Thank God, our self-inflicted crisis is pretty much over.

The House on Wednesday night approved the compromise agreement between Chairman Kevin McCarthy and President Biden to raise the country’s debt limit and thereby avoid a default and economic disaster, at least until 2024. The Senate expects to follow suit soon so that Biden can accept the package sign. law by Monday, the X day when the Treasury would no longer have the authority to cover the country’s obligations.

With this (relatively) happy ending in sight, and because I’ve focused so far on how sad this spectacle was

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I’m going to look at it on the bright side.

First, as compromises go, this was the real thing. Both sides came away with wins and losses, although Biden won measurably more. (There’s really only one

big

loser in this saga, but I’m saving the worst for last.)

The deal would limit domestic discretionary spending over the next two fiscal years, not by as much as 30% in a decade, as Republicans wanted. It preserves Biden’s signature clean energy initiatives, rather than repeating them. It modestly adds to existing job requirements for those receiving food and social benefits, unlike the Republicans’ stricter proposals, and even expands entitlement to aid. The compromise increases defense spending, but at the level Biden had proposed in his budget. And it allows for relatively small cuts in Internal Revenue Service spending that Republicans targeted.

It’s a miracle that McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), leader of a party whose rank and file has for years considered compromising a four-letter word, can get away with it for the time being, given the MAGA mutineers in his ranks.

Which brings us to the second silver lining of this denouement of the debt limit: the right-wing radicals to whom McCarthy leased his soul to become a speaker are sidelined here. The passage of bills in both the House and Senate is possible thanks to a rare convergence of a broad political center.

As welcome as two sides are, don’t expect it to repeat itself often. It’s happening now because the stakes are so incredibly high. Most Republicans didn’t want to blame economic disaster, even though they shared it with Biden. Many of them were just as scared as the Democrats about how far the far right would go over the fiscal cliff? and they came together for strength in numbers against the madmen.

A final positive note on the outcome and, more specifically, on the two negotiators: we got a glimpse into the ways of both Biden and McCarthy, strengthening our view of the president and showing us something new in pragmatism of the novice speaker and a willingness to stand up, if seldom, to the bombers.

First the chairman. Yes, Biden is old. But his old-fashioned ways still work.

After six terms in the Senate, he is a dealmaker through and through. I thought he was right, if off-brand, in insisting for months that he wouldn’t negotiate raising the debt limit. But Republicans control the House. The problem was that Biden couldn’t make it clear to the public that he

What

willing to gain weight, but only about the budget, not about the country’s creditworthiness.

Okay, he’s never been a messenger. I thought Democrats rightly resented him for not doing more publicly to counter McCarthy’s spin, who met with reporters several times a day to shape the story.

But Old-School Joe saved his words for the backrooms and pulled in the chips. As he teased reporters who provoked him for nonsense talk on Tuesday: Why would Biden say before the vote what a good deal it is? Do you think that’s going to help me make it?

Apparently he knew more cunning than us. Consider: McCarthy and other Republicans taunted Biden for weeks, first for refusing to negotiate, then for backing down. And once a deal was in place, McCarthy boasted to sell it to the Republicans that the biggest concession he could get from the president was to get him to talk. In the White House, the president had to smile. He had maneuvered McCarthy into claiming that bargaining was a big win, when negotiation was inevitable in a divided government and Biden pocketed most of the real concessions.

Still, McCarthy also shines in the end. The bill is hardly the transformational legislation it claims, but hey, if that hyperbole gives Republicans any political cover

for their support

, I will not whine. He chose as his chief deputies in the negotiations two of the most pragmatic and politically competent Republicans in the House, Reps. Patrick T. McHenry of North Carolina and Garret Graves of Louisiana.

McCarthy showed some legislative chops. For example, hours after the deal was struck over the weekend, he went to great lengths to tell reporters that it included an animal provision from Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, one of the far-right members of the House. Massie was the deciding vote on Tuesday in the Rules Committee to send the bill to the full house.

The speaker could still lose his job over a challenge from the right Texas representative. Chip Roy called for “reckoning” but for now he’s got a crucial win one way or the other.

As for the big loser of the sagas, that was former President Trump. First, he exposed the depths of his hypocrisy and irresponsibility by urging House Republicans to allow a default if the Democrats didn’t budge, even though the president had said default was unthinkable. And finally, Trump exposed the limits of his influence when even flattering House Republicans led by the man Trump called My Kevin! ignored him.

McCarthy should not be given credit for compromising in a stalemate he should not have provoked in the first place. But I have to give it to him.

@jackiekcalmes