Obama's Tax Cut Damage Control Flops

One day after the announcement of a tax cut extension, President Obama has his hands full trying to calm his base.

So the Republicans prevent decoupling of the tax cuts, set a 35 percent baseline on the estate tax, and extend the tax cuts for two years.

And all they had to give up was an extension of unemployment insurance.

It is no surprise that Grover Norquist is smiling and the President is in damage control, attempting to appease a base that is contemplating a primary challenge.

Yet remarkably, after this follow up shellacking, the White House still seems to think that this loss is all just a matter of messaging. If only they had pursued an agenda of full-throated class warfare prior to the elections, they would have won that fight and mitigated their losses.

And now they have doubled down on that theory by having the tax cuts expire at the end of a presidential election year.

Has the President forgotten that on this issue, with his post partisan sheen still well buffed, he was almost brought down by the lowly Joe the Plumber?

And in 2012 that sheen will be long gone. As was on display in his defensive press conference today, the President's personality continues to grate. After working out a complex negotiation with people once identified as not enemies but friends, he compared those across the table as hostage-takers whose "holy grail" is the extension of tax cuts for the rich.

I think the scientific description for a person who treats his negotiating partners like this is a humorless jerk.

And in the end, that, more so than any particular policy misstep, may be Obama's undoing.