One fact says it all: 80 votes in the Senate for cloture to move this bill forward.

What does that tell you?

It tells you that for all the screaming and whining and name calling, the fact is that the Ds in the Senate wanted this bill and they wanted Obama to take the bullet for it. The fact is that he's a big enough man that he did.

The Senate could have fashioned their own bill YEARS ago. They passed on that. They knew something had to be done, and they did nothing. They knew that the only way a bill on the bush tax cuts was going to be passed in the Senate was if the upper-income cuts were extended in some form.

But they didn't have the guts to do it because there was an election afoot.

So Obama - bless his heart - has actually come to the rescue of the Ds and the progressive wing of the Party by making the same deal the Senate Ds would have had to have made in the end. But by doing it himself, by taking the onus of holding his nose and making extending the bush tax cuts HIS decision, rather than that of the Reid and the other Senate Ds, he allows himself to be the target of liberal scorn while providing them with, 1. the basic legislation they would have done themselves and, 2. cover for their own inaction and cowardice.

This is a measure of the greatness of this man. That most DUers don't get this is sad, but it doesn't make it any less true.