More Proof Obama Is Not a Policy Wonk

White House officials told Scott Wilson of the Washington Post that President Barack Obama made the tax cut deal to please independent voters.

The move is based on a political calculation, drawn from his party's midterm defeat, that places a premium on winning back independent voters.

The strategy emerged from hours of post-election meetings among senior administration officials who, after poring over returns, exit polls and midterm history, have determined that the loss of independent voters who supported Democrats in 2008 cost the party dozens of races this year. That conclusion places Obama at odds with many liberal Democrats, who say the midterm losses were the result in part of a political base dispirited by the president's penchant for compromise.

I continue to say Obama is not a policy wonk. If Obama really cared about the deficit he would not have been so ready to make a deal on extending the tax cuts. It is now obvious the Deficit Commission was merely a dog and pony show. Obama ran in 2008 on ending the Bush tax cuts for the top two brackets. The reason progressives are angry is they are holding Obama to his previously stated policy positions.

We now learn the tax cut deal had nothing to do with extending unemployment extension. This was about getting Obama re-elected. This wasn't about reducing the deficit. This was about Obama courting independent voters. This is sickening beyond words.