Looks to me like Obama's waving the white flag of surrender. At least that's the appearance. I don't trust him any more than any other tin-pot dictator.
However, you've got to admit that this is a major (public) concession to the current political reality, on his part.
I actually don’t read this as a real concession at all. Notice he is saying that they should wait to “jam it through” until Brown is seated. They are still going to try and “jam it” via gimmicks after Brown is seated. This seems to me to be a very calculated response.