Let’s do the math:
The President made Grover Norquist break his own tax pledge that dates back to when he was a 12-year-old. The only politician, from either party, to ever successfully do so.
John Boehner loudly claimed to have a Plan B that would shame the President as the biggest tax raiser in American history, but it turns out he doesn’t have enough votes to pass his own Plan B.
Meanwhile, despite rumors and Ezra Klein reports to the contrary, the President has given up nothing. Not a single, solitary, thing.
You don't have to believe in eleventy-dimensional chess but we're not at this point because of luck.
I am not dwelling on rumors of what may be, at the moment, I am looking at what is: the President is winning and the GOP is in disarray.