Checkmate? Perhaps:
"Last night Obama found a way out, sort of. It’s not a fiery partisan confrontation; it’s a kind of fighting bipartisanship. He’s now putting forth a substantive agenda that is very likely to boost the economy, create jobs, and improve the basic fairness of the tax system in order to spread the benefits of economic growth more broadly. But he aggressively linked almost all of those things to ideas that Republicans had already supported, or that wealthy people such as Warren Buffet had embraced. He took ownership of some ideas that had traditionally been conservative, and embraced ideas that had had some Republican support."
"Obama’s new approach, though, sets up, in theory, a different hypothetical win-win than the one we’ve been operating under for almost three years. One possibility is that Republicans have some qualms about a wholly obstructionist agenda, Congress passes some or most of the American Jobs Act, the economy improves (likely with some help from the Federal Reserve, international circumstances, and good fortune), and actual conditions get Obama out of the box he’s in. Failing that, if the White House and Democrats can keep their focus on the American Jobs Act (and if the left can avoid getting distracted by Obama’s wise concessions to reality, such as long-term reductions in Medicare spending), then Republican obstruction takes a new form. It’s not just blocking Obama, or his agenda—it’s blocking economic recovery, systematically, including ideas that Republicans have embraced in the past and will embrace again."
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