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White House aides are anxious to portray the deal Obama cut with the Republicans over the extension of the Bush tax cuts as a shrewd move to the center. It was nothing of the sort. It was surrender pure and simple. It was as much of a “compromise” as that reached between Grant and Lee at Appomattox and between Emperor Hirohito and General MacArthur on the deck of the Missouri in Tokyo Bay in 1945! When Bill Clinton triangulated, he never abandoned his personal view or his policy preferences. He had always endorsed welfare reform and embraced both the work...

There's a lot of noise today about promoting political squishiness to a virtue and endorsing the notion that compromise for its own sake is noble. I uncompromisingly dissent. First, let's understand that compromise for pragmatic purposes or out of political necessity is wholly different from compromise for its own sake. It is the latter I reject, recognizing that the former is, by definition, sometimes the best of the bad options. Those types of decisions have to be made on a case-by-case basis with a thorough evaluation of the available options and the short- and long-term implications of settling for the...

On a conference call with “Organizing for America” supporters tonight, President Obama explained his compromise with Republicans over tax cuts, saying that the “harm” the economy would suffer was “too great” to be able to afford a fight. If the middle class tax cuts put in place last decade would have expired, “that would have cost our economy nearly a million jobs,” Obama said. “All of this would have been damaging to those individual families," he said. "It would have been profoundly damaging to the economy, as well, at a time when, frankly, the economy is growing but we still...

When President Bush and a Republican Congress cut income taxes for everyone who paid them, most Democrats were opposed. Once the legislation passed, though, they quickly realized that as a matter of politics they had to support the bulk of the tax cuts. They could not be seen to oppose the reduction in tax rates for middle-income workers, or the expansion of the child tax credit. They remained hostile, however, to the tax cuts on dividends, capital gains, and high incomes. They ran two presidential campaigns on a platform of extending the “good” tax cuts while letting the “bad” ones...

President Obama said Monday night that an agreement had been reached with the Republican leadership to extend both the Bush tax cuts and federal unemployment benefits. The Bush tax cuts, including the cuts for the richest taxpayers, would be extended by two years; federal unemployment benefits would be extended until the end of 2011. The deal also evidently extends some of the tax breaks in last year’s stimulus package.

I don't know about you, but I voted in November to send a message to stop run-away spending, stop government expansion, and defend our country from our enemies. I voted against incumbents, both Republican and Democrats, who voted against my wishes. Yes, I celebrated with my compatriots across the country who voted the same way I did. Unfortunately I am sensing that this new class of politicians may disappoint just like the last one! Already I am getting a sinking feeling in my gut that this new crop of politicians may fall prey to the same inside the beltway disease....

The Democrats resent their recent losses and propose to take their anger out on American taxpayers — with a massive tax hike presented as a compromise on extending the Bush tax rates. It may be bad news for taxpayers, investors, the jobless, and the economy at large, but the Democrats’ intransigent insistence on sticking to their class-warfare platform is excellent news for incoming Republicans, inasmuch as it suggests that the Democrats still have not figured out exactly why the nation visited an almighty shellacking upon them on Election Day. Many congressional Democrats first wanted to undo what they still insist...

CANCUN, Mexico (AFP) – A new round of UN climate talks got underway on Monday to appeals for action and compromise after the squabbles that drove last year's global summit in Copenhagen close to disaster. "A richer tapestry of efforts is needed," UN climate chief Christiana Figueres warned, as she spelt out the tasks facing the 12-day conference in the Mexican resort city of Cancun. "A tapestry of holes will not work -- and the holes can only be filled in through compromise." President Felipe Calderon of Mexico, whose country is hosting the conference, also appealed for common purpose. "Climate...

Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah will likely become the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee early next year. From that perch, he’ll oversee the GOP’s tax-writing policy in the upper chamber. Before then, however, Hatch is keeping busy: In coming weeks, he will be one of the leading figures in the battle over extending Bush-era tax rates, which are set to expire at the end of the year. As he looks ahead, Hatch predicts that there could be a “reasonable compromise” with Democrats and the White House. He urges the president to “come in good faith” to the negotiating...

“Elect us, hold us accountable, and make a judgment and then go from there. But I do tell you that if [we] win, and have substantial majorities, Congress of the United States will be more bipartisan,” That was Nancy Pelosi, 2 years ago, prior to the 2008 election. And of course, the "do as I say, not as I do" San Fran Nan liberal and the "you can go sit in the back" president have governed as anything but in a bipartisan manner. Their idea of bipartisanship is zero House Republicans and 2 Republican Senators voting for Obama's stimulus...

