Reacting to the Dem critiques of the GOP's madman bargaining on the debt ceiling, Atrios writes:

It is negotiating, just good negotiating (and, on the other side, bad negotiating). People and the press should highlight what Republican negotiating is so people can judge, but it's wrong to say it isn't negotiating. "Give me everything I want" is negotiating when it works.

It's also good negotiating when it ends up as "I got most of everything I want." Here's the thing - this negotiation goes back to last December, when the Bush tax cuts were set to expire. My contempt for The Deal is a tedious and repetitive matter of record. But it is worth remembering that many folks (Ezra Klein! cough!) were celebrating it as a bit of brilliant bargaining by Obama, who snookered the GOP into a 'big stimulus package.' Of course that was silly. The fact is the only goal for the GOP is this negotiation was the extension of the Bush tax cuts. They won what they wanted in December. After that, any cuts in the social safety net are gravy. 2 trillion dollars in such cuts is a ton of gravy. The GOP will gladly give the President back 100 billion of it to make The Deal, Part 2. Of course, they will have the budget negotiations in the Fall to extract even more. At this point, there is no sweat for the GOP in the bargaining - they got their big chip in December. The Deal was a terrible mistake.

Speaking for me only