Jonathan Bernstein's three sentences that I suggest everyone (who's mad about the Tax Cut Deal) read:

Read and try to understand.

And thus, I give you Jonathan Bernstein:

The problem is that Obama either had to abandon the core commitment to end the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich, or the core commitment to continue Bush-era tax rates for everyone else. He didn't have the votes to keep both core commitments. End of story.