I know, I know, I’ll probably lose my firedoglake blogging privileges for this post…but, I endorse the begrudging acceptance of this deal.  Should the upper marginal tax rate been unhinged from the rest of the Bush tax cuts before the election and voted on?  Absolutely, but we can’t put shit back into the donkey and we have plenty of donkeys already too full of shit anyways.

Republicans will do nothing until they get tax cuts for millionaires, period.  Oh, 9/11 rescue people are yakking up bloody lung cookies think they need a doctor?  Tough, give us bankster bailout tax cuts.  Babies for unemployed are crying for milk during Christmas?  Give ’em a Kleenex, we want tax cuts for billion dollar Wall Street check kiters.  Soviet loose nukes are outing gays in the military swelling the ranks of unemployed?  Extend Dick Cheney’s tax break and we’ll talk.

I get it.  Republicans are dicks.  Well, not really since a dick serves a useful function, but they have made it clear that they are willing to plug up the plumbing worse than if someone ate a brick of velveeta cheese.  But the question remains is it possible to get anything done whatsoever with the Republican party absolutely dedicated to getting tax cuts extended for their Billionaire BFF’s?  No.

Will they blink if we do this and that and the other thing?  If people are asking this they haven’t been paying attention.  Besides, by not playing absolute brinksmanship, it removes the option of demonstrating the republicans are absolutely in the pocket of the wealthy.  I cannot fault the President for seeing an epic logjam in his face with no one seeking a path through.  Certainly not Harry Reid, what, are you fucking kidding me?

He knew what the Republicans had to have, hell, everybody knows what the Republicans had to have.  Nothing, and I mean nothing was going through the lame duck until the Republicans got what they wanted, so he stacked in some stuff he wanted and broke the log jam.  Do I like extending the Bush tax cuts for Bush donors?  No.  The POS estate tax compromise is outrageous.  But he broke the logjam and won some concessions from an intransigent party.

Further than this issue, progressives are left wandering if the President has anything, anything at all he is uncompromising on.  What, for the middle class, is he willing to go to the mat for?  If the President is looking to me for advice, I shudder at the possibility, I would council him to go before the House of Representatives, cameras rolling, and declare unequivocally that this deal is meant to get us past this hump and at the end of the this two year extension of tax cuts for millionaires his veto pen awaits any attempt to extend it further.  And he will go to the mat.  If he does this, I may change my schedule from fishing to voting for his re-election.