John, I'm only dancing

from digby:

"It looks an awful lot like a subtle way to achieve desired policy outcomes which may be opposed by the president's own party. The need to make a deal at all costs has become the negotiating strategy. And it conveniently means that all the demagogueing about the consequences of not making a deal will get more and more shrill as the negotiations go on and the Republicans will always take it to the very edge --- at which point it becomes "necessary" to make a less than optimal deal than what might have been possible without all the hand wringing and rending of garments. And I hate to say it, but after several of these so-called hostage situations, it's looking to me as if the Republican leaders are partners in a little square dance, not adversaries.

In other words, it serves both parties' technocratic goal of austerity in the guise of "reform" to milk every contrived fiscal crisis to its last drop and then be "forced" to make a "compromise" that didn't have to be made. Perhaps that's cynical, but we've seen this dance enough times now to at least be skeptical."

Negotiating do-si-doh