Here’s what’s so strange about the Dem leaders’ acute angina over the Obama tax cut compromise.
Rewind to last month: Democratic aides — and even some legislators — are predicting a cave. They see the end game — a temporary extension of all the Bush tax cuts — but they don’t want to get there without 1). putting the GOP on the record blocking middle-income cuts, and 2). securing some goodies for themselves. Unemployment was one possibility. A vote on the START treaty was another. But something.
Well…that’s exactly what they got.
Same thing goes in the House. The fact that the Dems lost their nerve and didn’t vote on tax cuts before the election has been rehashed to death. But most seem to have forgotten that the reason, which is that several dozen Democrats were pushing for…a temporary extension of the Bush cuts. They got their wish before, and now that the White House needs a sizable number of Democrats to back their compromise with the GOP, they’re getting it again.
That doesn’t mean the rest of the Democratic party has to be thrilled about it. And clearly they’re not. But the idea that top Democrats were broadsided by this week’s announcement — which actually exceeded the rumors in some ways — is pretty ridiculous.
