I believe elected officials have a responsibility to compromise. It's what angered me the most about George Bush Jr. That my way or the highway nonsense he pulled all the time. Correct me if I'm wrong, but liberals seem to be demanding that Barack Obama become the liberal version of George Bush or Mitch McConnell for that matter. They want two obstructionists locking horns with one another to the detriment of the unemployed.

  Because that's who would suffer - two million people would stop getting checks. Eight hundred thousand of them would stop getting checks before Christmas - eight hundred thousand households who wouldn't be able to buy a single toy for their children or a Christmas tree or even a warm blanket against the cold. Then suddenly it's January, John Boehner takes over and unemployment benefits never even come up for a vote again, ever. 

 That's the question I want somebody to answer for me. If they couldn't get unemployment benefits or DADT or Immigration Reform or tax cuts exclusively for the middle class with Nancy Pelosi in charge, how are they going to do it when John Boehner takes over? He’ll control the agenda. He’ll decide what comes up for a vote. And why even bother bringing it up again? It didn’t pass with fewer republicans, why would it pass with more of them in both chambers?  

Chuck Todd made an excellent point last night. The Democrats had an opportunity to make this an issue before the election. They could've taken the same vote before the election they took last week. They could've put the issue before the voters. As it turned out, it would've cost them nothing, since there was virtually no possibility of losing more seats than they lost anyway. They could've shown some guts and maybe even lost fewer seats. They had a chance to have a showdown and they caved. Now they want Obama to take the weight. This is the reason I left the Democratic Party in 2004. This is how I know I AM NOT A LIBERAL!