Sirota: Obama isn't weak (he just isn't a liberal)

Standing up to Boehner
is illogical, Bones.

I don't know. Still feels like the old "11th dimensional chess" argument to me: He's smarter than us, you know, and working on so many levels at once, way over our heads, that mere mortals can't fathom his infinite plan.

My suspicion is rooted in the fact that, for someone so masterful a chess player, why does the President so often telegraph what he wants, and then cave on it?  Public option?  Stimulus (gave up on getting the amount he needed)?  No extension of Bush tax cuts?  Revenue enhancements must be in the debt ceiling bill (didn't get any)?

Yes, it's possible that this is all part of some brilliant deflection in which the President makes campaign promises he doesn't mean, and then makes negotiation demands he also doesn't mean, as a means of throwing everyone off as to what he truly wants. (If true, it's a dangerous tactic, as it ends up bringing your word into question.)

Or, it's possible that the simplest explanation is the truth.  The President doesn't like to fight, and has an overwhelming need to make peace at all costs.  So that at any one time, his left brain tells you what he wants, then his right brain takes over and starts handing out daisies.

Here's Sirota:

Obama is not a flaccid Jimmy Carter, as some of his critics insist. He is instead a Franklin Delano Roosevelt -- but a bizarro FDR. He has mustered the legislative strength of his New Deal predecessor -- but he has channeled that strength into propping up the very forces of "organized money" that FDR once challenged.