From today's White house meeting, where one participant reportedly said: "The only two people in the room who knew what was going on were the President and the Speaker." This picture seems to capture that precisely.
So what's up? To the absolute horror of his own Progressives, Obama wants to do a budget deal - not because he has to, or because he has been coerced or tricked, but because he wants to. Why would the Speaker try to help him do that? I"m not sure. Probably wants to go down in history as changing the budgetary course of the country, or something similar.
The President gave three options: A small deal - $2 trillion; a medium deal - $3 - $3.5 trillion; and a large deal - $4 - $4.5 trillion. He went around the room (Reid, Hoyer, McConnell, Kyl, Cantor, Pelosi, Boehner) and asked people to choose what they wanted. Everyone chose medium or large.
Could this happen? More specifically, will the leadership (meeting again Sunday afternoon) recommend a "medium or large" deal back to Congress? I think it's possible now, 50-50 odds is my guess. Could it gain enough votes? It obviously depends what's in it. The President will lose a bunch of Democrats. Boehner will probably lose the Tea Party. Will the remainder be enough? I think so. Odds of all this happening? About one in three.
The stakes have gone way up for Republicans. Now the whole world knows the President is being reasonable. Beyond reasonable the liberals are saying. Absolutely nuts!! If Republicans walk now, they are in trouble. The obvious conclusion - they never really wanted a deal. They wanted to clobber the President. David Brooks will be proven right: they are simply not fit to govern.
As my Dad said, this is way better than football!
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