Didn’t he look hypnotized when he made his statement about the tax cut “compromise”? Or maybe like they’ve been slipping him low doses of that radiation poisoning they gave the Russian guy in London a couple of years ago? I’m sure it’s not that dramatic, probably only humiliation and heartbreak. I know the feeling.

It’s not just that they’re calling it a “compromise” – what did the Republicans give up? Doesn’t one side get something in a “compromise” or a “deal”? I guess what the Democrats got was that they were graciously allowed to extend unemployment benefits. That was mighty big of the Republicans.

But the part that really made me wonder who that guy was and what they’ve done with President Obama was how he tried to make tax cuts for the rich sound like a good idea.

He didn’t say, “I think tax cuts for the rich are a terrible idea, but the Republicans have me and the whole country by the shorts, so there’s nothing I can do about it. By the way, so you know, there’s a lot worse coming, next they’re going to threaten your physical security by blocking the START treaty and I’m going to tell you right now, there’s nothing I can do about that either. But I saved unemployment benefits, not because any of those people will vote for me or thank me for it, but because I’m a good person and frankly, that was all the Republicans were prepared to give me, anyway. Yes, I know, they are even more insane than they used to be and now they don’t even try to hide it, they rub my nose in it every day, but they are the bi- in bi-partisanship, and lately I find that I believe in bi-partisanship a whole lot more than I believe in any of those idealistic little notions you progressives are whining about. Turns out that was all just one more luxury we can’t afford any more. Stop that crying or the Republicans will give you something else to cry about!”

He didn’t say that, even in a nicer way. No, he said tax cuts for the rich are good for the middle class, good for the economy, good for business, good for the country, good for the world, good, good, good! Apparently he was wrong about the Bush tax cuts while he was campaigning. Apparently we were wrong about them when we voted for him so he could end them. He, and his apologists today, the ones who apparently won the argument in the White House, are talking about us, all President Obama’s former deeply committed supporters, as if we should just grow up.

Fine. I’ve grown up. I thought I was a moderate, but apparently that’s another word the Republicans have turned inside out. The Bush tax cuts are not a “moderate” idea. They were another of the dramatically, globally, massively proven wrong Republican ideas that brought death and destruction to my country, like starting the Iraq war and going into denial about the Afghanistan war and letting rich, clever financial people make their own rules and go their merry way with most of the money the rest of us worked hard and played by the rules to get. All that happened because the last President was not too bright and way too weak to do anything to stop the cocksure bullies around him, and because Democrats are unwilling or unable to fight or think their way out of a paper bag.  One thing has changed dramatically. This President is very bright.

Maybe if we count to three, he will wake up.