In my earlier post, I had a little fun with the notion of a Slurpee Summit, but it does present a tough question to Republicans that will take control of the House. Did voters give the GOP a mandate for a complete reversal of direction, or did they deliver an ultimatum to the White House to start compromising with Republicans. Reading that mandate correctly will be the great challenge of the next few months, and for both parties, the stakes could not be higher for success and failure at reading it correctly.Glenn Reynolds writes this weekend at the Washington Examiner...

Over the last few months Barack Obama, Joe Biden and other Democrat power players bought season tickets here to Ohio's political podiums. Ours was a state that had to be won decisively in order for the agenda of change to be advanced, and so every third day saw the liberal media highlighting yet another trip by the Dynastic Duo to our Buckeyeland, (or as Barack referred to it, "...our 59th state.") When such overwhelming time, money and the remaining dregs of political capital are spent in one state, the outcome, sadly, is a foregone conclusion. On election night, the Democrats...

The lefty liberal pundits continue to fill their media onslaught today with talk of compromise. I wonder if they mean the GOP should compromise with the Dems the same way Obama compromised with the GOP when he won in 2008? It was the great Obamanator who told republicans they had to stop listening to Rush Limbaugh and then added his memorable quote on bipartisanship... “I won, it’s not going to happen like that.” Let's be honest. The only reason the lame-stream media storyline is "Compromise" is because the GOP won. How many remember hearing cries of the need for compromise...

Mitch McConnell "doubling down" on not compromising with Obama.--------------------- ""Over the past week, some have said it was indelicate of me to suggest that our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term in office..."But the fact is, if our primary legislative goals are to repeal and replace the health spending bill, to end the bailouts, cut spending and shrink the size and scope of government, the only way to do all these things is to put someone in the White House who won't veto any of these things," the...

Now that President Obama has experi enced the same baptism of fire as President Bill Clinton did in the 1994 midterm elections, the obvious question is: Will he move to the center in a bid to save his presidency and win re-election? The move worked well for Clinton: He sought to combine the best aspects of each party's program in a third approach that became known as triangulation. But Obama won't follow suit because he can't, even if he wants to. Today's issues are different from those that separated the parties in 1994 and don't lend themselves to common ground....

On the eve of a historic midterm election upheaval, President Barack Obama tried to walk back his gratuitous slap at Americans who oppose his radical progressive agenda. "I probably should have used the word 'opponents' instead of 'enemies' to describe political adversaries," Obama admitted Monday. "Probably"? Here is an ironclad certainty: It's too little too late for the antagonist-in-chief to paper over two years of relentless Democratic incivility and hate toward his domestic "enemies." Voters have spoken: They've had enough. Enough of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner's rhetorical abuse. Enough of his feints at bipartisanship. Whatever the final tally,...

Resurgent GOPers "in no mood for compromise"...Contrary to some of the nonsense re. Republicans making nice with Obama out there, listen to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) quoted in The Hill today: Boehner, the party leader who would likely become Speaker in a GOP-controlled House, distanced himself from a senior senator's suggestion last week that trying to repeal the new healthcare reform law wasn't in Republicans' best interest. "This is not a time for compromise, and I can tell you that we will not compromise on our principles," Boehner said during an appearance on conservative Sean Hannity's radio show....

If this is a sign of what we can expect in Congress for the next two years, Republicans will be in a world of hurt come the next election cycle. Although it will be a long shot for Republicans to take control of the Senate, their hand will no doubt improve after November 2nd. Depending on how Senate Democrats and President Obama take the change, greater efforts of cooperation will be required to get work done. But the type of cooperation is what voters will be watching for. Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell said in an interview that if Obama...

PORTLAND, Ore.—Republicans on the campaign trail are bashing the president and his agenda and some are vowing to shut down Washington if they don't get their way. Behind the scenes, key party members are talking a different game. A number of House Republicans, including some who are likely to be in the leadership, are pushing a post-election strategy aimed at securing concrete legislation, with the goal of showing they can translate general principles into specific action. Among the ideas is to bring a series of bills to the floor, as often as once a week, designed to cut spending in...

Do you know of any "Biblical" examples of so-called interfaith dialogue? Does interfaith dialogue, perhaps unintentionally, bestow legitimacacy to a false religion? These questiona are being posed to the religion forum at free republic in light of the Florida Korans now in the hands of a Fredericksburg Pastor. The Korans that were to be burned in protest by an independent fringe church in Forida, are now in the hands of the Christian Defense Coalition. A Christian activist group headed up by the Rev. Pat Mahoney. Rev. Mahoney says he hopes to distribute the Korans to churches for the purpose of...