Lot's of ink and pixels (and tears of bitter rage) spilled on all sides of the fiscal cliff thingy over the last couple days/hours.
I think the simplest take on this deal is as follows:
1) It gets some of what the Democrats wanted, at the price of revisiting thorny issues very soon with depleted bargaining leverage. Not great, not bad, kinda meh.
2) A couple of the things hammered out are very important to keep intact without interruption, and those are good things.
However, I think the real issue is this: the House is out of control. Boehner is a tool, Cantor is a snake, and the Tea Party Caucus is insane. They will not be able to pass this bill in any form.
The Senate and the White House will have made a very big deal about making a deal in time to avert any cliff-like, curb-like, slope-like interruptions in various and sundry fiscal issues. And the House is 99% likely to fail to pass the bill, based on recent, past, and current behavior.
House GOP gets the blame. Lather, Rinse, Repeat... bandage and cobble together fixes to the fiscal situation, stumble along for a couple years, and then sweep them out of their seats in 2014.