The art of negotiation

The Republican Position: We should get everything we want exactly as we want it or else we’ll shut down the government and blow up the economy.

The President’s Position:  We should be grateful for any little thing we can get out of this.

The Obamabot Postition: Whatever the President managed to get out of this is another sign he’s the greatest President since FDR.

The EmoProg Position: We should get everything we want exactly as we want it or else we should let the Republicans shut down the government and blow up the economy, whichever, we get to feel morally superior either way.

Comments

[El Jefe]

It is a damn shame that's a little too long for Twitter. It could go up for a Shorty Award. And it captures pretty much all of the central problems with the situation. Another opportunity to be grateful for what the Occupy folks have inspired (i.e. step one is "don't just blog something; stand there." [Or, like OGH, stand there and then blog about it to encourage the others. Wow, I made it into a second layer of parenthetical comments. Friday-night pedantry FTW.]Step two is "don't just stand there, do something practical," and on fronts like the move of 99-percenter monies into credit unions, that may be starting to happen.)

[Belvoir]

Ha, reading the comments at Ballon Juice recently, Lance? :)

Merry Christmas to you and the family.

[El Jefe]

Belvoir,

This. I suspect he has. I like Balloon Juice a lot, and its success at being a pretty witty, smart partisan blog for our side means its comments section gives you a nice sample size for this phenomenon.

[peon]

The FDR/Churchill style Democrat position:Show leadership, tenacity, no compromising basic positions. (Unfortunately, currently unknown in American politics-but reflects what most liberal/progressive people want).

[actor212]

Peon, the problem is, the basic positions are what conservatives, particularly the Teabaggers, want to undermine. Indeed, the very existence of an almost-nearly-possibly progressive side of the aisle is anathema to them.

Think about it: no one has a problem with the SS tax cut being extended for two steenkin' months. Heck, it passed an essentially 50-50 Senate with 89 yea votes! That's nearly 90% of the Senate.

But for Boehner, it's something Democrats want so it's something they cannot have.

[Alan in SF]

i'm awful tired of saying this, but there's a very great distance between "purity" and "if we're interested in reducing health care costs perhaps we ought to at least consider mechanisms that are successfully reducing health care costs in every developed country in the world except ours." Or, just to cite a random example, between "from each according to his means, to each according to his needs" and the Bush-Obama tax cuts for the super-rich.