Never Missing An Opportunity To Miss An Opportunity

As we've noted before, we believe that President Obama's negotiating style leaves a lot to be desired. First on health insurance reform, he capitulated on the public option before negotiations even began with a Rethuglican opposition that was not negotiating in good faith. Then, during the lame duck session, he caved on extensions of the Bushit tax cuts for the top 1%, despite broad public support for letting the rates rise on the rich. Recently, he played on the Rethuglicans' favorite field -- cutting gummint spending -- without even questioning their premises. Then there's Gitmo and his failure to support labor battles in Wisconsin, Ohio, etc. While this may earn him a handful of points with "independent" conservatives who won't vote for him at the end of the day, it's weakening his support with many progressives.

Concerning the upcoming budget war, the Kaplan Daily's Ruth "Magic" Marcus cites the White House's late-to-the-game response to the radical Rethuglican budget proposal (emphasis added):

"First, [Obama] did not lift a finger to help his co-chairs, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, assemble the 14 votes necessary to get the commission’s plan a congressional vote. Then, when the plan was released, the president pointedly declined to express a view. He stuck to the vagueness strategy in his State of the Union address and his 2012 budget proposal. In the meantime, the void was filled — and the playing field was shifted even further rightward — by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. The Wisconsin Republican unveiled a plan that makes the centrist Simpson-Bowles proposal look as if it were written by Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean."

We'll see how he does in today's unveiling of his "vision" on the budget. The fact that he's conceded turf to the Rethuglicans already on tax rates for the rich and deep cuts in spending isn't a promising start.