way. in the end house speaker john boehner, he caved in and he gave in to political pressure but still he defends the stand that he took. we have fought the fight, the good fight, but i talked to enough members over the last 24 hours who believe that, hey, listen, we don t like this two-month extension. we don t like this reporting problem in the senate bill and if you can get this fixed, why not do the right thing for the american people even though it s not exactly what we want. it seems that everything we ve done this last year has been a knockdown dragout fight. there is no reason to do that. if there were a message received from this last thing we ve been through, i would hope especially i repeat the new members of the house will understand that legislation is the art of compromise. now the tax cut deal is a win for the president. he pushed back pretty hard against house republicans who opposed the short-term extension. white house did issue a statement saying, i q
he s going to have some time to relax with his family. this is a good time for him to reflect in hawaii. it is not just where he grew up. let s not forget he was born, t.j., in hawaii. even though there was a controversy, a at least maybe some people still believe he wasn t born in hawaii. but he was born in hawaii. he s got a lot of old friends there. he deserves some time off. he s got a lot going on. but even as he s on vacation, every president is never completely on vacation. he ll have national security advisors with him. right now there s a crisis. there are plenty of international crises under way. north korea arguably one of the most dangerous spots on earth rye now with the death of the so-called dear leader, kim jong-il, the succession of his young untested son in his late 20s, kim jung un. tension on the korean peninsula very, very real right now. tension in iraq. we saw a wave of terrorist activities going on yesterday. tension in syria. pakistan. afghanistan. we
the long national nightmare of the payroll tax cut extension is coming to an end. house republicans are going to pass the senate bill with a technical correction. time to get it behind them? andrea: i do. it was becoming a problem for them. they wanted to get it off the front pages of the newspapers. the right thing to do. they looked like they were against the pipeline. they had to cut their losses because they were saying essentially get the senate back in town. dana: sometimes you can be right on the policy and get politics wrong. bob: this thing, with all due respect about this, the republican were on this in the beginning and mickey cantor kept the tea party crowd stopping the two-year extension. boehner smart enough to realize they have to do it. eventually you have to come back and cave. they flat caved to obama. dana: will anyone remember? greg: no. the best part about this is we can finally retire the phrase kicking the can down the road.
want to share with you. john boehner phoned the president urging the white house to negotiate a long-term agreement, lasting a full year, take a listen. the president asked us to extend these policies for a year. leader pelosi, the whip, mr. hoyer. senator reid, senator durbin, senator schumer, we need to extend these poll he s fo policies for a year. to kick the can down the road because it s near christmas is not the right thing for the american people. jenna: it calls for a two month extension instead. this is not about politics. it s not even about policy. it s about trying to make sure that bad things don t happen to good people ten days from now.
somebody who has been pretty quiet since last saturday, the senate republican leader saying, okay, senator reid, appoint conferees. republicans in the house, pass an extension. let s get this done. jenna: all right. we ll see if that is really the breakthrough. some interesting news, mike. thank you so much for helping us work through it. a lot of technicalities for that. i mean plus time and space. if you have to get on a plane, i don t know. jon: how about internet voting. we have the nation that invented internet. how about congress voting by internet. jenna: like american idol . jon: tweet your answers and tweet your votes to. jenna: in time of austerity you re right. paying all the money last minute tickets to get back and forth, back and forth again. you wonder if there is easier way to do it. i m sure there is easier way to do it. this is the way we re watching. it will be interesting two hours here. jon: fasten your seatbelts. we re awaiting reaction from president obama. he i