Obama lost nothing in this deal.
The only way the political ground might have shifted under Obama is that he won this war and is on more solid ground. He and the democrats made buffoons out of Boehner and McConnell once again.
So now during the 2012 campaign he can claim he compromised with republicans but their plan only made things worse, yada, yada, yada.....
I am book marking your post, so I can come back to it in a year and see how profoundly correct you are. I agree 100% with you on this.