Various progressive types have been saying, to various degrees, that our Compromiser-in-Chief (a couple of Facebook friends think "Dear Leader" has gotten too snarky or too creepy, so sad) did less than he could have done on the fiscal slope compromise.
I certainly do.
Let's riff on my headline.
Obama gave away leverage in two big ways and areas — the Alternative Minimum Tax and the debt ceiling.
On the AMT, it was good tax policy, true, but it was horrible political policy. The AMT needed to be indexed to inflation, that's the good tax policy. It didn't need to be indexed unless part of a bigger deal; that's the bad political policy.
The leverage lost there is small potatoes, though, to not making a debt ceiling fix part of that "bigger deal."
Given that 2/3 of House Republicans voted against a bill that was a slam dunk in the Senate and where Obama had had leverage, up to that moment, he's likely to get his head handed to him on a platter in mid-February, or his ass kicked.
No, I take that back.
The Compromiser-in-Chief will hand his own head to the House GOP in advance and therefore We the People will get our asses kicked.
More proof? The first act of the new GOP House? A move to ... wait for it ... repeal Obamacare.
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