Far be it for me to correct the estimable Jim Pethokoukis.  But doesn’t he mean the “bi-partisan, fiscal-cliff avoiding, what’s best and most prudent given the circumstances, and god bless us all for being so prudent and avoiding the hectoring of naive, un-nuanced fringe teabagging extremists” tax hikes? Small correction, but an important one.  Please, Jim.  Proceed: How much more “balance” does Obama want? 1. Well, the fiscal cliff deal

This is the august, deliberative chamber, recall.  Not like that unruly People’s House, with all its 2-year temporary riff-raff and populist TEA Party dregs. CNS: The U.S. Senate voted 89-8 to approve legislation to avoid the fiscal cliff despite having only 3 minutes to read the 154-page bill and budget score. Multiple Senate sources have confirmed to CNSNews.com that senators received the bill at approximately 1:36 AM on Jan. 1,

So, you know, deal with it.  Besides, other “pragmatic” Republicans agree.  It really was the best we could do: There’s a lot of anger, frustration, and disgust building in the righty grassroots in the past few weeks. Over the past week I saw a lot of comments on Twitter in the vein of “we have a spending problem! Why won’t Republicans insist we deal with that first!” Fume at Speaker

Rather than beat myself up trying to come up with new ways to express my disgust for the GOP this morning, allow me to just repeat a few things I wrote to Twitter last evening once the House passed the Senate “fiscal cliff” bill — itself a nightmare — without any changes, and then add a few more observations that I’ve since decided to share. 1. We have a one