The Obama grand compromise with the Republicans on taxes is based, according to the president, not on wise policymaking, but on the threats Republicans posed to the general public.

The president described the compromise in terms of hostage taking, claiming that if the hostages, in this case the American people were to be harmed, and compromise becomes necessary.

Really?

Republicans threatened to stop the extension of the middle class tax cuts if the president did not accept taking on $700 billion in debt to provide tax cuts for the richest Americans. But would they have enacted that threat?

Do Republicans either have such disdain for 95 percent of taxpaying Americans, or such determination to protect their wealthy supporters, that they would have ended all tax reductions because they could not sustain those for the richest Americans?

I think not.

Had they chosen to force all tax cut extensions to expire I think they would have found the taxpayers able to focus their anger squarely upon the Republican Party.

Republicans should have been given the opportunity to make that choice … no extensions for the rich and responsibility if they end the cuts for the other 95 percent of taxpayers.

They should have had to vote their interests and let the American people decide who would be to blame for those votes.

In the same hostage taking sense, Republicans, the president told us, were willing to stop unemployment extensions in this difficult economy, thereby abandoning the unemployed 6 million workers currently receiving compensation checks.

Again, Republicans should have been able to vote their consciences on this issue, and allow the American people to consider Republican values if helping the unemployed is to be nothing more than a political football at the expense of struggling families.

With the apparent success of hostage taking Republicans now are attempting to hold hostage the end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the U.S. military policy that allows homosexuals to serve their nation with honor only so long as they lie about their sexuality.

While surveys indicate the military is ready to end this absurd policy, and our generals support ending the policy, Senate Republicans may attempt to stall the Senate procedurally to prevent voting on this issue.

Their goal is to postpone a Senate vote until the next Congress when there may be enough Republican votes to ignore both common sense and the militaries’ recommendations.

And, in keeping with the theme of obstruction in general, Republicans have done all they possibly can to prevent the newest START treaty between the U.S. and Russia that limits nuclear weapons, in the hope of scuttling the important treaty for only one purpose…a short term political embarrassment to this president.

Virtually all U.S. leaders, past presidents, ex-Secretary of States and foreign affairs advisors are united in support of the treaty. Standing in opposition? Every Republican seeking to run for President in 2012. Transparent and against the interests of the nation, these men and women proudly resist control of the weapons that could, most easily, destroy human life on the planet.

Finally, Republican hostage taking is hardly a new sport. It has its roots in making the Senate filibuster as common as the use of profanity in congress…perhaps more so and more profane as well. They have used this once obscure senate procedure to make the majority unable to do the Peoples business.

But here is the thing about those who take hostages … in the end it must always fail when their victims have had enough.

If Republicans want to filibuster, then stand at the podium. If they want to harm Americans with ending tax cuts and unemployment extensions, go for it.

If they want to increase the risk of nuclear destruction, then say so in public.

Now should be the end of allowing them to threaten Americans for their own goals.

Jim Crawford is a contributing columnist for The Tribune and a former educator at Ohio University Southern.