Greg Sargent: "Did the president surrender, or did he do the best he could?"

Greg Sargent:

Again, I want to stress that I wish Obama had done all the things critics say he should have done. Why didn’t he? Was it a political decision to project a desire for compromise at the outset to win independents? Did he, as Jonathan Chait argues, seriously misjudge opponents? I tend to think Obama sincerely decided that a more table-pounding approach would have been counter-productive. That’s who Obama is. Whatever the reason, we simply can’t know whether a more aggressive approach from Obama would have changed the basic dynamics of the situation or resulted in a better deal.

But it’s precisely because we can’t know that I hope he will do things differently next time, perhaps when the battle rejoins over the expiration of the Bush tax cuts — a fight which, if he wins, will make the current deal far better. The current dynamic just has to be changed somehow, because it’s untenable. MORE...