How sad that these awful Republicans have forced Obama into shameless political ploys

You could look at all this and accuse Obama of campaigning instead of governing, of once again engaging in the can-kicking he had sworn to stop.

I don’t think that’s fair. As the president discovered, it’s impossible to dance with people determined to stomp on your toes — indeed, with people convinced that stomping on your toes, to the extent they can get away with it, is their route to reelection.

Had Republicans demonstrated some willingness to deviate from their no-new-taxes orthodoxy, some recognition of the basic budgetary arithmetic that requires a balance of spending cuts and tax increases to get the debt under control, I’d be willing to bash the president for cravenly catering to the base.