As confused and disgusted as liberals may be right now at President Obama and the Conservadems, things may actually be worse than they are giving them credit for. For the most part, liberal criticism (short of liberal Barack Derangement Syndrome, popular particularly among the PUMAs) falls along two lines:

The first is Obama’s political spinelessness. Here’s Mark Thoma on the cowardess behind his inexplicable fold on forcing the Republicans into a corner on taxes:

Obama made it seem as though this is an issue where he won’t compromise, but instead of holding the line and hammering Republicans day in and day out to make it clear who is standing in the way of extending middle class tax cuts, he caves.

Then there’s Obama’s supposed political incompetence. Here’s Digby:

Once you do that then we can get down to the real argument which is over whether the government should tax the wealthy and do more to create jobs. They are obscuring that argument with the deficit obsession for a very good reason — they don’t think they can win it.

But there’s another, more obvious answer: Obama and the Conservadems may think they can win that argument but don’t want the tax cuts for the wealthy to expire or a more progressive tax structure in the future because the plutocrats don’t want it. All the talk of adding to the deficit is more Kabuki, i.e., political lies, for The Village Scribes and still confused liberals. The alternative is to go all-out populist and turn the Party against the ruling oligarchy.

So perhaps the view of Obama as pusillanimous is correct. But what he’s afraid of is nothing less than a corporatocracy that controls everything. That includes the Democratic Party.

Update: Jebus, here’s kos: “He just thinks, time and time again, that showing good faith will win him GOP support. All the while, they laugh in his face.” I’ll say for you smart liberals one more time: bi-partisanship is Kabuki. It’s performed to allow Democrats to do the bidding of the oligarchs without you noticing what they’re really doing. And it’s working.