurance of millions of Americans, including union workers who negotiated their health coverage at the bargaining table.

Her initial plan failed so badly that exactly two weeks later, Warren felt the need to reboot. She released another health plan, this one highlighting a supposed “transition period,” to get ahead of criticism from her fellow Democrats in the upcoming presidential debate.

This plan pledged that, within her first 100 days in office, Warren would work to enact “a true Medicare for All option”—one that people could select if they chose, but would not require individuals to give up their existing coverage. Only later, “no later than my third year in office,” would Warren “fight to pass legislation that would complete the transition” to a full single-payer system.

The second plan seems like a deliberate dodge, an attempt for Warren to have her cake and eat it too.

She’ll let us eat cake, too.