Obama will go down in history as The Ungreat Compromiser

We can only pray the Republicans will reject the deal -- they are crazy enough to do that.  But Obama will compromise again and again and again.  Even when he has all the cards and is sure of winning, he gives away his hand and goes begging.  WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS MAN????? After making big promises he doesn't intend to keep, he always deserts his base!!!

http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/111521/the-cliff-compromise-bad-the-strategic-consequences-are-disastrous


EXCERPT:  Obama could afford to be unyielding because the economic consequences of going over the cliff for a few days or weeks would be relatively minimal and almost entirely reversible. And doing so would immediately demonstrate to the GOP that public opinion was emphatically not on its side—polls showed that the public reaction to going over the cliff would be both intense and heavily trained on Republicans. Throw in Obama’s post-election bump in approval ratings, and there was never a better time to hold out.

Instead, the emerging deal will reinforce the convictions that have made the GOP such a toxic presence in Washington. If Obama will cave even when he’s got all the leverage, when won’t he cave? Never, the Republicans will assume. If Obama’s too scared to stop bargaining and let the public decide who’s right in this instance, when the polls appear to back him, then he must think our position is more popular than he lets on. Suffice it to say, these are not sentiments you want at the front of Republicans’ mind as they prepare to shake him down over the debt limit in another two months. The White House continues to maintain that it simply won't negotiate over the limit. After this deal, why would any Republican ever believe this? I certainly don’t, and I desperately want to.

As in previous rounds of Obama-GOP negotiations, a lot of liberals are surely hoping that the lunacy of the House Republicans will save us from Obama’s overly generous offers. And, it’s true, House Republicans can normally be relied upon to reject a deal that’s absurdly generous by any objective measure but falls short of their virtue-police standard of purity. They may well do so again tonight, inshallah. But that doesn’t solve the broader strategic problem. Obama has already shown his cards on the parameters that will define his negotiations with Republicans throughout his second term. And there’s no one to save us from that.