Sounds like there's been a gas leak in his office since he went on praising BP's cleanup effort. It's not really "compromise" or "finding common ground" when everything has already been pushed so far to the right and the decision is to the right. It's called "caving in" or "weakness" or "rudderless" out in the real world. Pearlstein used to have some decent columns but he's been going downhill quickly. Few really believe 2012 will be any easier for the White House to negotiate now that they've made it clear they will surrender before a fight. Pearlstein is really living deep inside the Beltway Bubble, much like the White House who repeats the same lines on both failures.
President Obama deserves credit for cutting a tax-cum-stimulus deal with Republican leaders that involved distasteful concessions on both sides. That's the difference between "finding common ground," which is easy, and real "compromise," which is harder and had fallen out of fashion. Now that the ice has been broken, maybe the next one will come a little easier.
It's also a good sign that the president has finally realized that the only way he is going to succeed is to force congressional Democrats to follow his lead rather than the other way around. If he'd done that earlier in his presidency, he wouldn't have found himself with his back against the wall after last month's drubbing at the polls. It's not just okay if some liberal Democrats in Congress feel they have to vote against a deal that requires many Republican votes for passage - it's actually a good thing. It means the president finally understands the difference between leading the country and leading his party.
