More importantly, what will have happened is that the economics of Obama's decisions failed to the great disadvantage of millions of people AND it will have helped usher in a more conservative, openly anti-government Republican party.

Which brings up a point I have raised with you before: you always make this about Obama, as if all that matters is his political fortune, his chances for re-election, and I can't decide if you just don't care how the deals he's making and the policy and legislation he's advocating for affect the people who have to live by them, or you don't understand them.

The fact of the matter is that Obama has continued the failed policies that have kept us at high unemployment making it unlikely that the economy will recover by 2012.

The fact that they are higher than Clinton's mean nothing. As a matter of fact the people with the lower numbers got reelected and the people with the higher numbers like Bush Sr. lost.

You write:

What seems unreasonable is to simultaneously bash him for giving the conservatives power over all three branches in 2012 and then demand that he takes policy positions that are ultimately politically fatal.

What is more unreasonable is to defend bad policy that will could lead to political disaster.

The 2012 election will not be about "the deal", it will be about "the economy".  So, IMO, for this to matter in 2012, "the deal" will have to be good for "the economy", which I... have my doubts about.

To not make the decisions based on what would be best for me was not an option. Obama should have looked at this as a no-option set of issues.

Why do you think George W. Bush was re-elected? It certainly had nothing to do with pre-emptive bargainaing.

If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. Anything being a Bob Dole health insurance reform policy with a couple of twists, setting the stage for the federal government to renege on, either completely or in part, SS, Medicare, and medicaid, and who knows what else, since non-budget items have become budget items.

Leadership sometimes means falling on your sword for a greater good.

And on another note, polls taken this month an/or last month aren't reliable for predicting how polls will be in one year, much less two.

There's a time for politics, and a time for statesmanship. A four-year re-election model has not served to turn the economy around. Only to suggest plenty of funding from the corporations.

Link

With Obama's appointment of JP Morgan Chase executive William Daley as his chief of staff and Gene Sperling to head the National Economic Council, the White House is tooled to coordinate even more seamlessly with Wall Street. Both are seasoned operatives in subverting government to private purposes, having made their bones in Bill Clinton's administration, where Daley was the indispensable man in passing the Clinton/Republican NAFTA bill despite the opposition of 60 percent of Democrats in the House. Both are now rich banksters specializing in moving effortlessly from the boardroom to wherever the public's money is kept.

Economist Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, doesn't mind the money Sperling made from Goldman Sachs. His problem with Obama's new top economic advisor is:

"Sperling saw nothing wrong with the stock market bubble that laid the basis for the 2001 recession. The economy did not begin to create jobs again until two and a half years after the beginning of this recession and even then it was only due to the growth of the housing bubble. Gene Sperling also saw nothing wrong with the growth of that bubble. Gene Sperling also saw nothing wrong with the financial deregulation of the Clinton years which, by the way, helped make Goldman Sachs lots of money. And, he saw nothing wrong with the over-valued dollar which gave the United States an enormous trade deficit. This trade deficit undermined the bargaining power of manufacturing workers and helped to redistribute income upward.

"In short, Sperling has a horrible track record of supporting policies that were bad for the country and good for Wall Street."

UIs pass all  the time, there seemed really minimal bargaining or chips needed to be handed over to achieve UI. But that's what O did, big time.

I agree with MT - put it on the table and make the GOP vote it down.

TalkLeft is an old and (IMHO) respected liberal site that has been around a long, long time. I read it for years before ever posting, and I've always thought that there was a silent majority that liked reading the posts, fall into the same thinking that I do on issues, but don't really comment.