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Opinion: The morning after: Analyzing Obama’s compromise that keeps tax cuts in place and extends unemployment benefits

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Weighing in on Obama’s compromise, the editorial board calls the deal to keep Bush-era tax cuts in place while also extending unemployment benefits a ‘Frankensteinian mishmash of good policies and bad ones, united only by their reliance on deficit spending .... There’s no internal logic to such a compromise because the administration and congressional Republicans are driven by sharply different motivations.’ Read the whole editorial here.

Red State’s Ben Howe agreed there were ‘good, bad and ugly’ points. Among the positives: ‘We kept the dollars out of the hands of the government. This is much more than a philosophical or ideological victory. It is a principled stand and should be applauded, not nitpicked.’

The Christian Science Monitor also found a silver lining. Its editorial on the compromise praises the president for striking a bipartisan deal rather than waging a ‘political showdown.’

Salon’s news editor Steve Kornacki also tips his hat to Obama. In ‘Actually, it’s a pretty good deal...,’ he writes: ‘As the 2010 midterms demonstrated (hardly for the first time), when the economy is stalled, voters look for reasons to blame the man in charge -- whether it’s logical or not. Obama is in no position to win a P.R. battle with the GOP right now. That’s just reality, and on Monday, he dealt with reality and came away with the best compromise he could get.’

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Still, The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson points out: This is a ‘deficit hawk’s worst nightmare.’

And ‘Wag the Dog’ author Larry Beinhart offers a mathematical equation to show tax cuts don’t create jobs.

Our readers weren’t too thrilled either. A sampling of their thoughts after the jump.

What do you think of Obama’s compromise? Please, weigh in.

-- Alexandra Le Tellier

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