Obama Shows Some Spine, Finally

Dana Milbank isn't thrilled with the tax-cut compromise, but he loves that President Obama is finally showing some backbone. "For once, reporters could tell Obama was angry without asking White House press secretary Robert Gibbs for evidence," he writes in the Washington Post. Liberal lawmakers like Peter DeFazio are livid with Obama, but he's wisely pushing back with the "full force of his office" and good-old-fashioned "hardball politics."

And while some pundits see the tax compromise as capitulation to the GOP that will lead to more capitulation down the road—Paul Krugman warned of something along those lines yesterday—Milbank flips the premise: "Liberals, if they can see beyond their pique, should realize that the emergence of Obama's forceful leadership could be good for them," he writes. "This time, he stood against his Democratic colleagues, but there's reason to hope that he'll show his newly discovered spine to the Republicans the next time." (More President Obama stories.)