Third Way says we don't get it...says takes more courage to anger your "friends"

[madfloridian]

than to anger your adversary.

Yes, that is correct. I do not "get it" at all. Another in the many attempts to marginalize those of us who demand we stop compromising on our main values.

Tax deal displays Obama’s backbone

Bill Clinton had his “Sister Souljah moment,” when he admonished an African-American rap singer, in front of an audience that included the Rev. Jesse Jackson, over lyrics that seemed to countenance race-based killing. President Richard M. Nixon, in the middle of the Cold War, secretly plotted a badly needed rapprochement with communist China. And President Harry S. Truman faced down the steel industry and striking workers.
In each case, their actions were met with howls of protest, editorial derision — and sharp accusations of betrayal from their base voters. And in each case, the politician emerged in a strengthened position.

Did President Barack Obama “punt on third down” as Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) lamented? Or did the president have a clarifying moment when he announced a tax cut compromise that caught many Democrats off guard and infuriated progressive organizations?

Read that first paragraph several times. Every word is meant to picture the Democrats' base as unworthy.

It was a deal, to paraphrase Bruce Springsteen, which everyone could love and hate in a single sound. But it’s the criticism from Obama’s base that stings the most. Democrats of nearly every stripe argued that the president should have stood up and fought harder for a better deal. He had campaigned against the Bush tax cuts, they argued, and he owed it to his base — and all Americans — to stick to that promise for as long as possible. Coupled with some other high-profile skirmishes in which the president demonstrated ideological and governing flexibility — particularly when he scotched the public option from health care reform — some of the left’s loudest voices have begun to question Obama’s backbone.

Simply put: They don’t get it. It takes much more courage and backbone to anger your friends — over a principled disagreement — than your adversaries.

So there it is in a nutshell. According to Third Way he had to do it. He had to show his "backbone" and courage by angering his friends.

No, I don't get it at all.