Obama Calls for Lopsided Negotiations

And now President Obama has summoned Republicans to another round of negotiations over the debt ceiling.

Perhaps he will there deploy some previously invisible form of leverage.

To the uninstructed eye, however, it looks like Obama has set up yet another lopsided bargaining table: He needs the Republicans to give him something, anything, that he can claim as a victory. This need, however, perversely puts the Republicans in the situation where if they give him something, anything, it will be represented as a defeat. The president's own weakness has had this perverse effect on his political opponents: it has reduced the value of his own concessions (no matter how big) and hugely exaggerated the significance of any offset he achieves (no matter how small).