The Art of the Cave In

He done caved in, again.

The White House insists that, even though this deal leaves the GOP another bite at the apple to hold hostages again in a few short weeks over the debt ceiling vote, it doesn't matter because they will refuse to negotiate.  Next time.

I'm sure republicans must have split their sides laughing at that one.  

Obama follows an easily discernible pattern.  It goes something like this:  

1.  Rally democrats, progressives and others on an issue.

2.  Go around talking tough about "fighting for you" and not yielding.

3.  Send up trial balloons of various cave-ins, disguised as attempts at "reaching across the aisle" or  "bipartisanship."

4.  Marginalize allies as "the far left" when they catch on and question the deviation, in some cases engaging over the top attacks.

5.  Begin publicly negotiating with himself.

6.  Give away the damned store.

7.  Declare victory.

There really isn't much the right has to do but sit back and wait for victory to be handed to them.  To stave off boredom or dying from laughter, they spend their time playing with the President as a cat plays with a mouse, accusing him of being underhanded, "not serious," a socialist and hating America.  The cat doesn't have to worry about going in for the kill, because in this case, the mouse is sets himself down before him, on a silver platter.

And even though we've been through this several times, its still difficult to watch Obama prostrate himself before an ever rabid far right that never stops hating him.

Its been like this with negotiations over the stimulus, health care reform, the debt ceiling and now the fiscal cliff.  Everybody including the blind, deaf and dumb recognizes this pattern.  Obama insisting that he won't yield on the debt ceiling in order to get people to accept his cave in now on that point is a prelude to step 1 in the process.