White House political shop in action

Brian Beutler broke the story of how Obama was working to undermine Schumer’s $1 million tax cut compromise last week, but Glen Thrush fleshes it out even more today.

Key graf:

But privately, White House officials, who have long viewed Schumer as a talented but essentially self-promotional operator with no abiding loyalty to Obama, think he was pursuing an irresponsible partisan fight that would delay the tax cuts and the extension of unemployment benefits for months. And Obama himself warned Schumer that the millionaire strategy could sink the stock market.

When a vote on the millionaire plan came up short last Saturday, the administration gloated — and mocked Schumer for overestimating his support in meetings with West Wing officials.

“Sen. Schumer says he wants a fight? He couldn’t hold his caucus together,” an anonymous White House official told ABC’s Jake Tapper earlier this week.

Right. Who voted against the compromise? The oh-so-principled Dick Durbin, who could only vote “yes” on tax cuts for income less than $250,000 a year…is now “increasingly supportive” of Obama’s own compromise.

Like that guy wouldn’t dance like a monkey in spandex lederhosen for the privilege of emptying Obama’s chamber pot.

Also love the part where Obama says Schumer’s plan would “sink the stock market.” Right.  Because Chuck Schumer, the Senator from New York, would be out there pushing a plan that Wall Street fears.

For the record:

Proposal Amount added to the deficit over 10 years Cost of addition
Extending tax cuts on income up to $250,000 $3.2 trillion –
Extending tax cuts on income up to $1 million (Schumer plan) $3.6 trillion $400 billion
Extending all tax cuts (Obama plan) $4 trillion $800 billion

In the Beutler story, Obama was fighting Schumer’s plan because, like Durbin, he hit the fainting couch at the very thought of raising the threshold above $250,000 because of what it would do to the deficit.

I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating…Obama is using the unemployed as an excuse to get what he has wanted all along.  And what he wants is to extend all the tax cuts.

It’s hard to “fight” when the head of your party runs his political operation with the emotional maturity of an overheated teenage boy in the latest installment of Twilight.