The Compromise: Once More

My current opinion is that Obama made several mistakes, but this compromise was not one of them. If a fight was going to be made, it had to be made last Spring or Summer. The Republicans have little incentive to fold right now, and will have even less after the end of this Congress. If there were no tax deal, and no unemployment extension, the drag on the economy would have been very likely to stifle the economy, and it would have been very hard to pin the blame on the Republicans.

That said, the fight has been postponed. Obama's choices are to let the Republicans drive or to prepare for war now. If he's not in full warpaint by this time next year, we are truly screwed.

One thing he said this week scared the hell out of me - somebody asked him about a "line in the sand" and he said that they will find out that he has a lot of lines in the sand. That sounds like a plan for disaster. What we need is for the President to articulate a clear and sensible strategy, speak it plainly, and rally the nation behind it. Idiotic talk about yet to be fined lines of defense is just another type of premature surrender.

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