Richard Kirsch wrote the article, What Obama Can Learn From Reagan. The subtitle is “He must show real leadership on his core values, not weakness and waffling.”

What the president fails to comprehend is that his style of public vacillation and preemptive compromise is much more to blame for the disillusionment that so many Democrats share than the substance of what he gave up, whether it be on health care or taxes.

Kirsch goes on to show how different was the fight on Health Care from the tax cut capitulation, and yet how Obama’s style detracted even from that “win”.

The fact that so many people draw the line at the tax capitulation isn’t so much its absolute magnitude.  It is the cumulative effect of all his compromises.  In essence this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.