Paul Krugman is unhappy. “After the Democratic “shellacking” in the midterm elections,” he writes in today’s Times, “everyone wondered how President Obama would respond. Would he show what he was made of? Would he stand firm for the values he believes in, even in the face of political adversity? On Monday, we got the answer: he announced a pay freeze for federal workers. This was an announcement that had it all. It was transparently cynical; it was trivial in scale, but misguided in direction; and by making the announcement, Mr. Obama effectively conceded the policy argument to the very people who are seeking — successfully, it seems — to destroy him. So I guess we are, in fact, seeing what Mr. Obama is made of.”
And Eugene Robinson is unhappy. “What has me exercised – okay, frothing – is the ongoing fight over the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy,” he writes in The Washington Post. “By all rights, this shouldn’t be a fight at all. The Republican position is so ludicrous that it beggars belief. Here’s what they argue: Extend the tax cuts for the richest Americans – in fact, make them permanent. Doing so would increase the deficit by $700 billion over the next decade, but this doesn’t matter. We did tell you that we’re the party of fiscal responsibility, however, so to prove it we’ll block the extension of unemployment benefits for millions of jobless workers. Three weeks before Christmas. In other words, there’s no additional money in the national coffers for the victims of the most devastating recession since the Great Depression. But to help investment bankers start the new year right, perhaps with a new Mercedes or a bit of sun in the Caribbean? Step right up, and we’ll write you a check.”
And Ezra Klein is really unhappy. “It’s very important to realize,” he says in the Post, “how strong of a hand Democrats had — and to some degree, have — on the Bush tax cuts. Right or wrong, the Democrats’ original position on this was that the tax cuts for income under $250,000 should be extended, and the tax cuts for income over $250,000 should expire. The public agrees: 49 percent share the Democrats’ position, 14 percent want all the tax cuts to go, and 34 percent want to see all the tax cuts extended. Put another way, 63 percent of Americans don’t want the tax cuts for the rich extended. The GOP understood this just fine: Back in July, Rep. Dave Camp, then the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, admitted that his party couldn’t hold tax cuts for the middle class hostage in order to secure tax cuts for the rich. “I’ll probably vote for it myself,” he said of the Democrats’ proposal. In September, John Boehner joined him. “If the only option I have is to vote for some of those tax reductions,” he told Bob Schieffer, “I’ll vote for it.” Democrats, it seemed, had won this one. They had the 
popular position, the president’s veto pen and control of the Congress. But they simply refused to carry the ball over the goal line. Instead, they began negotiating with themselves.”
It is astonishing to see the president in such a funk. Obama has all but disappeared. It’s as though he doesn’t know what to do, and has become paralyzed by the failure of his approach and his inability to reply. Maybe it’s his youth; there is something different about a successful man in his forties who has outlasted all his promising peers, and a successful man in his fifties, who has had to prevail against other winners. Maybe it’s his lack of executive experience. Maybe it’s that he’s always been a golden child, and has never learned to say fuck you to those who would try to bring him down. Maybe he just can’t take a punch. But the president isn’t showing any inner Rocky Balboa.
If he’s smart, he’ll listen to Eliot Spitzer, who is also unhappy, but is at least offering the president good advice. Writing in Slate, Spitzer offers Obama a seven-point plan that focuses on restoring America’s competitive edge in global economy; fighting terrorism while ending ground action in Afghanistan; getting Congressional action in a new START treaty, a repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, extension of only the middle-class tax cuts, and extension of unemployment benefits; calling China out for its support of North Korea; proposing a simplified tax structure that also imposes a means test for Social Security and Medicare; proposing a carbon tax that will reduce the payroll tax and subsidize domestic clean energy; and new initiatives in support of education, kindergarten through college. “This is an agenda for the next two years,” says Spitzer. “It is an agenda worthy of a great president.”
If the people around the president aren’t giving him advice like this, my question is, why the hell not?