Getting to No

Watching the President's press conference yesterday was again desperately dispiriting. The President's supporters say he is "framing" a choice for the country: my way or their way. To support that frame, however, the President needs Republicans to say "NO" to his jobs proposals. The surest way to gain that "NO" is to barb job proposals in ways predictably unacceptable to Republicans.

Attaching a high-income tax increase to the jobs plan is not something the president must do. It's something he and his party have chosen to do in order to get to "NO."

That suits their election strategy. It is not so good for the nation's unemployed - who are now as thoroughly written off for the next year by the President who supposedly champions them as by the Republicans in Congress.