Gene Lyons: Tax cut deal: Obama bought himself precious time

[flpoljunkie]

Tax cut deal: Obama bought himself precious time
The president got Republicans to budge, and avoided a bruising, futile confrontation over taxes

BY GENE LYONS

If anybody wanted to erect a statue of President Obama after his first two years, the unofficial White House motto should be engraved on the base: "Thank you, Sir. May I have another?"

To liberal Democrats, Obama's putative bargain with Republican leaders extending the Bush millionaires' tax cuts for two years amounted to craven surrender. Is there nothing this president will fight for? Has his vision of himself as a transformative figure, his sheer narcissism, made him confuse the rough-and-tumble of Washington with the genteel precincts of the Harvard Law Review?

Or did he simply get rolled? Blackmailed? Bullied into submission by ruthless adversaries who see his conciliatory efforts as a sign of weakness? The left-leaning Huffington Post headline read: "Obama Caves, the Rich Save."

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http://www.salon.com/news/politics/barack_obama/index.html?story=/opinion/feature/2010/12/08/obama_buys_precious_time