Stalemates Force Obama to Be Compromiser in Chief

(Dec. 7) -- It is the season of the stalemate for President Barack Obama.

On several of the most pressing issues abroad and at home, Obama is settling in for protracted negotiation or standoff, walking away from the bargaining table or -- as he's doing with Republicans on the Bush-era tax cuts -- holding his nose, accepting an unpopular compromise and hoping to fight another day.

"I will be happy to see the Republicans test whether or not I'm itching for a fight on a whole range of issues" in the months ahead, Obama told reporters this afternoon. "I suspect they will find I am."

But the whole point of his hastily called and at times impassioned news conference was to defend the framework of a deal that many members of his party are hesitant to endorse or downright oppose.

After months of opposing an extension of Bush-era tax cuts for annual household income above $250,000, Obama agreed to a two-year extension in the face of Republicans' vow to block legislation that would extend the rest of the cuts if the wealthiest Americans were excluded.

In exchange, the White House extracted Republican support for a year's worth of federally funded unemployment insurance for people out of work half a year or more, reduced payroll taxes in 2011, and renewed tax breaks for college tuition and small businesses.

To Obama, this was a compromise he made for the sake of millions of Americans plagued by an ailing economy and a necessary, if unpalatable, decision to put pragmatism over politics.

"My No. 1 priority is to do what's right for the American people for jobs and for economic growth," he said. "I'm focused on making sure that tens of millions of hardworking Americans are not seeing their paychecks shrink on Jan. 1 just because the folks here in Washington are busy trying to score political points."

But outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and other senior congressional Democrats declined to back the deal, while Republican leaders acted as the victors.

"I appreciate the president's willingness to work in a bipartisan way," Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming said at a news conference with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and fellow GOP Sens. Jon Kyl, Lamar Alexander and John Thune.

None of the Republican senators spoke of a compromise, while Obama used the word four times in his prepared remarks alone.

The tax-cut deal, coming on the heels of a midterm election that gave Republicans control of the House and a stronger hand in the Senate, seemed the most concrete result yet of a political evolution that for now has left the White House in a weaker position.

And that may also be the case with some of the Obama administration's key battles on the international front.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak today told a parliamentary committee that the U.S. has given up trying to get Israel to renew a freeze on settlements in the West Bank in order to resume peace talks with the Palestinians

"For now the matter has been stopped entirely, because of the Americans' lack of attention and concentration," Barak said.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley denied the effort was "suspended" but said, "We obviously recognize that, you know, we face a difficult obstacle."

One of the issues Barak said is distracting the Americans is the recent escalation of hostile action and rhetoric from North Korea, another of the Obama administration's top priorities.

But two weeks after the North shelled a South Korean island, killing three South Koreans, and offered its latest thumb in the eye of nuclear counterproliferation efforts, the U.S. has been unable to mount a credible international response because China won't help.

And on another key national-security front, U.S. and allied talks with Iran today wrapped up in Geneva with no progress in efforts to curb the Iranian nuclear program, other than a decision to meet again late next month in Turkey.

Back in Washington, the prospects for Obama's other key goals in the lame-duck Congress -- ratification of the New START Treaty with Russia, elimination of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy banning gays from serving openly, and immigration issues, among others -- remain uncertain.

Still, at least with the tax cuts, Obama insisted that any retreat he has made is tactical and serves a longer-term strategy -- comparing this week's deal with the compromises on the health care overhaul that also upset many Democrats.

"If that's the standard by which we are measuring success or core principles, then, let's face it, we will never get anything done," Obama said. "We will be able to feel good about ourselves and sanctimonious about how pure our intentions are and how tough we are, and in the meantime, the American people are still seeing themselves not able to get health insurance because of pre-existing conditions, or not being able to pay their bills because their unemployment insurance ran out.

"At any given juncture there are going to be times where my preferred option, what I'm absolutely positive is right, I can't get done," he added. "And so then my question is, does it make sense for me to tack a little bit this way or tack a little bit that way? Because I'm keeping my eye on the long term and the long fight, not my day-to-day news cycle, but where am I going over the long term."