Mutiny against Obama over Bush Tax Cuts? -The iPINIONS Journal

I am still on sick leave, but I’m getting sicker watching far-left Democrats Carterize President Obama over the compromise he struck with Republicans yesterday to, effectively, extend Bush-era tax cuts for the rich in exchange for extending unemployment benefits for the poor. In fact, this has incited such mutinous rage among these folks that they seem even more determined now than far-right Republicans are to see Obama’s presidency fail.

Of course I understand why they are so beside themselves. For this was probably the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back when it comes to Obama reneging on campaign promises that far-left Democrats thought they could believe in.

But, as my October 2006 commentary entitled Run Obama Run will attest, I was a die-hard Obama supporter long before most of these disillusioned folks even knew his name. More to the point, I have always known and accepted that the key to his appeal as a transformative politician was his pragmatism.

I was also mindful, however, that the bane of his presidency would be left-wing ideologues who would mistake his pragmatism for weakness. But I was confident that Obama would always have enough self-confidence to make pragmatic compromises despite carping from the left:

I’m sure the congenitally pragmatic Obama will have a moderating influence on Congressional Democrats, which will prevent them from pursuing a radical agenda that could undermine his presidency….

(Bad omen for Republicans, TIJ, October 28, 2008)

This is why I was not at all surprised when he began angering liberals by, well, governing just like Bush:

In what has to be the most ironic, and potentially implosive, development of his nascent presidency, Barack Obama is being dogged more by criticisms from liberals than from conservatives.

Specifically, liberals are simmering with disillusionment over the fact that he has been systematically adopting many of Bush’s war-on-terror tactics, which they, and he, routinely condemned during last year’s presidential campaign

(Obama angers liberals by governing just like Bush, The iPINIONS Journal, May 14, 2009)

Given this, it is hardly surprising to me that Obama is now reneging on his promise to end the Bush tax cuts which have so favored millionaires and billionaires. More importantly, I am convinced that he is doing so simply because it is the only pragmatic thing to do under the circumstances.

Never mind that there’s scant evidence to support Republican assertions that these tax cuts will stimulate jobs; not least because all they stimulated during the Bush administration were huge deficits and high unemployment. This renders demonstrably specious their warning that the failure to extend them will trigger a double-dip recession….

Frankly, I see no point in commenting on all of the political arguments left-wing Democrats are proffering to justify their rage. But nothing demonstrates how ignorant, hysterical, and misguided this rage is quite like their fulminating about Obama not fighting hard enough against the Bush tax cuts; i.e., arguing that “he caved”.

Because Obama spent the entire summer and fall decrying these cuts and warning about what dire consequences would befall the country if Republicans had their way. In fact this was the main theme of his stump speech as he campaigned on behalf of Congressional Democrats. Yet, despite his best efforts, Republicans gave Democrats a “shellacking” in midterm elections. And now they will have their way: that’s politics; that’s democracy.

Therefore, I shall suffice to quote a little of what Obama proffered during his press conference yesterday to justify his decision to strike this compromise:

Let me say that on the Republican side, this is their holy grail, these tax cuts for the wealthy. This is — seems to be their central economic doctrine. And so, unless we had 60 votes in the Senate at any given time, it would be very hard for us to move this forward…

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.

I’m focused on making sure that tens of millions of hardworking Americans are not seeing their paychecks shrink on January 1st just because the folks here in Washington are busy trying to score political points… And in exchange for a temporary extension of the high-income tax breaks — not a permanent but a temporary extension — a policy that I opposed but that Republicans are unwilling to budge on, this agreement preserves additional tax cuts for the middle class that I fought for and that Republicans opposed two years ago…

A long political fight that carried over into next year might have been good politics, but it would be a bad deal for the economy and it would be a bad deal for the American people. And my responsibility as President is to do what’s right for the American people. That’s a responsibility I intend to uphold as long as I am in this office.

So this notion that somehow we are willing to compromise too much reminds me of the debate that we had during health care. This is the public option debate all over again. So I pass a signature piece of legislation where we finally get health care for all Americans, something that Democrats had been fighting for a hundred years, but because there was a provision in there that they didn’t get that would have affected maybe a couple of million people, even though we got health insurance for 30 million people and the potential for lower premiums for 100 million people, that somehow that was a sign of weakness and compromise.

Now, if that’s the standard by which we are measuring success or core principles, then let’s face it, we will never get anything done… This is a big, diverse country. Not everybody agrees with us… And that means because it’s a big, diverse country and people have a lot of complicated positions, it means that in order to get stuff done, we’re going to compromise…

I don’t think there’s a single Democrat out there, who if they looked at where we started when I came into office and look at where we are now, would say that somehow we have not moved in the direction that I promised.

Take a tally. Look at what I promised during the campaign. There’s not a single thing that I’ve said that I would do that I have not either done or tried to do. And if I haven’t gotten it done yet, I’m still trying to do it….

(The White House Blog, December 7, 2010)

Enough said … about the substance of this matter. Unfortunately, far-left Democrats seem more interested in Obama’s style in dealings with Republicans than in what substance he derives from those dealings. So for all those who are still harboring some perverse desire to see Obama go gangsta on Republicans, I reiterate the following:

The real narrative arc of course is that columnists (like Dowd) who once fawned over Obama’s style are now criticizing it. But I hope Obama shows the same indifference towards their criticisms that he showed when they were swooning over him not so long ago. Because it would be a travesty if he were to try now to emulate that emotional chameleon Bill Clinton – who these same media prima donnas ridiculed for continually feigning emotions just to curry political favor.

(Spill turns swooning over Obama toxic, June 7, 2010)

“To thine own self be true” Obama. Far-left Democrats will come to their senses soon enough….

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