The tobacco deal announced yesterday is a remarkable development in the decades-long fight to curb smoking.

The most helpful Republican response would have been to wait until there is a tobacco deal before spending the money from it.

Now that the full text of the tobacco deal is circulating, its most glaring defects look even worse than they first appeared.

Still, the tobacco deal is likely to raise new problems in the Senate, where Republicans are already worried about the cost of the House bill.

Right or wrong, the tobacco deal is merely one more twist in the courtship of special interests and lobbying over the tax bill.

To the tobacco farmers, there is something unpatriotic about the tobacco deal.

Many of those who reacted to the news of the tobacco deal said they had not had the chance to study it in any detail.

The tobacco deal could easily become snarled up in debate over a separate bill to limit product-liability lawsuits.

Almost comically, the tobacco deal has been attached to a bill that was supposed to remove a corporate tax credit for exporters.

The crumbling tobacco deal places a distant third.