I think many Obama defenders are using a narrow truth about the justifiable concessions effective political leaders make to balance principles against achievable political reality, to defend an absolutely unacceptable years long broader trend of seemingly irrational choices that I think deliberately establishes a conservative playing field in the background to create the parameters for the compromise. Then the Administration turns to the liberal wing and makes mournful faces about the terrible concessions we had to make.
4 case points:
1) the Affordable Care Act
2) the December 2010 Tax Cuts
3) the January 2011 failure to reform the filibuster/60 vote requirement
4) this recent debt ceiling crisis
#1 was the formative experience for analyzing the rest of the cases. I read a really persuasive analysis in early 2010 about the Affordable Care Act, which essentially said that despite all my liberal angst-no public option, weaker subsidies, slower enactment- the way the playing field was setup with 60 votes in the Senate meant that as long as conservatives and conservative Democrats could tolerate the status quo, or no bill, that meant Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman held de facto veto power. And so the bill moved to the right, and that was ok.
#2 directly led to #4 by agreeing to Republican demands to increase the deficit by extending the Bush tax cuts, without getting a debt ceiling increase in exchange. This was a deliberate choice that caused the current possibility of default.
We're not going to see the first hand consequences of #3 for a while yet, but should a miracle happen and the Democrats re-take the House in 2012, rest assured that we're going to be patted on the head and told that any effective climate change strategy, or effective liberal justice, or effective single payer is just going to be held up by Susan Collins and Lindsay Graham's demands dontchaknow. Rhetoric about how Democrats totally believe in liberal policy seems pretty vapid if they willingly embrace legislative options that make it impossible.
Finally, #4. This really irritates me. Let's ignore how Obama's rhetoric on debts and deficits started aping Republicans, let's move ahead to early July, when the Administration explicitly tried to squelch the growing movement to invoke the 14th Amendment. Just keep in mind, with compromise and negotiation, what effective use of that entails. Instead of keeping the issue alive until now as leverage, a sort of Damocles' sword hanging above the Republicans' head to minimize their demands lest Obama decide negotiation's not worth it and Republicans end up with nothing, Jay Carney and the White House PR go out of their way to say they don't believe it's a useful option. Why on earth would you shoot yourself in the foot like that? Even if you have a questionable case, its presentation as a plausible option supports your negotiating position.
My options at this juncture are to believe that Obama's either an idiot or really smart. I'm going with intelligent. I hear about 11-dimensional chess every so often, and I agree: the man's patient, and he knows how to get what he wants. He wanted a Grand Bargain that would take the deficit "off the table", and whatever wacky demands the Republicans come up with he makes a conscious choice to entertain. The seemingly haphazard way he places forks and spoons makes far more sense once I realized he's just choosing to set the table in a different way.