So here's my take on this whole thing. Basically, Obama is being shortsighted.

During the primary in 2008, Democrats had a choice between a hard-nosed centrist who was an experienced inside the beltway deal maker, and a passionate, idealistic newcomer who had little patience for the kinds of backroom dealings that tend to dominate our political process.

It's true that in terms of specific platforms, Clinton and Obama were almost indistinguishable. The difference was that Clinton presented that moderate, centrist platform as though it was some utopian dream, whereas Obama presented it as just what was possible now, while painting a picture of what more could be possible if we could change the political landscape by electing such an inspiring visionary.

Long story short, that's what we did.

Thing is, that person who had become the inspiring leader of a renewed progressive movement disappeared November 5th, 2008.

After that day, what we got was a not very hard-nosed centrist who was hoping to quickly become an experienced inside the beltway deal maker. He stopped trying to present his inspiring progressive vision to the American people. Instead, he basically spent all his time saying to liberals "no no, conservatives have a valid point of view." Frankly, that's insane for anyone to think anymore, and completely wrong for the leader of the primary political opposition to conservatism to say out loud, much less say in front of cameras.

He has, ever since he was inaugurated, acted like he doesn't need to reach out to the American people at all. What started as a reasonable strategy of ignoring the uglier, crazier things said about him in the media quickly became a refusal to fight for any news cycle. It seemed he had this naive idea that if he ignored politics, and focused on the mundane aspects of governance, the politics would take care of itself.

The problem with that is that the way you acquire the power to govern is by playing and winning the political game. Winning a term of office isn't the end of your political campaign, it's just another chapter. That's doubly true if you're aiming to do big things. By focusing on the inside the beltway deal making, he's ignoring the bigger picture. If he spent more time trying to rally the public to his cause, and making sure the Democratic positions on issues were being clearly expressed to the public, he'd find that when it came time to negotiate legislation, he'd be starting from a much stronger position.

This tax cut thing seems to be the ultimate culmination of this trend. He's not said one damn thing about it for almost 2 years, until the Republicans made a stink about it in the run up to the election, and rather than reiterate his position from 2008, and make that the clear, unambiguous party line that he'd veto anything but his tax plan, he and the rest of the Democrats kinda just ran away from the issue and hid, and then finally said they'd "address" the issue in the lame duck session after the election.

Democrats have a strong position on this: they still have their large majorities in both chambers of Congress, the majority of the people say they prefer Obama's tax plan, and the best part is that if nothing passes, all the Bush tax cuts expire for everyone, so if the Republican block Obama's tax cut, they'll be doubly responsible for the tax increases. Plus, with all the deficit bullshit we've been hearing, it seems like it'd be worth reminding people that the tax cuts are responsible for most of our debt, and that the more we extend them, the worse the budget picture looks.

But instead of having the fight, Obama just goes ahead and says "I'll do anything to just make sure the taxes on the middle class don't go up, what do you want in exchange for a couple votes?" to the Republicans, and they amazingly extract a huge list of concessions from Obama.

Obama justifies this thusly:

I've said before that I felt that the middle class tax cuts were being held hostage to the high end tax cuts. I think it's tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers unless the hostage gets harmed. Then, people will question the wisdom of that strategy. In this case the hostage was the American people and I was not willing to see them get harmed.

Yeah, but you kinda fail to understand that there's a larger picture here. Because you've fucked up the politics of this, no one's going to remember that the Republicans took anyone hostage. Mostly they'll just remember that you said you're not going to renew the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and then did it anyways.

The Republicans will learn (as if they didn't know before), that they can always count on you to cave when hostages are taken.

You know the debt limit needs to be raised in March of 2011, right Obama? You know they're gonna hold that hostage, right? You know unemployment benefits? Those will be held hostage again too, and I guarantee we'll need them in a year. How about just budget resolutions? Remember the government shutdown in the 90's? They wanna do that again.

This is a fucking war. Compromise isn't something that happens at the beginning of these things, it's the cease fire agreement that comes after you've unleashed hell on them and tried to defeat them outright. They are out to destroy you, and the Democratic party at all costs. They don't give a fuck about what's good for the country, or anyone but their cadre of corporate interests. All they care about is getting and retaining power, so they can be rewarded by their masters.

You need to come to grips with that, and quickly, or we're all going to wind up paying for your naivete.