Kabuki, Cont'd: Obama's Sending Over a Scaled-Back Fiscal Cliff Deal to Show the American People "Message: I Care"

He's taking us over the cliff -- it's his plan -- so I assume this is a poisoned pawn.

A Republican senator said Obama told Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, that the president’s plan would arrive on Thursday, and a Senate Democratic leadership member also said that was the approach being taken. Both sources spoke on condition of not being identified further.

The move would answer McConnell’s call for the president or Senate Democrats to make the first move in the political standoff over how to prevent or soften automatic tax hikes and spending cuts of the fiscal cliff set to take effect in the new year — just five days away…

I have to tell you, one really great thing about taking off when I did was that I didn't have to cover all this negotiation stuff. I am not a negotiator and have no grasp of what constitutes a good negotiation plan (only recently did I even learn of what "BATNA" was, from a coblogger, Maet I think), and so cannot evaluate this or that maneuver.

I think most people are in the same boat, and so offer up the same suggestion most of the time -- "Tell them to die in a fire! Let it burn! Remain strong!" -- and that's fine and all but the twentieth time one writes it it loses all meaning (at least whatever meaning it had).

I assume we're going to give in, as we usually do, so I'm not sure what point there is of pretending otherwise.

posted by Ace at 04:39 PM

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