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"  The tone! The tone is better! Let us all rejoice and be glad. Let us praise the improving tone, because the worst thing that can happen to government is passion. Let us meet on happy ground and celebrate the return of niceness to our national life as our leaders gradually negotiate the final terms of how, precisely, they will stick it to the suckers. Still, the House Republican offer represented a potentially significant breakthrough. Even if Democrats found fault with the Republicans&amp;#039; immediate proposal - for example, it would prevent the Treasury secretary from engaging in accounting maneuvers to stave off potential default - it was seen as an opening gambit in the legislative dance toward some resolution before the government is expected to breach its debt limit on Thursday. Even before the meeting, the White House and its Democratic allies in Congress were all but declaring victory at the evidence that Republicans - suffering the most in polls, and pressured by business allies and donors not to provoke a government default - were seeking a way out of the impasse. The way out, of course, is to fund the government at zombie-eyed granny-starver levels. That is precisely what the Democratic side has been seeking during the Reign Of The Morons, now deep into its second smash week. The solution that has changed the tone includes further &amp;quot;negotiations,&amp;quot; all of them starting with a baseline of Republican numbers. And there are people who wonder why many Republicans -- and a great number of the wealthy people who collect politicians as a hobby -- are happy. Were I one of them, I&amp;#039;d throw a parade. Yet there are those who see this as a &amp;quot;win&amp;quot; for the White House. But that doesn&amp;#039;t mean administration officials aren&amp;#039;t looking ahead. If a budget deal can be struck in the coming days, White House officials will surely portray it as a victory of common sense over creed, a necessary step forward for the American people so that federal operations can continue and the economy can avoid the catastrophe of a default. President Barack Obama will disavow any interest in the scorekeeping of Washington&amp;#039;s winners and losers. Obama and fellow Democrats, particularly Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who urged him over the summer to adopt a hard line and keep deal-making Vice President Joe Biden out of the mix, know that their unwillingness to give an inch dragged some of their most ardent Republican adversaries to the position of just wanting to end the pain. They also know that the GOP suffered even greater self-inflicted damage by letting the government shut down before coming to the conclusion that the public agreed with the president&amp;#039;s position. Frankly, I&amp;#039;d like an offer of proof on all of that. In 2014, I may turn out to have been wrong on all of this, but, in terms of blunting even the faintest stirrings of a progressive political agenda from this White House, this whole debate over tactics within the Republican party leaves them with exactly what they wanted in the first place. No matter what they say in the green rooms, that&amp;#039;s still quite a lot. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a25152/losing-for-winning/>