What in the world is Ed Rendell up to?

The Democratic former governor of Pennsylvania is ripping into his own party’s leader, President Barack Obama, over the faulty implementation of the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare.

Rendell didn’t merely blast Obamacare, he nuked it. Appearing earlier this week on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Rendell said the botched rollout of the healthcare.com exchange website was the worst failure of management by any Democratic president, period.

“Yeah, I think there was terrible mismanagement,” Rendell said. “If it was my program, I would have been testing it six months out; every week, I would have been running tests and the tests would have been run in front of me.”

The sharp rebuke from Rendell, a former Democratic National Committee chairman, might pose a head-scratcher for those who abide by the cardinal rule about never speaking ill of a fellow partisan. It might seem especially confusing since Obama, a lame duck, won’t be running for re-election against Rendell’s longtime political ally, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But there’s a method to Rendell’s madness, and the impetus behind his criticism sheds a little light on the presidential campaign still three years away.

After the primary battles in 2008, Obama and Clinton forged an alliance that benefited both: Obama got the backing and cooperation of a powerful political rival and a popular secretary of state; while Clinton added foreign policy experience to her resume. And, once she resigned, she had time to consider her options for 2016.

But an article this week on the Politico website hints that Clinton and Obama’s political marriage could be headed for the rocks, far sooner than is convenient for either of them.

And the Obamacare debacle is the reason why.

While nobody knows for sure how, when or even if the health care plan will eventually take shape, its intended long-term destination, universal health care, was the objective of a plan proposed 20 years ago by the Bill Clinton administration. That proposal was linked by its nickname — Hillarycare — to the chairwoman of the appointed committee that created it.

The parallels make it prudent for Clinton to begin distancing herself from Obama’s plan a full three years ahead of the 2016 election.

That’s risky, especially if Obama manages to turn his plan around and erase its many shortcomings. Clinton is astute enough not to attack Obama herself, but rather to have allies like Rendell launch her attacks by proxy.

Whether or not Obamacare eventually succeeds or fails, Clinton will have a problem: She can’t really embrace it; nor can she reject it.

Either way, Obamacare could become Clinton’s inheritance to contend with — and it doesn’t take an attack from Ed Rendell to tell you that prospect won’t sit well with the electorate.